#also the reason why the characters except Giles are all aged down

[mayday396]

Does anyone remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Man I think I accidentally made a Fanfic Idea but I'm too afraid to write it.

Okay so Mental Asylum, Buffy is indeed a Slayer she has been in there for 6 years, but one day she woke up and found the Asylum Empty and as she explored her surroundings she heard screaming then felt blood leaking through the Ceiling, she saw a Vampire feeding on a Patient.

The Story follows Buffy, a 13 years old Girl suffering from Hallucinations as she tries to figure out what's Real and what's not as she fights the very real Demons of the Asylum, both External and Internal.

She is joined by Rupert Giles, 46 years old, a Watcher sent to infiltrate the Asylum as a Psychologist to find Buffy and bring her out of its walls, figuratively and literally.

Willow Rosenberg, a 12 year old Girl, sweet, kind-hearted and Intelligent, known for her Knack for Technology and her constant Referencing of Pop Culture, she is not actually a Patient but the Daughter of a Therapist in the Asylum who is her Father, 'Ira Rosenberg', she is trapped in the Asylum with no way out, she is joined by Giles, Buffy and Xander.

Xander Harris, a 14 year old boy, seems like a normal boy but in truth he is a victim suffering in Silence, his Abusive Father works as a Security Guard of the Mental Asylum.Xander has Violent Tendencies that he got from his Dad but other than that he's still the Sarcastic, Laid back and Easygoing boy with a flippant attitude.His Dad left him in the Asylum on purpose.

Xander and Willow are still Best Friends, as their Fathers are technically employees, Willow's Dad accidentally left her in the Asylum.

So the Scoobie gang would have to survive the Asylum and its Demons, while trying to find a way out and hopefully destroy the source of what's happening here.Time Period is Early 2000s for the big Zennial Energy.

[melonsmessymusings]

Hey! So i know that you prefer the earlier seasons of Buffy, specifically 2 and 3, which is also when Oz was around. Outside of their relationships to Willow (I'm not asking who you ship more), between Oz and Tara, which character do you like better?

Hey there, what an interesting question. 

Let me try and break this down because I prefer Tara, and I want to explain why. This is gonna be a long one so grab a cuppa and get comfy...

While I enjoy the earlier seasons more, Oz is a very different character to Tara. His vibe is totally different. He’s just a chill, dude. I felt that he meshed in with the Scoobies for the most part but it felt a little forced. He was such a different kind of guy to the rest of the Scoobies, who let’s face it are kinda the social rejects but are perfectly happy in their own little bubble. He didn’t fit that bill and that’s when I felt the writers went, ‘well, let’s make him a werewolf because then he’s all supernatural and can hang with the Slayer’. He’s a guitarist in a semi-successful High School band, in the late 90s... it just felt a bit ‘oh okay’. Maybe it’s just me. Not that I dislike Oz at all, I fuckin love him. Plus, he made Xander look like a moron too which is good points in my book. Also, his one liners are unparalleled. 

Oz was such a well liked character that when he left, they had to create a replacement that would have an equal impact on the show and thus Tara came into being. Honestly, she was the only character that could’ve even remotely replaced that void after Oz left. 

However, I would have to say that Tara is my favourite and she deserved much more screen time than she got and to not be brutally and needlessly killed off. I don’t really know where to begin but her relationship with the Scoobies as individuals aside from Willow, is just wonderful and it’s one of the best aspects of her character IMO. I know it took ages for that to happen, but by god is it worth it when it finally did Let’s start there:

In S6, she is there for Buffy to cry on (literally) and just... lets her do what she needs to... Without judgement. NONE of the other characters would EVER let her do that (except perhaps arguably Giles but he wasn’t around because fuck him). She seemed to recognise trauma better than anyone and I don’t know, I just love that. 

Can we take a second to appreciate her parental nurturing of Dawn? From the get go in S5, Tara has a soft spot for Dawn despite the fact I really despise the girl. When she makes time to go and have milkshakes with Dawn even though Willow and her have split... I cry when I think about it. And when she spends the WHOLE night with Dawn so that she’s not alone... She always seems to be the one babysitting Dawn, and I reckon she did it willingly and I just love her so much. 

Tara calling Giles “Mr Giles” for like a season... that’s adorable. I have a lovely little personal headcanon that he literally kept reminding her that she can call him whatever she wants, he doesn’t care and she’s like ‘okay Mr Giles’. She encourages him to do stuff as well. Like when they’re talking about the advert in the Yellow Pages (or whatever it was) she’s proud and tries to focus on the positives. Or how she hoped he’d feel better soon from his hangover. Just stuff like that. You fuckin know that the two of them were thick as thieves and it’s adorable. 

She’s even nice about Spike. Especially in S6 when everyone is kinda against him. She knows that he’s trying to help (I use the term loosely) and wants to aid him if possible. They 100% bonded over the summer that Buffy was dead. 

Tara starts off like many people that age as having self-esteem below the fuckin ground. She feels like a waste of space and honestly... same. But despite this, she goes out of her way for people she cares about. All of the Scoobies/regulars are damaged or whatever and I think Amber Benson’s performance lets us, the audience really feel that. Even from the offset when I had no idea who Tara was, she was interesting. 

Personally, I believe that when Tara first met Willow, it wasn’t love at first sight and that Tara was pursuing Willow in a totally platonic way at that point and a romantic relationship blossomed from there. I’m not explaining this well, but what I mean is that she was the one who sought after Willow in the first place and I kinda love that. 

Obviously, Tara has faults but because the amount of screen time she got was criminal, there wasn’t much time to explore these. Yes, some argue she was selfish (personally I disagree but I can see why people think that) and that her stammer was infuriating. Yeah it was, but so was Xander in general so ya know... Yes, you could argue that her relationship with Willow was a bit wet, it was but that’s what they were going for so that’s not her fault as a character. 

Regarding her relationship with Willow, they had more in common (e.g. witchcraft) and they vibed better IMO. I just love it and am struggling to explain it. In S6, honestly I think she shouldn’t have gone back to her because it was painfully obvious that Willow was still abusing Magic but love is a funny thing.

For me, Tara was a better all around character than Oz and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her until she was killed. Then I was just pissed... 

Sorry, that probably made less than no sense but I kinda just kept going, but I hope it answered your question. I can think of more reasons but this is already ridiculously long and I’ve been up for about forty hours straight so coherence… I don’t know such a creature. :)

[ifeveristoday]

well, that escalated quickly

The first card of the Major Arcana, The Fool is generally a positive card indicating new beginnings. If it appears in your readings it could mean that you are on the verge of an exciting, unexpected new adventure. Your new adventure will bring you along a path which may require you to make a leap of faith but you will grow as a result of this new experience. This new adventure could be a literal new adventure, like travelling to a place you’ve never been before. The change this card can bring will usually be a welcome one. While the Fool is generally a positive card, its appearance in a reading can also indicate that you need to take the time to look before you leap. [x]

Even when reversed, the Fool is an indicator of newness; as well as the purity and open-hearted energy of a child. This is generally considered a positive card, with the caveat that it's important to take time to be sure that you are "looking where you're going." In reversal, The Fool can show that there is a need for a new beginning, but that there is some hesitancy about making it happen. [x] 

When the Fool card is reversed, you are encountering an unfinished side of yourself, a part still caught in the shadows of ignorance or immaturity. An emotional reflex or psychological attitude could be holding you back from responding authentically and naturally.

Release yourself from any dogmas or taboos so your natural truthfulness and instinct for right action can be restored. [x]

Light some incense and find a crushed velvet vest and let’s get to issue 16 of Buffy.

Spoilers, as always underneath the cut. Also long and semi-rambly so if you’re new to this tumblr...yeah. 

Short version: There’s a thing I’m not sure I like yet, the usual layer cake of THEMES and how it all ties together, and good character stuff.

Wow. So they’re really going there with Buffy and Evil! Xander. But it’s not like the comic hasn’t left crumbs of a potential -- something happening between them. Vamp! Xander’s first confrontation with Buffy was a crude sexual come-on, which she rebuffed very quickly, and then when he had his soul, there was an ambiguous hug between them in Hellmouth. Xander’s feelings about Buffy have always been pretty clear. 

And while I’m not thrilled that in the year 2020 we still can’t have a platonic relationship between Buffy and Xander (like, I joke about this being a Point to the reboot that Joss insisted on, but of course that’s just speculation. But come on. He totally would), it’s not like the comic was not giving clues, clunky though some of them may be. Buffy’s Slayer dream of Vamp! Xander and Vamp! Her, Robin’s oddly insistent interrogation of Buffy’s feelings for Xander, the dinosaur gift of Zeppo, and Buffy’s own ambivalence toward Robin as a real potential boyfriend. 

Issue 14 (which I still haven’t written a thorough post about) showcases (not explicitly written as such, but the characteristics are there) a PTSD-afflicted Buffy, who has lost both of her best friends in a matter of weeks. She’s not on good terms with her mother, Giles is still weird after his descent into magically induced MRA-ness and not exactly comforting her, and having to accept the reality of Kendra being a Slayer as well. There’s a lot of anxiety, jealousy, and survivor’s guilt thrown in there as well, and we all know Buffy’s favorite thing to do when she’s going through a lot of pain: ISOLATE HERSELF. 

And then here’s Robin, telling her he’s on her side and is a friendly face and Buffy seizes that emotional life line and decides, well if I can’t like myself (this is referenced in Issue 15), Robin will do it for me. It’s a lonely, but understandable grasp at something normal and not...the reality of her present life.

Except Robin realizes he can’t be Buffy’s emotional support almost-boyfriend, and that Buffy has a martyr complex where she can’t be just the hero but also the villain in her own story - she takes on all of the fault but none of the help and love that does exist in her life.

He tells her that one of her problems is that she just doesn’t like herself.

And it’s a hard truth for Buffy to bear but she admits it.

Issue 16 dips into Buffy’s mixed up feelings re: love and connection and the thread that ties it together is the tarot card Jenny pulls from her spread to read to Dolly, her cat.

Best reveal of the reboot so far, no I won’t take any objections. Her cat! Is named Dolly! Possibly after Dolly Parton, stealth producer of BtVS!

Jenny, lone human adult voice of Reason, pulls the upside down Fool and I’ve included three meanings of it up above. The reason why I think it’s a common thread for this issue is because in Buffy’s slayer dream where she’s riding Zeppo the Symbolism? What Symbolism Dinosaur with Xander (with some terrible punning), Buffy says that they can’t let Zeppo drive, he’s too young and doesn’t know how to get to where they’re going. Xander replies, “Do you even remember where we’re going?”

And prior to this Buffy worries that they’re going too fast and to slow down. 

This could signify a number of things - definitely new beginnings with Evil! Xander and the changed nature of his relationship to Buffy, Buffy’s personal fear that she doesn’t know what’s happening, only that it is too fast, and the fact they’re both so young. And for the moment, Xander will forever be this young. And with his reputation as being the ‘funny’ one, Xander could also be considered a Fool. 

He’s in a state of being unfinished - he’s never going to experience the trials of regular adulthood, the personal milestones a human being has. And Buffy is unfinished in that she’s not done growing up, but she is also the Slayer, which requires a level of sacrifice that other girls her age wouldn’t experience.

Jenny pulling this card - well, there’s the unfinished nature of her relationship with Giles, they’re broken up but still pining over each other, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have stayed in touch with anyone in the Scoobies? And her only confidante seems to be her cat. Which, no judgement, cats are good listeners.

Dolly is also a good detector of Ye Olde Supernatural Bullshit, as she senses something bad behind Jenny’s all of a sudden visitor, and Hulk! Giles a few issues back.

It is of course, Xander, who is gleefully pleased that it was that easy to trick Jenny into inviting him in.

Fade into black- sort of, as the next step is Xander playing mind games via text.

Right after Buffy has her weird dinosaur dream, she tries to google meanings of it, as well as sending Willow texts in a long chain of non replied thread, updating her about what’s been happening in Sunnydale in her absence. I noticed she used a similar - “I’ll be here for you” in her message to Rose, and I think that’s Buffy’s way of changing. She wants to be there for her people, instead of avoiding them.

And she gets a text (Miss me?) from Xander, which prompts her to run to Giles and Kendra. 

This is a neat(?) reference to how Xander got catfished by Drusilla when she texted him from Buffy’s phone. God, the way this sentence sounds out of context to an TV canon fan.

ANYWAY.

Buffy states that Xander died the night the Hellmouth closed, and they had a candlelight vigil and his parents barely leave the house - which makes me think while Hank Summers is a bastard in every ‘verse, Boom! has a good dad for Robin, Joyce and Eric for Buffy, and apparently good parents for Willow and Xander as well. Yay.

Kendra, who is more objective than Buffy and Giles can be regarding Xander, theorizes that Xander’s disappearance might not be death in a final sense, but rather his soul disappearing. Which causes the question, where has his body been this whole time? Also, I see that I Robot, You Jane easter egg, Jordie.

Setting Jenny’s house on fire, that’s what. Giles gets a similarly upsetting text on his phone, and they run to her house. Buffy and Kendra immediately throw themselves into save the cat (and Jenny!) mode and run into Evil! Xander. Quite literally - Xander grabs Kendra by the neck and throws her out of the window from the second floor - don’t worry, she survives.

We can’t be fridging the POC this early, after all.

Then it’s Xander and Buffy’s first glimpse of each other since Hellmouth, and standard enemy banter ensues - Xander says it’s just them and Buffy snaps that it’s only in his dreams. Then the staircase starts cracking due to the fire’s heat and Buffy’s thisclose to falling off when Xander grabs her, and in his human mask tells her that it could just be them together, if she wants it. Buffy takes Kendra’s advice to stop feeling and just think, and kicks Xander in a jump with both her feet aimed at his chest. Also she says she’d rather die than let that happen, which...I really hope aren’t famous last words.

The fool card flutters down and lands on Buffy’s forehead, reminding her that she’s on a rescue mission for Jenny. Who is nowhere to be found, but Dolly leaps into Buffy’s arms, and she carries her out.

Giles, Kendra and Buffy reconvene at Giles’s and try to figure out why Xander targeted Jenny. 

Giles, who started the issue being a concerned mentor has grown smaller and less confident toward the end as he asks Buffy and Kendra to find Jenny. Buffy vows that they’re going to make Xander pay. Giles sadly agrees and then leaves to show Dolly the garden.

Let me pause a moment to cry about the fact that Giles is showing Jenny’s cat the garden.

Kendra and Buffy bond, sincerely, for the first time since Kendra made her appearance. Sister slayers, fuck yeah! Also, I love Kendra’s characterization and I hope she stays for a long time. And not die.

There’s a thawing there as each switch positions - Kendra tells Buffy it’s okay that she feels the way she feels, as Buffy tells her, no, she’s right, Xander isn’t the boy she knew, and to treat him like he’s just a regular vampire.

Then she admits she’s not sure if she misses Xander, or if it’s something else, to which Kendra replies, “I think when you know, you know.”

And Buffy asks her like her and Rose - and Kendra confirms it.

Just as Kendra’s words end the issue, Willow - who could be OG timeline Willow, or an Alternate Verse Willow, comes into the light and holds Rose’s hand.

DRAAAAMA.

So. Xander and Buffy heading toward something, Kendra/Rose confirmed, Giles has now adopted Dolly, Jenny’s status: Currently Unknown.

And Willow?

Though with the Fool, there’s that meaning of new adventures and travelling to a place you’ve never been before. That sums up Willow’s current journey so far.

[mj-spooks]

Alright, judging by how successful that last Harry Potter experimental question was, Buffy's scooby gang, as a Leverage Crew? Is it too simple to say Buffy as a hitter and Giles as a mastermind?

Which version of the gang are we talking here? Can I go across the whole series? Season 1 only? All Stars? Fuck it I’m cherry picking because THAT’S HOW WE DO.

So, Giles is absolutely on the money. He’s the Mastermind, no doubt. He’s the watcher, he trains the others (mostly Buffy and Faith, but let’s be real, he trains all of them in their own way), he’s the one that works things out, leads research parties, comes up with plans. He’s the Mastermind, at least at first. Like Nate, he graduates out of that position (although I think the others sort of share it after he steps down, rather than one person picking it up).

But Buffy’s not the hitter.

Buffy is the grifter.

Think about it. Pretty, blonde, posterchild for popularity. She’s charismatic. She’s endearing.  You like her. You’d probably do anything she asked you to. She’s an an excellent liar, a brilliant actor. She plays the part. The only reason she doesn’t have Sunnydale wrapped around her fucking finger is because all the bullshit with demons and vampires is Too Obvious for no one to ever notice how weird she is. If they could be even slightly more subtle, or pick slightly more convenient times to get up to their nonsense, no one would ever suspect she was anything but what she looks like.

No, the hitter? That’s Faith. And yes, I’m counting her as a Scooby. My girl got done dirty, alright. Granted, she did some people pretty dirty as well. But she was a teenage girl with a really shitty childhood, and I’m not one to use the shitty childhood as a get out of jail free card (get it), but dude. Dude. Every single thing that could’ve gone wrong for her, did. And every time the team had a chance to prove she could trust them, they fucked it up. Mostly Wesley fucked it up, but let’s not go there. And did I mention she was a teenage girl? Also, it helps that she was only Properly Evil for like, a few months, after which she was in a coma, and was Properly Evil for all of five minutes before deciding “Actually I just wanna be Buffy,” because guess what, she never WANTED to be the bad guy-

I’m getting off topic. The point is. Faith is the brawn, alright? Post-Faith, I guess that position goes to Spike, who let’s face it, is basically Buffy’s backup/guard dog from the moment he realizes he can still kill demons, and especially after his big “Oh shit I love the slayer” realization. For the record, bad decisions being made by an ostensibly helplessly evil soulless monster aside, no one EVER had Buffy’s back like Spike did. Not a single damn person. Fucking fight me. Every. Single. Other. Person. Let her down. Constantly. Or they were never in a positoin to properly have her back in the first place. The one time he really did screw it up, he realized how fucked up he was, and went off and got a fucking soul for her, so basically

Riley, for the record, is not a Hitter and does NOT count as a Scooby, because screw that guy. Also while I’m on the subject, screw Xander, because the episode where Riley leaves and Xander gives Buffy the “you’re the bad guy” speech sits so fucking wrong with me, and Xander goddamn Harris can get fucking bent. I’m still off topic, I know, I know. Sorry, I just. I have VERY STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT BUFFY.

ANYWAY. Willow is the hacker, big fucking shock. She’s... she’s literally a hacker, okay. Even when she stops being all computer-y and starts being all witch-y, her approach to witchcraft is... is to hack it. She hacks magic. Literally. That’s what gets her in so much trouble with it, because she’s too fucking good at cheating the system. It’s how she brought Buffy back. She’s the goddamned Hacker. Age. Of. The. Fucking. Geek. Baby.

Thief............ hmph. I don’t know?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

See, the thing is, basically all of the properly involved Scoobies had to steal something at one point or another, all with basically the same level of success, so... wait.

Okay. No. The thief is Dawn.

She’s literally a thief! She steals from everybody all the goddamned time! With varying degrees of success, sure. But if she was actually trained at it, she’d be better than all of them. She’s the only Little Sibling out of the bunch (Well, okay, Tara had an older brother, but her homelife was so fucked she has Very Different Younger Sister energy than Dawn). She has a specific talent for it that I bet would serve her well if she was actually trained. I honestly at this point have read so much fanfic that I cannot for the life or me remember if canon!Spike ever helped teach her to knick stuff or if that’s just widely accepted fanon!Spike because people love that dynamic (as they should, it’s great). I’m doing a rewatch but... uh... I kinda stopped partway through S5 because I’m like four episodes away from The Body and gods I just can’t take it. Point being, I dunno if that’s legit or not. BUT. If it were legit, and she was taught how to steal, she’d be great at it.

I guess Spike is kind of also the thief. But he’s also the only one of the scoobies that’s properly been a villain (I’m not counting Faith or Willow’s brief insanity, and Angel isn’t the villain, Angelus is, so...), so naturally he’s got the shady skills. He can kind of grift and mastermind, too, except he’s too impatient for it, which is why he ends up stuck as a hitter most of the time. Everything else is too slow for his ass. See, the entirety of S2.

For fun, under the cut, the remaining scoobies and what position they’re best suited for:

Xander: Hitter??? He’s not got the super strength and he’s kind of played for laughs, but there was that whole bit where he had the tactical training from his brief stint as GI Joe in the Halloween episode. He’s a decent tactician, which is kind of the hitter’s job. I bet that if the wasn’t so busy feeling inferior to Buffy and he actually like. Trained. He could be a decent fighter.

Cordelia: Straight fucking grifter. Which she proves plenty of times on Angel. It’s extra great because she basically IS Sophie, what with the whole “can grift like a boss but put her on stage and she’s terrible” bit. She’s also a decent mastermind, also showcased on Angel. She whips him into shape from day one, and is the only thing that keeps AI running half the time. Also not unlike Sophie. Honestly Cordelia is my favorite character from the OG cast. She deserved better.

Angel: Mastermind. He’s got all of Angelus’ brains, remember, just not necessarily any reason to use them. He’s smart, though, and definitely good at planning. He’s also really into knowing the most and keeping his cards close to his chest. The parallels with Nate are a little strong, honestly, because he also has that whole... guilty conscience spiraling downward holier than thou thing going on. And yes, I do ship him and Cordy, thanks for asking.

Oz: Hacker! Not a lot of people really remember this, since his prominent character traits were “In a band”, “Willow’s boyfriend”, and “werewolf”. Plus there’s the whole flunked-senior-year plot point which I honestly think they did just to keep him around. But the first time Oz actually properly interacted with Willow was because they’d both gotten singled out for their badass computer skills on career day. He’s very nearly as good as her.

Anya: Grifter. I mean, the whole vengeance demon schtick relies on the grift. She’s very good at it. Which, she ought to be, she’s been doing it for over a thousand years. It’s sort of hilarious though because it seems like the second she loses her powers, she also loses her ability to blend in. I think that’s likely because she’s used to short term cons, and running the long con that is being human again is more difficult. Still, this is where she shines.

Riley: He doesn’t count because I kinda hate him. But fine if you wanna go there. Hitter. He doesn’t deserve the title though because Eliot is both brains and brawn and Riley can’t think his way out of a paper sack without someone giving him directions, and even then it’s dicey.

Tara: This one is super hard for me! I can’t see her as any of the actual team positions. I suppose the one skill she displays would be grifting, since she does try to hide her identity as a supposed demon from the others for a while before her birthday comes up. But honestly I see her less as a member of the crew and more as a Maggie. Voice of reason, moral high ground, not putting up with shenanigans if she can help it... yeah. Tara’s the Maggie. Every crew needs one.

[varricmancer]

Lost And Found | 3

Pairing: Varric Tethras x OC

Word Count: 5,880

Summary: Instead of the nothingness she had craved, Crystal woke up in the world of Thedas. What had once been merely a story that she loved now seemed very real and she was right in the heart of it all. She soon finds a reason to live again and a love in the arms of someone as quietly broken as her.

Warnings: Attempted suicide (not graphic, but possible trigger). The OC has depression and low self-esteem, so don’t expect her to be some bright mary sue. At the same time, this sounds darker than it is. It’s going to have fluff and comedy and all that eventually, but OC has some growing to do first. She’s just not the usual strong and easygoing character many oc’s are. She’s more of a delicate creature. Also, it is Dragon Age, so there will be descriptions of war/battles/violence.

Notes: Would you guys be interested in a chapter from Varric’s POV? 

The day after the Herald left the crossroads was spent packing up what Crystal thought she’d need to keep from her little borrowed hut. Giles had assured her that she was free to take anything, but she only wanted to take essentials considering how much traveling they’d be doing not only now, but in the future when they would need to move to Skyhold. 

She left out what she would need for the remaining week, of course, but packed up everything else she wanted to keep. All she had to use were flour sacks until she could afford to get something better. All she determined worth keeping was the clothing she could actually wear, the fur and small blanket from the bed (she hoped for a decent place at Haven, but she also knew they were still starting out and struggling too), and the small collection of paper and charcoal sticks she’d been hoarding. She’d been itching to draw, but paper itself was hard to obtain for the common folk as it was all made by hand. Parchment was a little easier, but still hard to come by in the middle of the wilderness. 

She spent several days like that, giving away what she couldn’t use and preparing the hut for the next occupant. It was on the third night that the sending crystal Varric had given her began to glow. She picked it up and sat on her cot in anxious fascination. She was a little worried about trying to keep up with a conversation on such a weird device, not that she’d been any better at them on cellphones. Texting was much more her speed. After a few moments, the crystal made a little sound like a delicate bell, followed by the rumbles of Varric’s voice. 

“So, the Magistrate is standing there looking like he has a giant staff up his ass and goes, "I was looking for someone with your...special talents.” You can tell right away that Hawke has decided to fuck with the guy, because he gets that crazy grin of his going and says, “I'm guessing you don't mean my ability to juggle small rodents while humming Orlesian ballads."

There’s a rumble of laughter and Crystal realizes that he’s telling a story to his group, probably sitting around a fire at one of the camps. She smiles to herself and lays on her little cot, listening as he continues the story. She doesn’t even mind if he probably did the Thedas version of butt-dialing her. She found his voice comforting, a bit of familiarity in this strange land. She soon found herself falling asleep with a smile on her face. 

***

It quickly became apparent after three more nights of the sending crystal activating that Varric was letting her listen to the stories on purpose. She couldn’t figure out why, but she was grateful. She’d spend her days helping where she could around the village, and her nights relaxing in her cot listening to the stories, some familiar and some he was clearly making up on the spot. Sometimes the others would join in and tell stories of their own, sometimes they would just discuss things that happened that day and their plans for the next. Anytime the conversation swayed towards discussing Crystal herself, she noticed Varric was quick to change the subject. She figured the others weren’t aware she was listening in.

The best reason she could come up with was that he’d been very observant and noticed she had the constitution of a terrified rabbit and had decided to try to let her get to know them a little bit before she ran off with them. It seemed like a very Varric-like thing for him to do, she supposed. 

Tonight, however, she was hoping to hear it in person as it had been a week. She figured if they wanted to be technical they wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow, but she’d heard that the Herald had been spotted nearby and would most likely arrive in the crossroads in a matter of hours. Being that it was the middle of the afternoon already, she guessed they would most likely stay the night and leave for Haven the next day. 

Thankfully, they would be arriving to see an improved situation. The sisters and Mother Giselle had already left for Haven days ago, taking the wounded soldiers with them. That cleaned up the area quite a bit, as people were able to take back their own houses and the area was no longer haunted by the screams of the dying. 

With the supplies the Herald had given them, the people themselves were looking better. Everyone was well fed and clothed. Crystal had even gotten to bathe with real soap, simple as it had been. It probably wasn’t good to use it on her hair, but she didn’t care. She was clean from head to toe for the first time in weeks, even if she’d still had to use a bucket of water instead of an actual tub. She was just happy that the next time she saw everyone, she wouldn’t look like an unbathed goblin. 

In fact, as she slipped in feet into the best looking pair of shoes she could find, she realized she’d unconsciously taken a great deal of care with her appearance. It had taken her nearly an hour to dry her long hair near the fire (good God she missed hair dryers), and she’d let the results fall freely down her back in cascading waves. She was pleased that the harsh soap didn’t seem to dry it out that much.  The dress she was wearing was the best she could find, long and a lovely royal blue color, if a bit scratchy. Obviously, she wasn’t going to find something of amazing quality out in the middle of nowhere, but she looked decent enough in it and the color looked good with her brown hair. 

She was growing nervous, she realized, as she began fluttering around her little hut. She was anxious to get out of here, yes, but that also meant she was going right into the middle of everything. She was terrified that maybe she was making a mistake and should just stick it out here, or at least wait until they went to Skyhold before joining them. That would be the cowardly choice, of course, but she’d never claimed to be brave. 

She huffed in frustration and grabbed a precious piece of paper and one of her charcoal sticks, striding outside to sit near the little pond. There was a log stump there that she liked to use as a table, so she set her things down and observed the bustle of the little village. Soon enough she caught sight of Giles standing near the crossroads sign speaking to one of the Inquisition soldiers. She smiled and set charcoal to paper, letting her overactive mind quiet as she drew. The paper wasn’t what she was used, of course, and the bumps and ridges in it made her displeased with the result, but it would do. 

After nearly half an hour, she judged her sketch good enough and cleaned the charcoal from her hands with a quick flick in the pond. She didn’t want to risk getting anything on the one good dress she had. Giles hadn’t moved from his spot near the stone fence, though the soldier whose ear he’d been talking off had since moved on, so she walked over to join him. He grinned when she got close enough, waggling his eyebrows in his exaggerated way. 

“Well, don’t ye clean up nicely, lass.” 

“I’m hoping after the past few weeks we’ve all had that we all cleaned up nicely,” she laughed, then shyly handed the paper to Giles. 

“For me?” He stood up straight and took the paper, whistling as he looked it over. “Now, no ones ever made my likeness before, but even I can tell this is good.”

She beamed from the simple praise. “I studied art. Not sure what good that’s going to do me here, but it’s what I know. Anyway, this is just a simple thank you for looking out for me. You know I don’t have anything else, so this is the least I could do.” 

Giles reached out and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “Lass, ye don’t owe me a thing except staying safe. I feel like I’m sending ye right into the mouth o’ the beast, but the Herald lad seems a good sort. Certainly helped the crossroads, and I hear tell he shut down the fighting all over the Hinterlands. I think if I have to trust anyone with ye, it would be him and his lot.” 

There was a commotion near the tunnel and the two shared a looked before observing as people crowded the party coming out of it. She sent Giles a little grin and wandered over, hoping it was who she thought it was. 

The Herald and his crew were all riding new mounts, along with a few riderless ones behind them. The trip to Dennant was apparently successful. The mounts varied greatly from the Herald’s Fereldan Forder to Solas’s Red Hart. She was not looking forward to hearing that thing in person. It was bad enough in the game. 

One of the mounts without a rider was a Battle Nug, something she’d never thought she’d see in her life beyond the screen. It was cute in a strange sort of way, with the rhino face and bunny ears. The hairless skin was cocoa brown, not unlike her own hair. Although the gorilla-like hands would take some getting used to. How did it not hurt it to run around on those things? 

Varric separated from the party, trotting his sturdy looking pony over to her and jumping down as he grinned. The once over he gave her was fairly subtle, but not enough that she didn’t catch the way his eyes roamed over the curves revealed by her almost too tight dress. She could also see just how quickly he dismissed whatever he was thinking as he turned to observe the nug. 

“Ugly, huh?” he chuckled. “Pretty sure he just gave it to us because no one else was buyin. Apparently, it’s a runt and when people actually buy these things they want em big.” 

“It’s kinda cute in a way,” she shrugged, her smile widening when he groaned. 

“You’re going to get along great with Red. She has two of the regular ones at Haven. She’s going to freak when she sees this guy.” 

“Is that who he’s for?”

“Don’t know yet. When I said he gave it to us, I meant really gave. As in threw it in for free. I guess while it goes along easy enough, it’s really picky about who rides it. Wouldn’t let any of us touch him more than a couple pats. Dennant says it’s nice and well trained though,” Varric shrugs, and walks next to her as she goes closer to the Battle Nug.

As if it had sensed it was being talked about, the beast’s attention zeroed in on the two of them. Its snout wiggled as it scented the air, before releasing a loud huff and walking closer. Crystal reached out her hand and let it sniff at her, giggling as the heated breath tickled her. After getting in a few good sniffs, it batted it’s head against her hand, begging for pets. She scratched the area between his huge horns, the feel of the skin not unlike a hairless cat she’d once pet. 

Suddenly, it surprised both of them when the Battle Nug dropped down and began trying to herd her towards it’s back. 

“I think it wants you to ride it,” Varric chuckles, shaking his head. 

Crystal stuttered, “What? I’m...I don’t even know how to ride.” 

“How were you planning on getting to Haven?” Varric asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t know,” she answered weakly, staring at the huge saddled back of the nug. “A wagon or something?” 

“If that was the case you should have gone with the sisters. With us, you’d have to ride. I suppose if you’re really scared you can ride with one of us, but it looks like this big lug has chosen you, so maybe you can give it a try at least.”

She bites her lip and stares as she tries to gather enough courage to climb up. The nug is still nuzzling into her side, trying to encourage her, she supposes. 

“I’m wearing a dress, Varric.” 

“The saddle is big enough that you could sit side saddle. I’ll help you up.”

She sighs and lets Varric lead her to the side of the beast. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not a big fan of riding either, but it gets the job done,” Varric shrugs and laces his hands together as a makeshift mounting block. 

She straightens her back, nodding in a show of fake bravery. She places her hand on Varric’s shoulder and is momentarily distracted by how solid it felt under her fingers. Thick and muscled - and flexing? A quick glance at Varric’s lazy grin and dark eyes is enough proof that he knew where her mind had gone and was maybe showing off a little. 

She flushed and quickly lifted a leg, stopped by Varric clicking his tongue. 

“The right leg first for side saddle.” 

She nods and does as he says, placing her right leg in his cupped hands. He boosts her up a little and she scoots into the leather saddle. The squeal she makes when the nug stands up was embarrassing, and Varrics slow chuckles didn’t help. 

“Alright, now these guys are pretty slow so you don’t need to worry about speed. Reins are fairly easy; left and right, pull back lightly when you want to stop. Press into him with your thighs to go.” 

Crystal releases the death grip she has on the saddle horn, reaching for the reins. Her hands are shaking and she’s sure the nug can sense how scared she is because he’s not making any sudden movements; just stands there patiently waiting. She exhales and digs her thighs in and the nug starts a gentle trot. She barely has to do anything with the reins as it makes little circles and walks up and down a tiny stretch of road, occasionally shaking its head and looking back at her.

The Herald had joined Varric as they stood watching her, and she waved at him and sent him a little shaky smile. 

“Look at that. He wouldn’t let any of us on him, and now he’s prancing around like a pony. Look at him showing you off,” Maxwell chuckled as he greeted her.  

This wasn’t so bad, she mused. She relaxed a bit and let the nug wander around until it walked back to the rest of the mounts. She pulled the reins back gently and it stopped completely, dropping belly down so she could slide off easily. 

She was a little unsteady still from the adrenaline rush and nearly fell as her knees buckled. Varric was quickly at her side, wrapping a thick arm around her waist as Maxwell reached a hand out in concern. 

“You good there?”

She nodded and grinned sheepishly, “Just a little shaky. First time rider.” 

Maxwell grimaced with sympathy, “Yes, I remember my first time. I couldn’t sit well for two days.”

Varrics sniggers quietly and she rolls her eyes while Maxwell continues on, oblivious. 

“Make sure you used creams or oils to make it a smoother ride.” 

Varric’s snickers have become outright guffaws and Crystal finds herself giggling when Maxwell stares at them in confusion for a full minute before he finally groans. 

“Varric, you have the sense of humor of a child.” 

The dwarf’s laughter quiets slowly and he shrugs, flashing the Herald a playful grin. 

“Anyway,” Maxwell begins with a sigh, “Since the nug hasn’t let anyone else ride him and it appears he’s decided he likes you, he’s yours,” he nods towards Crystal. 

Her jaw drops and she looks between the Herald and the giant beast. 

“Oh, really, I couldn’t.” 

“Of course you can. I’m giving him to you. He was free, so it’s not like it’s a great burden. And before you can use any other arguments, the Inquisition will handle his basic care needs like food and such. Congratulations.” 

She opened her mouth to retort but with nothing coming to mind her jaw snapped shut. She sighed and flushed. 

“Fine. Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome. When you get a moment, please join us for a meal and we can discuss the events of the last week and our future plans.” 

With that, Maxwell saluted the two of them and sauntered off, whistling. 

“He’s kind of a brat, isn’t he?” 

Varric snorts, “Yeah, a bit.” 

Crystal sighs and looks at the Battle Nug that is now snuffling into the ground. 

“So now the only thing I actually own in this entire world is a giant pig-rabbit.” 

“Seems like it,” Varric laughs. 

“I’m not as ungrateful as I sound, I promise. Just...overwhelmed, I suppose. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with a great big beast like that. I suppose a plus side is if we meet any bad guys on the road, he can just sit on them and save me from having to fight.” 

Varric shakes his head with a grin and gestures for her to lead the way back to the center of the village where everyone was meeting up. They are both silent for a few moments before he clears his throat. 

“You look nice, by the way.” 

She blushed and really fucking wished any of the clothes here had pockets so she could shove her hands nervously in them like she wanted. 

“Thanks. It’s a miracle what eating every day and using actual soap can do.”

Varric snorts before returning the acknowledging wave of the Herald once they were close enough. 

The party is sitting outside of her hut, of all places. Giles winks at her cheekily as he settles into one of the stools he’d dragged over for them to use and proceeds to dominate the conversation, pelting everyone with questions. She knew it was mostly because he was just a talkative fellow, but also because he knew that she preferred to listen. 

Talking to anyone, especially a big group of intimidating people like this, was incredibly hard for her. Back in her world, she was a certified medication-guzzling socially anxious mess with severe depression. Here in Thedas, she was simply known as shy, which amused her. 

The village was already at work preparing the fresh rams that they had brought back, filling the air with the scent of roasting meat and the sounds of excited villagers. Crystal leans her back against her little hut and wills herself to relax, listening to the now familiar voices of everyone around her. Her fingers itched to sketch the little village, knowing it was her last night here among these people. She’d start with her own little hut, she muses, perhaps at dawn when the sun just begins to color the sky. Maybe one of the children as they sit in rapturous fascination whenever she tells them a story. She’d already drawn one for Thomas of his sweet daughter that he’d lost. He’d cried and thanked her with a fierce hug that brought tears to her own eyes. 

“What do you think, Crystal?”

She straightened quickly as she was jolted out of her thoughts, glancing at Maxwell in confusion. She’d been so out of it, she hadn’t even realized Giles had gone to get them food. 

“Pardon?” 

“We were just discussing our travel plans. It took us a little over four days to get here from Haven, but that was also because we made minimal stops since most of us are used to travel. We were wondering if you would be fine with that or if we should think on factoring inn stops into our plans?” Maxwell explained with a kind smile. 

“Oh, God, no. No need to do anything different for me. I don’t want to be a bother.” 

“It wouldn’t be a bother. Personally, I like to stay on the road as much as possible, because that’s less paperwork I’m forced to do.” Maxwell grinned as the others chuckled lightly. 

“So...if you’re talking about taking me with you, everything went well?” she asked tentatively, still slightly afraid that her very appearance in Thedas might have changed even the small things. 

“Oh, yes. Everything was just where you told us, even the ridiculous Druffalo. The caches of supplies are on their way as we speak. We closed all the rifts except for the one by the river you told us about. Set up very comfortable camps on all the marked spots. Took out the Templar and Mage hideouts. We were all very impressed. Obviously, we haven’t delved into your future knowledge that you say you have yet, but this was enough to know that at the very least you seem to be on our side for now.” 

Crystal released a relieved breath, finally able to release weeks of tension. She’d be in the thick of things, but she’d also be surrounded by those that could protect her the most. 

“Thank you.” 

Maxwell nods, pausing as if to catch his thoughts before asking. 

“You seem like...there’s something specific that you’re wanting protection from. That you believe we can protect you from, specifically. Are you...able to tell me what that is?” 

She chews her lip in thought, trying to figure out what she should say. 

“I’m not sure? Honestly, I don’t think I’m the smartest person, so I’m never quite sure my logic behind what I can and can’t share is sound. I’ll be happy to go over things more once we get to Haven, but I think I can at least tell you we should start stocking up on travel supplies and weapons. Haven doesn’t seem the sort of place that would withstand an attack, does it?” 

They all looked mildly disturbed by that, but Maxwell nodded in thought. She was relieved no one asked her to go into detail, because she wasn’t sure how she would have been able to talk her way out of that. She was afraid if she told them too much, it would create so much change that she wouldn’t recognize the story anymore and be worthless. 

Giles soon brought them bowls of roasted meat and vegetables, and they were all more than happy to change the talk to more pleasant things. Varric and Maxwell both were very nice about asking her questions and trying to draw her into the conversation. Cassandra acted like she wasn’t there most of the time. Crystal knew it was most likely because she still considered her a threat so she tried not to be too hurt by it. Solas seemed as content as her to merely listen to those around him. She was especially glad he paid her no mind. 

“Excuse me, Miss Crystal?” 

She turned towards the shy voice of one of her favorite kids in the village, Malcolm. He was like her little shadow most days, and was always quick to ask for a story or for her to teach him how to draw. 

“Good evening, Mal. Did you need something, buddy?” She asked with a fond smile. 

He shoved one of his hands practically in her face as he handed her what appeared to be a rock. 

“I worked all day doin’ chores for Ma so I could give you this. It’s a heating rune. Cuz you’re gonna be traveling and hate the cold like me. You just press your finger here and it warms up, but it doesn’t hurt or nothin’. So you can keep your tent warm and it works in water too!” 

“Wow, Mal! This is so nice. Thank you!” 

She grins at the blushing boy and means every word. If this thing works like she thinks it should, she can look forward to toasty tents on the road. Damn she hated being cold, especially after these last few weeks with nothing but a thin blanket to warm her. She leans over and hugs him tightly. 

“You’ll remember to keep up with your drawing, right? I expect you to send me a drawing every now and then so I can see your progress. I’ll send you some of whatever I see too, okay?” 

“Kay!” Malcolm grins and runs back to his parents. She smiles at the little rune before tucking it into her pocket. 

“You didn’t mention you had a suitor,” Varric smirks. 

She snorts and plays along. “Oh yes, he’s lovely. He catches me frogs and only wets the bed twice a week. The catch of the ages, really.” 

He huffs a little laugh before turning to the group. 

“Did I ever tell you guys about the time Hawke bought a mine?” 

Crystal grins and leans in to listen, even though it was yet another story that she already knew. The way that Varric told them always made them sound new, however. She could tell the parts he was embellishing heavily and tried to contain her commentary. She was amused by Maxwell’s gasps of surprise and Cassandra’s eye rolls when Varric tried to describe the dragons in terrifying detail. Mostly, she was just happy to be sitting here listening in person. 

Varric was so expressive when he told a story. His hands waved enthusiastically, and his face showed every emotion. He timed everything perfectly to get the reactions he wanted, smirking slightly whenever someone was shocked or appropriately enthralled. She soon discovered that she’d been focusing so much on him that she’d missed most of the story, too entranced by the dwarf himself. 

She needed to get over this fascination with him, and fast. That way lay heartbreak and pain, she was sure of it. 

She yawned loudly, hoping the others would catch on. Thankfully, Maxwell must have been looking at her because he yawned too. 

“I think we should all get some sleep. We have a long few days ahead of us,” he grunted as he stood up and stretched. 

The others murmured their agreements, slowly getting up and putting the stools to the side. 

Giles scratches his belly as he looks them over. 

“We have a couple o’ empty huts that you lot can use. You’d have to squeeze in there, but it would probably be a nice break from tents at least.” 

“I have one extra cot in mine as well, if it’s needed,” Crystal ventured quietly. 

The party spoke amongst themselves and eventually it was decided that Solas and Maxwell would share one hut, Cassandra would take the other as she wanted to bathe in privacy. Of course, this left...

Varric’s smirk as she glanced at him in surprise was gone so fast she could almost believe she imagined it. Everyone wandered towards their assigned places for the night, leaving Varric to open the door for her. 

“After you,” he said softly, standing to the side as she tried to get past him before he could see her blushing. 

Maxwell ran up and threw Varric his pack of supplies before he could enter. He accepted them with a grunt of thanks and shut the door, bringing the wooden bar down to secure it. 

Crystal was practically vibrating she was so nervous. Logically, she knew that nothing was going to happen and that the chances of him being genuinely into her beyond friendly flirting were zilch, but she couldn’t help the rush of anxiety she felt just being in a room alone with him. 

“So, uh, the cots are over here. The one on the right is a little more sturdy since it belonged to the man who owned this place before. I’ll take the smaller one,” she winced as she heard how shaky her voice sounded. She hated that he probably thought she was some freak scared of her own shadow. 

He nods and smiles gently, seeming to pick up on her nervousness. 

“If you wanted to change into your night things, I promise I won’t look if you don’t. I must protect my virtue, after all,” he drawled. She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped over his stupid joke, letting him lighten the tension in the room a little.  

She peeled off her slippers and tucked them away into her bag of supplies. She’d use the more sturdy boots she had for the journey. She snuck a quick peek at Varric, finding him turned all the way around facing the wall as he shucked his own clothes. She nibbled her lip nervously and quickly pulled the dress up and off, leaving the thin white chemise on to sleep in. Unable to help herself, she looked out of the corner of her eye towards the dwarf behind her. 

He’d already torn off his shoes and shirt, leaving him barechested as he struggled with his belt. She inhaled lightly as she watched his back muscles rippling like some damn romance movie hero. She turned away just as quickly, knowing that with his skills he’d probably know if someone was watching him. 

She cleared her throat and instead focused on finishing readying for bed. She went to the little table that she’d turned into a sort of vanity and poured water into a bowl for washing her face and a cup for brushing her teeth. She missed the convenience of running water and tubes of toothpaste, not to mention her creams. This place was drying the hell out of her skin. 

When she was done, she poured everything out and cleaned up the area. 

“There’s still plenty of water left if you need it,” she said softly. 

“Yeah, thanks,” he rumbled, his voice close enough that she figured it was safe to look. 

She wanted to groan out loud and barely stopped herself from doing so. He’d changed into some comfortable looking pants at least, but he’d left his chest bare. Judging by the look on his face, he knew damn well the effect he had on her and did it on purpose. She didn’t even like body hair, but she couldn’t stop staring at him. He’d even pulled his hair from its tie, letting flow freely. It wasn’t that long, just towards the middle of his neck, but it was still such an intimate thing to see, she thought. 

He chuckled as she turned to busy herself, trying to keep her mind on other things besides half naked dwarves that were too handsome for their own good. She set her bags near the door for easy pickup in the morning and started the fire, knowing that the hut would be ice cold in a couple of hours if she didn’t. 

Once it was blazing she stood with her back to it, letting it warm her before she tried to sleep with her one little blanket. The first thing she planned to do once she figured out how to get money here was going to be buying at least five blankets and the stuff to make proper pillows, not the blocks they used here. 

She was swaying slightly with her eyes closed, listening to Varric humming and cleaning himself as she tried to relax enough to get to sleep quickly. She heard the splashing water stop and sounds of a towel being unfurled, then suddenly he growled.  

Her eyes shot open and she stared wide-eyed as Varric’s face turned hard and tense with hunger. His hooded eyes traveled the length of her body, and when she looked down she realized, to her utter horror, that the chemise was so thin that standing in front of the fire had made it damn near see through. She could see everything, and if she could, so could he. She blushed wildly but rushed past him and jumped into her cot, covering herself with her threadbare blanket. 

She could hear him breathing heavily, like he was trying to calm himself. A few moments later he walked over and pulled a blanket from his bag, settling into the cot that was so close to her own she could practically feel his body heat. 

He turned on his right side as he got comfortable, facing her. In a surprising show of bravery, she turned towards him as well. They both lay in silence for a few moments, looking at each other with only the flickering light of the fire, studying and weighing each other. 

She knew he was at least somewhat attracted to her, but she also knew he was probably fighting it because of his loyalty towards Bianca. Though she was sure he messed around at least somewhat, but never seriously and never with feelings. And Crystal, no matter how attracted to him she’d turned out to be, wasn’t the type to do anything casual. She grew attached too easily, was too needy for flings. She had a feeling he could probably tell and that’s why he was able to restrain himself. 

She sighed curled up more into her little blanket, starting to feel a little more tired now that the heat was starting to fill the little hut. The only thing she needed now was Varric’s familiar voice rumbling through the sending crystal. 

“Why did you let me listen?” she suddenly blurts. 

Varric’s soft grin says he was expecting the question sooner or later. 

“I thought it might help. Woman all alone in a strange place, about to travel with a bunch of scary warriors for almost a week. Figured it might help you get to know us a little and at least let you know we weren’t planning on chopping you to bits or feeding you to a dragon.” 

“I was so very worried about the dragon too. Bless you, sir.” 

He chuckles and sends her another little smile. 

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” 

Crystal fights her blush and whispers, “Goodnight, Varric.” 

She turned away and faced the wall as she willed herself to sleep, trying not to focus on every little sound he made. It was a very long night. 

[morepopcornplease]

@itsallwearecalledtodo tagged me to list ten favorite characters from ten different fandoms AGES AGO and i FORGOT. like an IDIOT. (thanks love!)

Lena Luthor, Supergirl 

Listen...in a lot of ways, Melissa Benoist’s acting makes Kara Danvers THE Best Character on the show (as it should be!). But this is a fave character list, and on premise of character arc alone, I gotta go with Lena. While I really don’t think the writers tackled her character with the concept “what if Lois & Lex were combined into a single character?”,  that’s what ended up onscreen and it. is. genius!!! Even if it wasn’t Katie McGrath, this is a fucking brilliant concept and one I hope becomes a permanent staple of the Super mythos. It’s that fucking good.

Tony Stark, MCU

The man who continually fucks up and learns from his mistakes and tries again and then fucks up again. Tony actually stands out from a lot of other male action heroes in this way: whenever he makes another mistake, I can actually go back and plot why he made that choice, and it usually stems from an overcorrection on a previous mistake (see: Iron Man 1 Tony VS Civil War Tony) 

Anna, Frozen

If Elsa taught me I could be myself, Anna taught me I would still have friends & family who loved me. That meant....so much to my personal coming out story. Literal embodiment of love, sacrificing herself for her sister. Just. DAMN. 

Diana Cavendish, Little Witch Academia

You know, there are so many characters defined by ties to their father or a patriarchal society, that to have a female character, from a matriarchal lineage, in a matriarchal society, and to be burdened by that intrinsically female legacy and those expectations??? Feels RADICAL. (also she’s a fun bitch archetype with a redemption arc)

Aang, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Boyyyyyy I struggled with this, frankly I love them ALL, but I think the reason I love Aang the most is a combination of his internal struggle (vicious cycle of avoiding responsibility causing even greater responsibilities causing him to stress and avoid even more) coupled with his attitude towards it (hide my pain with laughter) and his ultimate goodness and hard stance on his religious and moral beliefs, (crises of faith are #RELATABLE) makes him #1 for me. 

Janet, The Good Place

Comes down to the simple equation: it’s a comedy, and she makes me laugh the hardest. Wish we could drop her into Westworld or something, wouldn’t that be a fun trip??

Sansa Stark, Game of Thrones

I don’t really watch Game of Thrones anymore, but I do recognize it’s got some awesome female characters. So why do I love Sansa the best??? Because all the others fall into somewhat predictable patterns: Arya and Brienne are both played as the tomboy, Dany as the bamf, Margaery and Cersei as the bitches. Each of their plotlines is established with their endgame in mind pretty quickly. Meanwhile, Sansa has literally the worst of  everything thrown at her, and she was quite purposefully made powerless by the writers to stop any of it from happening. She is in survival mode for so long. But she survives. She learns the game of thrones. And when she gets out? She promises to DO. GOOD. To BE. BETTER. I’m convinced hers is the character arc we need to see more of in our media. ESPECIALLY shows like GoT. 

Pearl, Steven Universe

Listen.... there IS no best character on Steven Universe....they are ALL wonderful and perfect and I love them ALL.....but Pearl’s arc is actually about weaning herself off of organizing her identity around someone she loved and lost. In that process she learns to accept the pain and learn to overcome it, trust and rely on family and friends, and establish herself as her own gem: “Don’t forget to do it for yourself Pearl!” That’s a character arc I’ve needed for a while now. (Also DeeDee Magno Hall’s voice is beautiful)

Rupert Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Listen, I haven’t even finished Season 1 yet, but I am so endeared by this old soul. Sure, there’s 6 other seasons for me to change my mind, but he is delightful, and I love his relationship with Buffy so far...

13th Doctor, Doctor Who

Is it too early to say? Yes. We’re only 4 episodes in. Do I already love the fuck outta Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor? You better BELIEVE i do!!!! I’m actually enchanted with how Jodie (and the writers) have somehow, somehow, bridged the world of Classic Who and New Who with how they approach this character. I think my favorite line so far is the simple yet perfect summation: “I’m just a traveler. Sometimes I see things need fixing, I do what I can.” What a perfect, perfect Doctor.

It says 10 but I’m tagging loads

tagging: @counterpunches @redonthefly @faereginacosplay @forever-fallen-in-wonderland @shardsofarendelle @imluvnit @what-day-is-it13 @thegreatkiskadee @thatcatholicgentleman @loverfighterfriend @feenyxblue @monstrousgourmandizingcats @flicker-serthes @joaniam @afemalesebastian @justanothergymmouse @lightofmay @snakesaredelicious and @nerdyfancupcake too

and ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO

everyone except @youngbloodbuzz YOU SHOULD BE WRITING

[jennycalendar]

i’m thinking about my ideal slow burn giles/jenny again so here have my various headcanons re: how that’d play out through s2.

this got. incredibly long. so i’m putting it under a cut

ok. right after i robot, which is the puppet show, which is probably my favorite episode of btvs ever for reasons i still cannot figure out, there’s like....one scene at the end where jenny’s in the audience next to giles during the horrible monologues. this serves both to 1) remind us of jenny’s existence and 2) imply that giles may or may not have made a friend on staff, which is pretty cool.

canon s1 stays about the same after that, but s2 doesn’t start with moony eyes and jenny wearing soft pastels!! instead of snyder showing up to make a cameo that heightens the twosome-of-cuteness vibe, we literally just see giles and jenny walking up the steps to school together while jenny complains about having to come back (”i nearly got eaten before senior prom...god, i hate that i can say that sentence”) and giles asks, “then why did you come back?” there’s sort of a weird, tense beat where jenny looks genuinely uncomfortable (foreshadowing angelus WAY earlier in the season, bc jenny’s involvement is very clearly something that the writers came up with as some weird contrived Extra Thing so let’s make it less of a plot device) and then she comes up with some really awful excuse that leaves giles a little puzzled n frustrated.

jenny and giles go to the football game together as investigative buddies, making her a legit scooby based on merit instead of the fact that she’s dating giles, and they argue through most of the game about whether or not going to the game was even necessary in the first place. xander and willow show up and immediately start teasing them about being on a date. jenny laughs it off but giles looks MORTIFIED

they keep. on. arguing. literally every episode there’s a jenny/giles argument about something inane and stupid, even if it lasts for only a few seconds before one of the scoobies tells them to Please Stop. but the thing is, these arguments aren’t actually aggressive & passionately angry like in s1? it’s more annoyed than anything, and slowly the arguments start transitioning into actual logical discussions

sjlksdljk this in itself is transitioning into an imagine-if-canon-had-treated-jenny-like-her-own-character post but jenny’s scenes aren’t restricted to scenes with giles. she shows up in her own scenes too, and as time goes on, those scenes get significantly more foreboding bc the angelus arc is coming up

in the dark age, things mostly go the same. except jenny and giles aren’t dating, so the dazed hug is a little weird, and jenny coming on to giles is something that’s immediately met with suspicion & then Full-Out Panic. of course jenny’s fine, but she’s incredibly distant around giles; even though she doesn’t leave the scoobies, things are tense n weird between them (heightened by the fact that giles has suddenly realized that he may have slightly romantic feelings for jenny, and. that’s worthy of some more panic actually)

jenny gets a scene after the dark age where she thanks angel for saving her life. it’s very awkward and stilted and she doesn’t really look at him when she says it, and at the end of that episode, you overhear a phone conversation between her and her uncle re: angel being redeemable (more foreshadowing!!! more narrative coherency!!!!)

meanwhile giles is fucking hopeless. he’s not asking jenny out bc he wants to give her as much space as possible and he also is starting to really value their friendship (which has by this point become something that is surprisingly sweet & supportive) but he keeps on getting all blushy and shy whenever she compliments him. jenny hasn’t noticed this at all bc in this canon, her priorities aren’t just him, they’re him and willow and buffy and sometimes xander and yeah, even angel, which is freaking her out way too much for her to notice that her best friend is into her

oh yeah. giles and jenny are best friends. that happened at some point and there’s definitely a staff meeting (probably during ted, which also goes differently!! because that episode is a horror show!!) where they’ve sort of teamed up to argue with everyone else instead of each other.

and then all the stuff goes down with angelus.

it’s not actually a surprise this time around though? because there’s been a lot of hinting and a lot of ominousness surrounding jenny’s character, so instead of it being this Big Dramatic Reveal that jenny was Evil All Along, the episode actually has a subplot that focuses on her stress and her newfound worry and compassion for angel and the Big Dramatic Reveal is actually that jenny was Good All Along.

the “betrayal” arc goes...relatively the same at first, but then shifts a little? i’m very firmly of the mind that jenny, incredibly emotionally guarded, still would decide that she could Handle Things On Her Own and keep her motives secret, but when she finds out that angel could lose his soul, she kinda panics and throws herself into research re: how to actually stop that from happening. and that’s where buffy finds her, and they have a initially angry confrontation that kinda ends when buffy realizes that jenny was trying to figure out a way to somehow help and only recently found out about the happiness clause. so.

here’s a twist: everyone’s able to forgive jenny but giles. buffy is still sad and hurt and furious, but she and jenny actually become weirdly closer bc jenny’s always incredibly reassuring and tells her lots of stories about all her awful old boyfriends (+ a few of her girlfriends), and this kinda hurts giles, because he wants to be there for buffy too! and anyway jenny lied to all of them, so why should buffy care so much about what jenny has to say? most of it all really stems from the fact, though, that this was the first time in a very long time that he Trusted Someone and then it turned out that she was keeping secrets and he is just really, really hurt by that. so their relationship turns contentious and strained again and it’s kind of awful and sad.

but then comes passion. jenny’s been staying late at the library working on researching possibly ways to re-soul angel, albeit much more above board and non-secretive than in canon, and this time around giles is the one who gets a talking-to from buffy, only what she wants him to know is that she misses him being there for her and she wishes he wasn’t always arguing with ms. calendar because she kinda needs her watcher right now. and that’s kinda a wake-up call for giles--that jenny’s been doing the job of a watcher while he’s been sulking--so he heads back to school to apologize,

and nearly collides with a terrified jenny, right before he sees angelus close behind. giles grabs jenny’s hand and they run to his car, taking off at a probably-illegal speed. he ends up staying at jenny’s apartment that night; his house isn’t safe. there’s a very quiet, very sweet scene between them where they finally make up, followed by a hug that comes dangerously close to becoming a kiss. kind of a landmark moment for both of them; jenny realizes that she might be into giles, giles realizes that he’s in love with jenny. basically jenny’s really behind the curve

the resouling ritual happens the next episode!! it’s sort of a subplot going on (complete with lots of awkward shy mutual pining between giles & jenny), and at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that angel has gotten his soul back. which is a good thing, but also kinda bad, because he has to legitimately address a lot of the stuff that he’s done & attempted to brush under the rug

angel and jenny have another conversation during the episode after that, which is probably a two-part season finale. this one’s more about responsibility & sacrifice & what you owe to the people you hurt, and they both kinda get something from it. angel tells buffy that he loves her, but that he needs to actually figure himself out and start making amends to the people he hurt in whatever ways he can, and buffy’s devastated by this but she does eventually understand. he decides to leave sunnydale, but it’s left very open-ended; he might come back again someday (and probably does, but that’s another story)

meanwhile, jenny’s been ordered to follow angel out of sunnydale, and spends the last episode of s2 giving the concept some serious thought while angel prepares to leave. she knows that it’s her familial responsibility to do so, and she knows she could do a lot of good helping angel fight evil, but she also really hates the thought of leaving sunnydale.

of course, she brings the concept up to giles, who Definitely Does Not Want Jenny To Leave, but also doesn’t want to come off as clingy. he stumbles through a weird, stammery version of a pros and cons list and inadvertently admits that she’s incredibly important to him, which is. a lot for jenny to take in. she decides to talk to buffy, who’s kinda projecting a little, and who is Very Adamant about jenny being needed in sunnydale (it’s v clearly implied that buffy is feeling frightened & abandoned & wants someone to stay) particularly for giles’s sake.

jenny kinda takes this in and decides to stay. this is all a subplot to the buffy/angel goodbye and how buffy’s handling angel’s leaving so it’s a small decision, but still a noticeable one. the end scene is in the library again with all the scoobies gathered around the table, and if you look very closely, you’ll notice jenny reach out and take giles’s hand.

[bearsofair]

I arrive early at the LA hotel where I'm meeting Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie, and my first impression of the actor is formed in a millisecond when I bump into her in a hallway. Unusually and ethereally beautiful, towering above me, there's no mistaking the 39-year-old who stars as the indomitable Brienne of Tarth in the must-watch TV series, and who is reprising her role as the villainous Captain Phasma in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. (She first played the kickass stormtrooper in the previous chapter, 2015's The Force Awakens.) Wearing a see-though black Fendi top and narrow trousers, her blonde hair is wavy and bobbed. With her porcelain skin and 191-centimetre stature, she could easily look intimidating. But her bright smile makes her approachable, so I tell her, in an embarrassing babble, that I love her work and that my two daughters are huge fans. She seems delighted, as though compliments are not at all commonplace. Is she enjoying Hollywood stardom? "I don't think I would ever term myself as a Hollywood star… ever," she responds with a loud laugh, while admitting that "things seem to be going quite well". That sounds like an understatement. "Well it's always great, isn't it, when you feel a level of creative fulfilment in your work?" says Gwendoline in her lovely melodic voice.

She has every reason to be in good spirits. Her film career is in flight and life post-Westeros looks exciting. She has loved Star Wars since she was six, she tells me later, ushering me into her hotel suite and settling beside me on the sofa, poised, hands clasped. "Everyone wants to be in Star Wars. It is such a huge global phenomenon; I desperately wanted the role." The latest instalment in the franchise sees Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in a prominent role with an apparently shocking twist. There will also a strong focus on a new generation of characters, including purple-haired Vice-Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern. Since the release of The Force Awakens, Gwendoline's "chrome trooper" has become a fan favourite. "Phasma seems to have ignited a lot of curiosity," she says. "The idea of a woman exhibiting a violent attitude is not something we see a huge amount of in mainstream media." There is speculation that Phasma has a much bigger role in the upcoming film, directed by Rian Johnson, but inevitably the actor is giving nothing away beyond referring to her character as "a threatening presence". Can she say anything about the plot, which continues the story of the powerful Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)? "Well, no." A few seconds of dead air are interrupted by a hearty laugh. She is less restrained about her excitement at working with one of her role models, Carrie Fisher (General Leia Organa), the Hollywood legend who died suddenly at the end of last year. "Princess Leia spoke to me," says Gwendoline of the original Star Wars. "She felt different, she was smart and she was strong." No wonder Gwendoline was "very, very starstruck" when she was introduced to Fisher. "When I meet someone I admire like that, I keep myself as far away as possible from the person, you know, don't bother them, eyes down at the floor. I am overcome with shyness. But, actually, Carrie was incredibly warm. Everyone around her felt electrified by her wit and humanity. She was so open about her struggles with mental illness. The sheer force of personality is ravishing." The same could be said of Gwendoline. It's no coincidence that the characters that have defined her career so far have been warriors ranging across the moral spectrum, from Brienne of Tarth – all goodness and altruistic selflessness – to the pure evil of Captain Phasma. She inhabits the kind of roles that are still rare for women. Brienne of Tarth, for example, is considered to be plain looking. "It has been thrilling for me to play her, particularly since she is a woman much maligned by society due to the way she looks," she says. As for Captain Phasma, audiences didn't even get a glimpse of her face in The Force Awakens, the stormtrooper being clad from head to toe in metal. "I've never really placed a huge emphasis on people's physical being," she says. "I remember Carrie Fisher referring to her body as her 'brain bag'." It's a subject that fascinates the actor, who is as intellectually curious as she is warm and funny. "We are so used to seeing images of women who are mostly conventionally attractive, and frequently scantily clad, and I found that a little restrictive," she says. "We have had a homogenised view not just of women, but really of the world. I think we all want to see ourselves represented [on screen] in some way." She has an affinity for playing outsiders, "characters that feel like they aren't seen and don't fit in. Most of my life I have felt somewhat outside of the conventions of society – and certainly outside the conventions of the acting community." Gwendoline was born and raised in West Sussex, "the only product of my mother and father". She is deliberate about her choice of words, avoiding the term "only child". In fact, she describes her early life as "idyllic – I grew up in the countryside surrounded by fields and forests. I used to play outside all the time. I was generally alone, but I loved to read." Away from the sanctuary of her close-knit family, however, life was difficult. "I absolutely hated school because I was bullied quite a lot." She was bookish and "really enjoyed being in the library, but I didn't enjoy the other students". Was she bullied because of her height? "I don't think it was just my height." She pauses. "I don't know. I'm really not interested in talking about the bullying; what I am interested in is transcending that, because there is too much of an emphasis on suffering. We need to look at how we overcome it." She explains her own coping mechanism: "I looked for where the sunshine was – for those who'd be more accepting and stimulating." As a child, Gwendoline threw herself into hobbies – dancing and rhythmic gymnastics (she had to stop because of a spine injury at age 11). "Retrospectively, I realise what I loved about gymnastics was the rigour of being disciplined and precise, and then applying the flow of emotion and imagination to that." Films provided "escapism", she says, singling out Orlando (1992), directed by Sally Potter, as "important". I can't help mentioning that she has been compared to the film's star, Tilda Swinton. "Well, that is an incredibly generous comparison," she exclaims. "I think she is a truly exceptional artist; she is doing her own thing." It's something Gwendoline has always done, too. Her parents were "incredibly supportive" and there's a story that when she was young her father told her, "You can do anything a boy can do." "He didn't use those exact words," says Gwendoline. "But he did say, 'There's no reason why you can't achieve anything.' " Intent on acting from an early age, she recalls watching films as a teenager and wondering why the women's parts were so often boring. "When we studied classical plays at school, I wanted to play the male parts. I didn't understand why women would be treated in a certain way just because they were women. It didn't make any sense. A lot of things didn't make any sense." Life began to make more sense when Gwendoline left school and enrolled in art college. "I became friends with artists working in the fashion industry, and musicians. That is really where I found my family – unconventional people who were totally accepting of themselves in all of their colourfulness and extreme personalities." She went on to study acting at Drama Centre, London – "a conservatoire with a classical training and method approach" which she describes as life-changing. "It was hard, 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week. It was psychologically rigorous. You were broken down and sometimes criticised. It caused you to have an internal investigation of who you were, and that gave me confidence. They trained us to be artists." In her early 20s, Gwendoline also began working for the actor Simon Callow (Outlander, Four Weddings and a Funeral). "He gave me an enormous amount of confidence," she says. "He also educated me. He had an incredible house filled with music and books, and I looked after his two wonderful dogs. He is one of the closest and most trusted people in my life." With Callow's support, Gwendoline's career took off via well-reviewed stage performances and supporting roles in films including The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, before being cast as Brienne of Tarth in 2011. In doing so, she defied predictions that she'd find it difficult to work because of her height. In fact, her stature and dramatic looks played to her advantage. With friends in the world of couture – she was interested in fashion long before art college – Gwendoline was in high demand as a model and became a muse of Vivienne Westwood. These days, she often collaborates with her partner of five years, British fashion designer Giles Deacon. She won't discuss her relationship with Deacon, citing her need for a private life that's just that. "Because of the phantasmagorical nature of being an actor, you have to have your own reality," she says. She explains that her "friends, family and partner form such an essential part of that reality that I do everything I can to get home, to see people as much as possible – because it is that life which is going to feed your work". Steering the subject back to her career, she happily tells me she is about to work alongside Steve Carell in The Women of Marwen. And she is enthusiastic about her recent role in Jane Campion's Top of the Lake: China Girl, the sequel to Campion's award-winning 2013 TV drama. In it, she played Miranda Hilmarson, a Sydney police officer assigned to work with detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) investigating the death of a woman whose body washes up on Bondi Beach. A confirmed Campion fan, Gwendoline wrote to the New Zealand director pleading to be cast in the series, which also stars Nicole Kidman. "I love Jane because she is interested in women, in a fairer balance between men and women, and she is very interested in the subject of misogyny." She adds that Top of the Lake: China Girl "deals with what it is to be a woman and a mother, what it is to deal with feeling marginalised". Other than spending time with friends and family, Gwendoline's current focus is firmly on her career. So, what are her goals? "To create my own material – write it, direct it, design it, produce it. That is what I would love to do – if I wasn't so idle and lacking in imagination!"

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Press: Warrior woman: How Gwendoline Christie escaped the pressure to fit in

  The Sydney Morning Herald – I arrive early at the LA hotel where I’m meeting Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie, and my first impression of the actor is formed in a millisecond when I bump into her in a hallway. Unusually and ethereally beautiful, towering above me, there’s no mistaking the 39-year-old who stars as the indomitable Brienne of Tarth in the must-watch TV series, and who is reprising her role as the villainous Captain Phasma in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. (She first played the kickass stormtrooper in the previous chapter, 2015’s The Force Awakens.)

  Wearing a see-though black Fendi top and narrow trousers, her blonde hair is wavy and bobbed. With her porcelain skin and 191-centimetre stature, she could easily look intimidating. But her bright smile makes her approachable, so I tell her, in an embarrassing babble, that I love her work and that my two daughters are huge fans. She seems delighted, as though compliments are not at all commonplace.

  Is she enjoying Hollywood stardom? “I don’t think I would ever term myself as a Hollywood star… ever,” she responds with a loud laugh, while admitting that “things seem to be going quite well”. That sounds like an understatement. “Well it’s always great, isn’t it, when you feel a level of creative fulfilment in your work?” says Gwendoline in her lovely melodic voice.

  She has every reason to be in good spirits. Her film career is in flight and life post-Westeros looks exciting. She has loved Star Wars since she was six, she tells me later, ushering me into her hotel suite and settling beside me on the sofa, poised, hands clasped. “Everyone wants to be in Star Wars. It is such a huge global phenomenon; I desperately wanted the role.”

  The latest installment in the franchise sees Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker in a prominent role with an apparently shocking twist. There will also a strong focus on a new generation of characters, including purple-haired Vice-Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern.

Since the release of The Force Awakens, Gwendoline’s “chrome trooper” has become a fan favourite. “Phasma seems to have ignited a lot of curiosity,” she says. “The idea of a woman exhibiting a violent attitude is not something we see a huge amount of in mainstream media.”

  There is speculation that Phasma has a much bigger role in the upcoming film, directed by Rian Johnson, but inevitably the actor is giving nothing away beyond referring to her character as “a threatening presence”.

  Can she say anything about the plot, which continues the story of the powerful Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)? “Well, no.” A few seconds of dead air are interrupted by a hearty laugh.

  She is less restrained about her excitement at working with one of her role models, Carrie Fisher (General Leia Organa), the Hollywood legend who died suddenly at the end of last year. “Princess Leia spoke to me,” says Gwendoline of the original Star Wars. “She felt different, she was smart and she was strong.”

  No wonder Gwendoline was “very, very starstruck” when she was introduced to Fisher. “When I meet someone I admire like that, I keep myself as far away as possible from the person, you know, don’t bother them, eyes down at the floor. I am overcome with shyness. But, actually, Carrie was incredibly warm. Everyone around her felt electrified by her wit and humanity. She was so open about her struggles with mental illness. The sheer force of personality is ravishing.”

  The same could be said of Gwendoline. It’s no coincidence that the characters that have defined her career so far have been warriors ranging across the moral spectrum, from Brienne of Tarth – all goodness and altruistic selflessness – to the pure evil of Captain Phasma.

  She inhabits the kind of roles that are still rare for women. Brienne of Tarth, for example, is considered to be plain looking. “It has been thrilling for me to play her, particularly since she is a woman much maligned by society due to the way she looks,” she says.

  As for Captain Phasma, audiences didn’t even get a glimpse of her face in The Force Awakens, the stormtrooper being clad from head to toe in metal.

  “I’ve never really placed a huge emphasis on people’s physical being,” she says. “I remember Carrie Fisher referring to her body as her ‘brain bag’.”

  It’s a subject that fascinates the actor, who is as intellectually curious as she is warm and funny. “We are so used to seeing images of women who are mostly conventionally attractive, and frequently scantily clad, and I found that a little restrictive,” she says. “We have had a homogenised view not just of women, but really of the world. I think we all want to see ourselves represented [on screen] in some way.”

  She has an affinity for playing outsiders, “characters that feel like they aren’t seen and don’t fit in. Most of my life I have felt somewhat outside of the conventions of society – and certainly outside the conventions of the acting community.”

  Gwendoline was born and raised in West Sussex, “the only product of my mother and father”. She is deliberate about her choice of words, avoiding the term “only child”.

  In fact, she describes her early life as “idyllic – I grew up in the countryside surrounded by fields and forests. I used to play outside all the time. I was generally alone, but I loved to read.”

  Away from the sanctuary of her close-knit family, however, life was difficult. “I absolutely hated school because I was bullied quite a lot.” She was bookish and “really enjoyed being in the library, but I didn’t enjoy the other students”.

  Was she bullied because of her height? “I don’t think it was just my height.” She pauses. “I don’t know. I’m really not interested in talking about the bullying; what I am interested in is transcending that, because there is too much of an emphasis on suffering. We need to look at how we overcome it.”

  She explains her own coping mechanism: “I looked for where the sunshine was – for those who’d be more accepting and stimulating.”

  As a child, Gwendoline threw herself into hobbies – dancing and rhythmic gymnastics (she had to stop because of a spine injury at age 11). “Retrospectively, I realise what I loved about gymnastics was the rigour of being disciplined and precise, and then applying the flow of emotion and imagination to that.”

  Films provided “escapism”, she says, singling out Orlando (1992), directed by Sally Potter, as “important”. I can’t help mentioning that she has been compared to the film’s star, Tilda Swinton. “Well, that is an incredibly generous comparison,” she exclaims. “I think she is a truly exceptional artist; she is doing her own thing.”

  It’s something Gwendoline has always done, too. Her parents were “incredibly supportive” and there’s a story that when she was young her father told her, “You can do anything a boy can do.”

  “He didn’t use those exact words,” says Gwendoline. “But he did say, ‘There’s no reason why you can’t achieve anything.’ ”

  Intent on acting from an early age, she recalls watching films as a teenager and wondering why the women’s parts were so often boring. “When we studied classical plays at school, I wanted to play the male parts. I didn’t understand why women would be treated in a certain way just because they were women. It didn’t make any sense. A lot of things didn’t make any sense.”

  Life began to make more sense when Gwendoline left school and enrolled in art college. “I became friends with artists working in the fashion industry, and musicians. That is really where I found my family – unconventional people who were totally accepting of themselves in all of their colourfulness and extreme personalities.”

  She went on to study acting at Drama Centre, London – “a conservatoire with a classical training and method approach” which she describes as life-changing. “It was hard, 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week. It was psychologically rigorous. You were broken down and sometimes criticised. It caused you to have an internal investigation of who you were, and that gave me confidence. They trained us to be artists.”

  In her early 20s, Gwendoline also began working for the actor Simon Callow (Outlander, Four Weddings and a Funeral). “He gave me an enormous amount of confidence,” she says. “He also educated me. He had an incredible house filled with music and books, and I looked after his two wonderful dogs. He is one of the closest and most trusted people in my life.”

  With Callow’s support, Gwendoline’s career took off via well-reviewed stage performances and supporting roles in films including The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, before being cast as Brienne of Tarth in 2011. In doing so, she defied predictions that she’d find it difficult to work because of her height.

  In fact, her stature and dramatic looks played to her advantage. With friends in the world of couture – she was interested in fashion long before art college – Gwendoline was in high demand as a model and became a muse of Vivienne Westwood. These days, she often collaborates with her partner of five years, British fashion designer Giles Deacon.

  She won’t discuss her relationship with Deacon, citing her need for a private life that’s just that. “Because of the phantasmagorical nature of being an actor, you have to have your own reality,” she says.

  She explains that her “friends, family and partner form such an essential part of that reality that I do everything I can to get home, to see people as much as possible – because it is that life which is going to feed your work”.

  Steering the subject back to her career, she happily tells me she is about to work alongside Steve Carell in The Women of Marwen. And she is enthusiastic about her recent role in Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake: China Girl, the sequel to Campion’s award-winning 2013 TV drama. In it, she played Miranda Hilmarson, a Sydney police officer assigned to work with detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) investigating the death of a woman whose body washes up on Bondi Beach.

  A confirmed Campion fan, Gwendoline wrote to the New Zealand director pleading to be cast in the series, which also stars Nicole Kidman.

  “I love Jane because she is interested in women, in a fairer balance between men and women, and she is very interested in the subject of misogyny.” She adds that Top of the Lake: China Girl “deals with what it is to be a woman and a mother, what it is to deal with feeling marginalised”.

  Other than spending time with friends and family, Gwendoline’s current focus is firmly on her career. So, what are her goals? “To create my own material – write it, direct it, design it, produce it. That is what I would love to do – if I wasn’t so idle and lacking in imagination!”

  Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in cinemas on December 14.

Press: Warrior woman: How Gwendoline Christie escaped the pressure to fit in was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline | Gwendoline Christie Fansite

[dragonydreams]

Finding Where We Belong - BtVS/LoT Crossover 2/5

Title: Finding Where We Belong Fandom: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rating: Teen Pairings/Characters: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart, Spike/Willow Rosenberg, Dawn Summers, Faith Lehane, Legends Team Summary: Faith, Dawn, Willow and Spike end up in Legends ‘verse when their only chance of survival was to escape through a portal Dawn created. When Gideon senses the portals opening but isn’t sure what to make of it, the Waverider crew goes to investigate and find much more than they bargained for. Timeline: BtVS: post-series (ignores comics), Legends: end of Episode 2.10 The Legion of Doom Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, 20th Century Fox Television. Betas: Thank you to angelskuuipo and shanachie for looking this over for me. Author’s Note: This marks my 15 year anniversary writing fanfiction. I don’t know the exact date that I shared my first Willow/Giles story in a Yahoo Group, but it was definitely in September 2012. This milestone anniversary demanded a story that crossed the first fandom I wrote in with my current fandom obsession.

Start from the beginning

Chapter 2

After informing the rest of the crew about what, and who, they'd found, Sara asked Amaya to take their guests to the galley for some much needed food and drinks, while she went with Phil/Rip to the med bay, where Mick had already taken Leonard.

"I don't need to see a doctor," Phil protested. "There's nothing wrong with my memory."

Gritting her teeth against the headache that was forming, Sara ground out, "Fine, but I still want Gideon to check you out and heal any injuries you may have from being tortured."

"It can do that?" Phil asked, in awe.

"It can hear you," Gideon said, causing Phil to stumble back into the medical chair he'd been standing next to. "Please lie down so that I may assess your injuries."

Once he had, Sara wrapped a medical cuff around Phil's wrist, to his startled protests, until he suddenly fell silent.

"Thanks, Gideon," Sara said, knowing the AI had administered a fast-acting sedative. "Let me know what you find out about both his physical injuries and memory loss."

"Will do, Captain," Gideon responded.

Sara crossed the room to where Leonard was lying motionless on another chair. She stood on the opposite side of Leonard from Mick, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed. "And Leonard?" Sara asked.

"Mr. Snart's body is in shock from having been trapped in the time stream for the past several months," Gideon announced. "Otherwise, he appears to be in complete health. The time stream he was trapped in appears to have kept him in perfect stasis."

"When will he wake up?" Mick gruffly asked.

"It shouldn't be long now," Gideon answered.

Wanting to stay by Leonard's side until he woke, Sara knew that she had to go deal with their guests.

"Gideon, please alert me as soon as he wakes up, no matter the time," Sara requested.

"Yes, Captain," Gideon responded.

"You're leaving?" Mick asked, tearing his eyes away from his partner's face in surprise.

"Don't want to," Sara admitted, her hand hovering over Leonard's cheek. "But I need to go be Captain for a while and make sure our guests are settled. If he wakes before I come back, tell him…" she paused, her voice thick with emotion.

"I'll tell him you'll be here soon," Mick finished.

Sara blinked the tears from her eyes and smiled at Mick. "Thanks."

After a quick stop to change back into a pair of ripped jeans and a tee-shirt, Sara headed towards the galley.

The newcomers were sitting at a table, eating heartily. Considering that they looked like they'd just been through a battle, she imagined they needed it.

All except for the blond man, Spike.

"Not hungry?" she asked him.

He smirked at her. "As shiny as your food replicator is, I don't expect that it'll be able to produce what I eat."

"And what's that?" Sara asked.

"Blood," Spike answered.

Sara raised an eyebrow at that. "So the stories about vampires are true? You survive by drinking the blood of the innocent?"

Dawn snorted, then coughed.

"Now just the not-so-innocent," Spike promised. "And usually only bagged stuff from blood banks or animals."

Sara turned to Amaya, who had been watching the group from off to the side of the room. "Can you run to the med bay and grab a couple of bags of blood?"

"Are you sure we should be humoring him?" Amaya asked, not convinced that vampires existed.

"If it makes him sick, it's his own fault," Sara pointed out.

"Not making it up," Spike said.

"You said back at the Vanishing Point that you had a soul. Why did you make a point of mentioning that?" Sara asked.

"I'd like to hear this, too," Nate said, poking his head into the room.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Anyone else eavesdropping out there?"

Ray bashfully stepped into the room beside Nate. Followed by Jax.

"No Stein?" Sara asked.

"Oh, did I hear my name?" Martin asked, as if he'd just been passing by.

Faith and Willow exchanged a look and burst out laughing.

"Oh, yeah, this feels just like home at Slayer Central," Dawn said.

"Grown-ups behaving like children?" Sara asked.

"Yep. Except they were mostly teenagers," Dawn agreed.

Sara raised an eyebrow at that and made a mental note to follow up on it.

"Huddle up, kiddos, and we'll go over Vampires and Slayers 101," Spike said.

Everyone found chairs as Amaya returned with two bags of blood, which she held out to Spike. Starving, Spike shifted to his game face and tore into one of the bags, slurping down the contents.

"Ta," he said licking his lips, once the bag was drained. "Been ages since I was able to properly feed." He relished the shocked looks on their hosts' faces.

"Astonishing," Martin said, breaking the silence.

"Right, so, vampires. To become a vampire, you get drained of most of your blood by a vampire, who then feeds you their blood, causing you to become one, too," Spike said.

"But most vampires don't have souls," Faith added. "When the demon takes over the body, the soul is pushed out, or something. Never really understood how that worked."

"Sounds 'bout right," Spike said.

"So how come you have a soul?" Ray asked. "Were you made wrong?"

"Bite your tongue," Spike hissed. "My sire may have been insane, but I was made right. They didn't call me William the Bloody for nothing."

"Easy, Spike, he doesn't know what he's saying," Willow said, calmly.

Spike adjusted his coat and sat back in a huff.

"I-I'm sorry," Ray stuttered. "I didn't mean any offense."

"Apology accepted," Spike said, grudgingly. "Anyway, I went and fought for my soul. Had to make myself worthy for her."

"Aww, you got a soul because of a woman?" Ray simpered. "How romantic."

"She didn't see it that way," Spike murmured.

"She had good reason," Dawn quietly reminded him.

"I know," he acknowledged. "And my soul is permanent, unlike some cursed poufs that I know."

"Cursed poufs?" Jax asked.

"Angel is another souled vampire we knew," Willow said. "He was a ruthless killer until a gypsy cursed him with a soul, forcing him to feel guilty about everyone he'd killed for over a hundred years. After another century of moping and brooding, he became one of the good guys. He's gone now, like so many of our friends."

"You chose to take on the guilt of a century of killing?" Sara quietly asked, suppressing a shudder as she wrapped her arms around herself.

Spike tilted his head to look at Sara, easily seeing her pain and guilt. He wondered what she had to feel so guilty about. "Was more than a century, but yeah. I'd already been neutered by some soldiers makin' it so that I couldn't harm humans anymore, and I felt that I needed to prove that I could be good on my own and not just because of the chip in my brain."

"Is that why you haven't killed him?" Amaya asked Faith. "You said you are a slayer of vampires, did you not?"

Faith smirked. "That wasn't my call. He was already making nice with Buffy when I rolled into town. She said to leave him alive, so I did."

"She was your commander?" Martin asked.

Faith laughed. "She acted like it, but no, she was the slayer before me." She sat up straighter. "I've gotta back up and give the slayer history."

"Oh, can I do it?" Willow eagerly asked. "I always loved when Giles did it."

"Knock yourself out, Red," Faith allowed.

"Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer," Willow said.

Jax raised his hand. "Um, you said, 'one girl', but weren't there two of you?"

"Smart boy," Faith acknowledged. "When one slayer dies, the next is called out of all of the potential slayers out there. Buffy drowned but was resuscitated. According to the mystical forces or whatever, that still counted as a death so the next Slayer was called. That was actually Kendra, who also died, and then I was called."

"So there haven't been any new Slayers since then, since you're still alive?" Nate asked. "Do you think that you leaving your world would count as a death and call the next slayer?"

"There are no more potential slayers on our Earth," Willow said, sadly.

"Because Willow made them all active Slayers when we were fighting the First Evil," Dawn added. "But also, because they're all dead now."

"We weren't able to find them all in time," Willow said. "They were killed before we found them, or they didn't want to come with us to be trained, or they hadn't trained long enough before going into battle, or…"

Spike reached across the table to cover one of Willow's hands with his. "It's not your fault, love," he said. "There were too many of them to find them all; and in the end, there were still a hundred demons to every slayer."

Ray's jaw dropped. "Hold up, are you two," he gestured between Willow and Spike, "together? I thought you were with Faith."

"What? Because I said I was a computer geek I can't get the hot guy?" Willow asked, turning her hand over to hold Spike's.

"No, that's not it at all," Ray spluttered. "They've just been sitting together and bantering since you got here so I thought…"

"Raymond, I suggest stopping there before that shoe enters your throat," Martin suggested.

"Getting back on track, I have a question," Amaya said. She touched her totem briefly before asking, "You said that Willow activated all of the potential slayers. With magic?"

"You don't believe us?" Dawn asked defensively.

"You misunderstand," Amaya said quickly. "There is not much magic here, but some does exist. The totem that I wear allows me to channel the spirit of any animal and take on their attributes: strength, speed, flight, and so on. I am merely curious to meet someone who possesses magic."

"That explains the buzzing that I've been feeling," Willow said. "I thought it was portal-lag or something. It's the magic from your totem that I'm feeling. It's very powerful."

"Just like my girl," Spike said, proudly.

"What about you, Dawn?" Jax asked. "What's your story?"

Dawn looked to Willow as if silently asking how much to tell them, then nodded. "Until about eight years ago I was energy; a mystical key between dimensions. Some monks wanted to hide me from a crazy goddess who wanted to use me to return to the dimension she was banished from, so they made me human and made everyone think that I was Buffy's little sister. That's the only life that I've ever known, but I wasn't born, I just existed one day as a teenager."

"A bratty teenager," Willow interjected.

"And you retained this ability to open portals in your human form?" Martin asked.

"It took me a while to figure out, but yeah, I can still do it," Dawn said. "It's how we got here."

"You also said something about being a Watcher," Nate said.

"Watchers train slayers," Dawn answered the unasked question. "I know I'm young, but I started hanging out with Buffy and her friends as soon as they let me, so I had access to a lot of Giles' books. He was Buffy's watcher. I could read Sumerian in high school, as well as a handful of other dead languages. I help read the ancient prophecies and prepare the slayers with what they'd need to fight particular demons. Willow does a lot of the research, too. Or, we did. Not sure how those skills will be useful in a world without demons."

"You're sure we don't have demons here?" Ray asked, tentatively.

"It's how we ended up here," Dawn said. "When I created the portal, I told it to take us to a world without demons."

"That's a relief, I guess," Ray said, sitting back with a sigh.

"Now your turn," Spike said, settling back in his chair. "We showed, now you tell."

"As I said before, I'm Sara Lance; Captain of this time ship and former member of the League of Assassins before I became the vigilante Canary. I go by White Canary now. I boarded this ship in the year 2016."

Spike nodded upon hearing that Sara had been an assassin. Explained her look when he talked about his soul. He had a feeling they'd get along just fine.

"What year is it now?" Willow asked.

"I guess that depends on where you are," Sara said. "Right now we're in the time stream, which is basically out of time. When we talk about going home, it's to the year 2017. For most of us."

"It was 2006 for us," Dawn said.

"I am from the year 1942," Amaya offered. "My name is Amaya Jiwe and I was recruited from my home in Zambesi by the Justice Society of America. You may also call me Vixen."

"Ray Palmer. I built a supersuit, A.T.O.M., that lets me fly and shrink down to the size of a, well, atom. Which is also my code name."

"I'm Nate Heywood. I came on board because I'm a historian and I helped find this crew when they were scattered throughout time. Thanks to a serum Ray manipulated, I can also now turn my skin into steel and go by Citizen Steel."

"Since when?" Jax snorted.

"Since always," Nate grumbled.

"I'm Jax. I was an auto mechanic until I became the other half of Firestorm with Grey over there. When we're merged, we can fly and shoot fire. I'm also the ship's mechanic."

"Martin Stein. To give a little more history as to how we came to be partners, in 2013, in Central City, S.T.A.R. Labs turned on a particle accelerator which exploded and released a massive dark matter wave that created what have come to be called meta-humans. The explosion caused me to drop the matrix for the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project that I'd been working on and my body merged with that of my former partner, Ronald Raymond. While we did not know it for a very long time, we had become Firestorm."

"Fast forward to after they figured out who they were and how to control their powers," Jax said. "Ronnie died trying to close a vortex and Grey needed a new partner to merge with otherwise he was gonna die."

"Not that that was much incentive for you at first," Martin chided.

"I came to my senses," Jax conceded.

"In the med bay we have Mick Rory sitting with his unconscious partner, Leonard Snart; the man that Dawn opened a portal for." Sara paused to take a steadying breath. "We thought that Leonard had died holding down a fail-safe button in order to destroy the Oculus wellspring. The Time Masters had been using the Oculus to control people's lives throughout time."

"He sacrificed himself to save the world," Spike said knowingly, a hand unconsciously rising to his chest as he felt the phantom weight of an amulet resting against it.

"Yeah," Sara agreed. "We'd flown off as the explosion started and assumed that he'd been killed by the blast. We've been mourning for him for the past nine months."

"He and the big guy, Mick, they're together?" Willow asked.

"Not that kind of partners," Amaya answered.

"Back in Central City, they were thieves together. Captain Cold and Heatwave; the master thief and the arsonist. They've both switched to the side of good now," Sara added.

"To conclude the introductions, I am Gideon," a voice said out of nowhere.

"Who said that?" Faith asked, suddenly on alert.

"Gideon is the ship's AI," Sara said. "This ship is from the year 2166. The former captain of this ship is Rip Hunter, who is the man that you found tied up."

"He insists his name is Phil," Dawn said.

"That's a long story," Sara said. "Short version is that he touched something dangerous on the ship that not only time scattered him into the past, but also gave him a completely new personality and accent. He's actually English."

While Dawn had been listening, she'd pulled a metallic disc from one of her pockets and had begun to examine it.

Sara had been watching Dawn and realized that the disc looked futuristic. "What have you got there?"

"Oh, um, kleptomania stuck again," Dawn said, blushing. "I found this in the room next to where Phil was being held while everyone was fighting. It was just sitting out there and had interesting markings and I must have slipped it in my pocket."

"Gideon, can you tell what that is?" Jax asked, having stood to get a better look at it. "It looks like something Time Master-y."

"That is a mnemonic archive," Gideon informed them. "That device is designed to store memories."

"Whose memories?" Faith asked.

"Rip Hunter's, I'd guess," Dawn said, turning the device over in her hands before offering it to Sara.

Trying not to sound too hopeful, Sara asked, "Gideon, can you restore Rip's memories from this?"

"I will need to fully examine the device first, but if they truly are Captain Hunter's memories, then yes, I have the ability to restore them," Gideon confirmed.

Jax gave a whoop of excitement.

"Ray, I want you and Martin to work with Gideon on examining this device and restoring Rip's memories," Sara said, passing the device to him.

"On it, Captain," Ray said, eagerly. He and Martin quickly headed to the library to begin their examination.

"The rest of you can take our guests to the fabrication room and help them fabricate new clothes, pajamas, and anything else they might need for a few days. Oh, and fabricate some cots and bedding and get them set up in one of the emptier storage rooms," Sara instructed.

"You've got a room that just makes stuff out of thin air?" Dawn asked. "Like on Star Trek?"

"It's not made out of thin air, but yep," Jax confirm. "C'mon, I'll show you."

"And what will you be doing?" Spike asked Sara.

"I'll be in the med bay waiting for Leonard to wake up."

Chapter 3

[sulietsexual]

I'm the same anon who asked you if you could write a Faith meta a month ago. I just read what you were looking for. I want a meta on why Faith acts the way she does, what attracts her to the "darkness" inside of her, why she compares herself to Buffy, why she is so sexually aggressive, and how she deals with her redemption and trying to be a better person.

You know, Nonnie, thereason this meta has taken so long to complete is because I have reallystruggled with it, and I have no idea why. Faith Lehane is a character I knowinside out, and yet every time I have attempted to write this meta and answeryour questions, I’ve gotten stuck. So, I’m just going attempt a method I usewhen I have writers block, and that is simply to write and see where I end up.So, apologies in advance, because this meta may not end up covering all of yourquestions, but at the very least, it will finally be done and will hopefullystill be a good read.

I don’t think I’mexaggerating when I say that I have never identified as deeply with a characteras I once did with Faith Lehane. This girl was everything I was in my youth –lost, guarded, self-destructive, promiscuous, aggressive and above all ridiculously broken. When she firstturns up in Sunnydale, she is initially presented as a light, carefreepersonality, but within that very first episode we see that all is not as itseems with Faith, as she ends losing control and pummelling a vampire into abloody mess while patrolling with Buffy. The revelation that her Watcher wasbrutally murdered in front of her goes a way to explain her behaviour, but aswe see over the season, there is something verybroken in Faith.

We know little aboutFaith’s background other than she was raised by a single, alcoholic mother, whopassed away at some point before Faith arrived in Sunnydale. From her overalldemeanour and attitude, it would be safe to say that Faith suffered some sort of abuse as a child, as sheprojects a very tough and invulnerable front to the world, and clearly hatesfeeling or being perceived as weak, something a lot of abuse victims have in common. Herattitude towards men suggests some sort of sexual abuse or, at the very least,sexualisation from a young age. When girls are sexualised from young, they cancome to both loathe and grow attached to their perceived attractiveness and“sexiness”, believing that not only is it theirfault that they attract unsavoury and/or older men, but also that this isall there is to them, that their sex appeal is their only weapon and that noman could ever see past this and actually want them for who they actually are.

We certainly seeevidence of this with Faith through many of her interactions with malecharacters. She attempts to call The Mayor “Sugar Daddy” indicating that shebelieves that he will demand some sort of sexual payment for her new digs.Later in the series, we see her seduce Robin Wood, then rebuff him the nextday, only for him to actually persist in his romantic pursuit of her, throwingher off-guard when she realises that he may actually want to get to know herand start a relationship. And then there is her rape of Riley, after which hesays “I love you” to her while believing that she is Buffy, and her reaction tohis words, which shake her so badly that she immediately tries to escape thesituation, tearfully asking Riley “What do you want from her?”.

Faith’s disconnect fromemotion-based sex is, I believe, another indicator of possible sexual abuse orassault in her past. Victims of rape often detach from the act of lovemaking,unable to associate the act with positive emotions, because it was turned intosomething violent and ugly. This is one of the reasons a lot of women who wereabused/assaulted as children/teenagers enter the sex industry, as sex becomessomething unemotional, something easily given and forgotten about. We certainlysee this with Faith, who speaks of men in terms of things to be used anddiscarded, never allowing her emotions to get in the way.

Faith is also a verysexually aggressive person, once again indicating that she may be a victim ofsexual assault. Abuse is like a cycle, with many victims growing up to beabusers due to the deep psychological scars they carry, and Faith certainlyseems to fit this pattern, attempting to rape Xander and later actually rapingRiley and possibly Buffy too (it’s unclear as to whether she did rape Buffy,given that Buffy’s consciousness was not actually in her body at the time ofthe rape). But this aggression, coupled with her general aggression and sadism,could definitely indicate sexual assault or abuse.

Outside of her sexualactivity and attitude, there is still so much to unpack when it comes to Faith.Like Buffy, she suffers simultaneously from an inferiority and superiority complex, both sides of which drive her over the courseof Seasons 3 and 4. When she arrives in Sunnydale she and Buffy are equallyjealous of each other, but while Buffy’s jealousy (mostly) disappears after oneepisode, Faith’s jealousy of Buffy follows her through pretty much the wholeseries, and is a major driving factor in her hatred towards and victimization of Buffy.

Part of this jealouslycomes from her romantic feelings for Buffy, but I believe the deeper reasoning forthis jealousy comes down to everything Buffy has versus everything Faithdoesn’t. When Faith first arrives in Sunnydale she is confronted with a lifeshe could have had – a Watcher, aloving mother and a close friendship group. She sees how all these people adoreBuffy, how they are all there for her and support her. Faith, never having had any of these (bar the Watcher part, andeven then, only for a short period of time) naturally grows extremely jealousof Buffy, wondering why Buffy gets everything Faith has ever desired while sheis left out in the cold. And, to be perfectly frank, Buffy doesn’t exactly domuch to sway Faith from this frame of mind.

In-Universe (and evenin the fandom) everyone (including Faith once she starts her redemption) claimsthat Buffy was always there for Faith, that she tried so hard with her, that Faith was so lucky to have Buffy as afriend. Except, this isn’t really true. In my opinion, Buffy never really tried with Faith. She wasopenly jealous and distrustful of Faith when Faith first turned up, she keptFaith out of the loop when Angel returned, made a half-hearted attempt to talkto her after the Gwendoline Post incident, but gave up before even reallytrying (even though it was painfully obvious Faith wanted to open up but didn’tknow how), talked about hanging with Faith but never followed through, andreally only genuinely tried with Faith when she had Angel try to talk her downafter the murder of the deputy mayor, an event which I feel Buffy herselfshould take some responsibility for, and an action which I suspect was fueledpartially by Buffy’s own guilt.

When you add all ofthis together, the jealousy, the inferiority complex and the lack of friendshipand reciprocity from Buffy, it’s easy to see why Faith turns on Buffy (and byextension the Scoobies) so completely, especiallywhen you compare their treatment of her to the way the Mayor treats her.Where the Scoobies and Giles never seemed to much care for Faith, treating herwith apathy and even downright mistrust (even before she had done anything toearn said mistrust), the Mayor not only instantly accepts her, but makes itvery clear that he cares about her. He moves her out of the flea-bag motel theScoobies and Giles were happy to leave her in, makes her feel welcome and lovedand, above all, special. In theMayor, Faith finds the parent she has always wanted, the love and acceptanceshe has always craved, and the feeling of belonging she has been striving toachieve ever since she arrived in Sunnydale.

Now, I am in no waycondoning Faith’s actions towards Buffy and the Scoobies, nor am I trying toexcuse the evil that she has done. Faith alone is responsible for her actions.However, given her history with the Scoobies and their treatment of her, it iseasy to see the reason why she turned on them so completely. She sought loveand acceptance with them, and instead received distrust and disdain. When shefalls into her coma, they barely give her a second thought, and upon waking,she finds that everyone has moved on without her, a fact which greatly distressesher and puts her back on her path or darkness.

Post-coma, however, somethinghas changed in Faith. Possibly tied to the fact that the world has moved onwithout her, possibly influenced by her grief over losing the Mayor and possibly tied to the nightmares and psychological trauma she underwent while in her coma,the Faith who emerges in Season 4 is far more self-loathing and suicidal thanwe have ever seen her. While Faith was never a great example for self-esteem,the Mayor’s love and support gave her enough hope and light that she was ableto overcome her suicidal tendencies (which are evident almost from her firstappearance) and learn to accept and even moderately like herself, even despiteall her evil. Without the Mayor, she is lost, with no one in her corner, and soall her old issues come to the surface, not to mention several new ones.

The Faith who comes outof the coma is not the same girl who fell off the roof at the end of Season 3. The Faith who comes outof the coma is lost, self-loathing, weighted down by the guilt of her pastactions and unable to see any solution except death. She still goes after andseverely victimizes Buffy (and by extension Riley), but this time around she’snot driven by hatred or jealousy or even her own sadism, but by a desire toescape herself. She steals Buffy’s body and identity, and through this, startsto realise that there may be more for herself out there, the opportunity tohave love and acceptance, to do good the way Buffy does, and this exacerbatesher self-loathing, culminating in her brutal beating of her own image beforeshe escapes to L.A.

Her appearance in thetwo-parter AtS episode is Faith at her lowest, most broken and most self-hatingand suicidal, as we see her kidnap and brutally torture Wesley. Wesley’storture is probably one of Faith’s most heinous crimes, showing just how farshe has fallen. While Faith is and always has been a dark person, her tortureof Wesley is less about her own sadism and more about her self-loathing anddesire to end her life, as she uses Wesley’s torture to try to push Angel intokilling her. The weight of her guilt, her darkness and the memories of hercrimes have pushed her to a place where she believes death is not only the onlyoption for her, but also the most fitting punishment, evidenced as she screamsat Angel “I’m bad, I’m evil” and begs him to end her life.

Luckily for her, Angelrefuses to do so, recognising a soul who needs saving and identifying with thedarkness that lies within Faith’s heart. Through Angel, Faith is able to takeher first step towards redemption, because Angel offers her safe haven andsanctuary, while simultaneously making sure Faith knows that she must makeamends, that she can’t outrun her past and that she must face the consequencesof her actions, and through all of this, Faith finally realises that she willnever find peace or happiness unless she makes a genuine attempt at redemption,until she truly faces the repercussions of all her crimes. As she sits in thejail cell in the final shot of Sanctuary, we see, possibly for the first time,an accepting Faith, a Faith ready to face consequences, a Faith who mightfinally find some inner peace.

While Faith doeseventually find some peace and learn to accept herself, she continues tostruggle and fight against the darkness within. While Faith is, in part, shapedby her circumstances, the abuse she has suffered and the rejection she hasdealt with, there is a part of her which is just dark, part of who she is at her core. This innate darkness is whatFaith struggles with on a day-to-day basis, an inner demon she must learn tocontrol and live with. Similar to the darkness which resides within Angel,Faith’s more sadistic side genuinely enjoys inflicting pain, and the fight tokeep it under control will probably follow her for the rest of her life, especially since she gave in to it, letit free and got a taste of it. Because she let the beast out, it tasted blood,liked the taste, and keeps demanding more. Similar to the way alcoholics mustresist liquor, Faith must resist her darkness, which we see her do time andagain when she returns to AtS and BtVS in later seasons.

I feel like there ismore to write, as Faith is such a complex character that she could probablyinspire novels of meta, but I alsofeel that I have rambled on long enough, so I am going to tap out here. Icannot apologise enough for how long this meta has taken, and I also apologisethat it may not have covered everything you asked for, but hopefully it hasprovided you with a good read and a greater appreciation for the amazinglycomplex character that is Faith Lehane.

[theclacks]

Buffy (Season 5) & Angel (Season 2) Thoughts

So, I was watching these at a pretty slow pace... and then Fool For Love happened. And I went from watching approx 1 episodes a day to 5 episodes a day.

As always thoughts below the cut. (Previous thoughts: Buffy 1 & 2, Buffy 3, Buffy 4 & Angel 1). 

Buffy - Season 5

On how it compares with past seasons...

So, season 2 is STILL my all time favorite. I did like season 5 over both season 3 AND season 4 though, which is probably because of totally because of Spike. But at the same time, I don’t think it can be disconnected from season 4. Like season 5 is really the second half of season 4. Xander finding his place in society is directly linked to his issues of being a basement bum in season 4. Giles becoming the Magic Box’s owner is directly linked to his issues with being unemployed in season 4. Riley’s issues with being Riley is... well, because he’s Riley but yeah.

On Riley...

Going to get him out of the way, so I can talk about other things. I like that their relationship fell apart naturally over the course of several episodes. And I think it was a good tie that Spike was the one who “caused” it because, like The Yoko Factor last season, it was him “causing” rifts that were really already there. (And in this case didn’t even “cause” it so much as play delivery boy.)

I’ve been reading some fanfic in between eps, and so much of it (in fics where Riley’s involved) includes lines to the general tune of “Buffy never REALLY liked Riley” or “Riley rarely ever gave Buffy orgasms” and I think that’s unfair because Riley was a nice guy. And I appreciate the writers tried her out in a relationship like that because sometimes relationships aren’t this grand life-or-death emotional cocktail. Sometimes one party’s just a little bit more in love with one side than the other. Sometimes they have miscommunication issues. Sometimes that’s enough. And sometimes it isn’t.

On Dawn...

I liked her. I thought she was going to be annoying, but I liked her. Maybe it’s the younger sister in me. I loved her buddy-buddy relationship with Spike. I liked her whole backstory and status as the key, which I had no idea/prior knowledge about going it. In fact, before I started watching, I knew Buffy eventually got a sister, but I assumed it was some divorce thing and Joyce eventually got full custody or something. Then as I started watching the show, I knew that couldn’t be the case, and for the first four seasons I was theorizing between long lost sibling, Joyce suddenly has a baby and the baby gets stuck in a time loop or demon dimension until it reaches middle school age, etc, so it was kind of cool having all of that play out.

On Anya and Giles...

I just want to give a little shout out to them because other than Dawn & Spike, theirs was my favorite unexpected relationship. I like how their development both paired and contrasted Buffy & Giles, how the writers balanced the fatherly aspect of Giles with the more short-tempered, professional boss aspect.

On Ben/Glory...

I think they could’ve done a bit more with the Ben side of Ben and Glory. I liked the development he got at the end and how he ultimately picked Glory’s side without fully picking it, and I loved how Giles tossed aside the “hero” mantra and ended him, but yeah. I just feel like there could’ve been a bit “more” even when I don’t know what that “more” is.

As for Glory, I love her. And even though I get from Glory’s end why her appearances were scattered throughout the year (being literally scatterbrained and all) but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense why Buffy waited until after Dawn had been kidnapped to try and take her out. Like, yes, Buffy was scared and had to be backed into a corner (and Willow-pep-talked out of it), but their main attack plan revolved around having the God-forged hammer and the golden orb thing. THEY HAD THE GOLDEN ORB THING THE ENTIRE TIME. THEY KNEW IT HAD GLORY-REPELLING POWERS. WHY WERE THEY LETTING THE ORB CHILL IN THE BASEMENT THIS WHOLE TIME? I mean, and considering the fact the orb only stopped her for a couple seconds, narratively, they could’ve used it earlier. I kind of wish there’d been a mid-season episode where they tried to launch a full attack with the orb and what not, and failed and almost got Dawn discovered/killed, and THEN they could’ve been like “welp, we tried a full attack and exhausted our god-repelling items, okay, NOW let’s go into avoidance mode.” IDK, this is me. Backseat writing. Because I think that was the one main issue for me this season that could’ve taken the overarching plot from good to great.

On Joyce...

The Body was an amazing episode. I didn’t even realize until I was reading AV Club’s recap/review of it that there was no background music during the whole thing. And I was still riveted. I think one of my favorite bits of the entire season, perhaps the entire series, is when Willow is freaking out over her blue sweater and Anya - who’s missed the majority of the freak out - ends up sitting on it and stuffing it back into the closest drawer. It was such an understated moment, and while watching I wanted Tara or Xander to notice, or for Willow to check her drawers one last time, but then she would have her sweater and things would be okay... except they wouldn’t be because Joyce is still dead and something as small as a sweater doesn’t matter at all in the long run.

And Joyce is another reason why I’m glad that Dawn became a thing this season because it gave her more screen time. Lack of Joyce-screen time was probably one of my least favorite things about season four. I mean, it made sense because of college and independence and all of that, but I don’t care. I love Joyce. I like having her on my screen. And I will miss her.

On Spike...

HELLO NEW FAVORITE EPISODE IN THE FORM OF FOOL FOR LOVE. But before I get into that, let’s have a moment of silence for the glorious friendship that was Spike/Joyce. From shared relationship-talk over marshmallows and chocolate to geekish fangirling over the soap opera passions, they were and forever will be, my Buffy BroTP. I’m so happy that the writers gave him a small scene where he showed up with flowers for Joyce because I would’ve needed closure. (*shakes a fist angrily at Steven Moffat for writing off Amy and Rory without a filmed canon scene of saying goodbye to Rory’s dad*)

But yeah. Fool For Love aka MY DEMAND FOR A SPIKE FLASHBACK EPISODE IN SEASON THREE WAS RETROACTIVELY MET. And it was awesome. Spike as a repressed poet was amazing, and what makes it even better is that I was reading a fanfic last month and got spoiled for that detail, but the fanfic was just off enough with its dialogue and characterization and the idea of Spike as a bloody awful poet was so ridiculous that I tossed the detail aside as fluffy, silly head canon. Also did I miss/misinterpret some dialogue in season 2? Because I could’ve sworn in season 2 that Dru and Spike were vamp-siblings with Angel being their mutual sire. But I’m totally fine with it being this way too.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the Buffy/Spike relationship in this season, but I won’t because I want to wrap this up and start season 6, so I’ll just say:

- favorite bit of James Marsters acting, beyond the end of Fool For Love with him in the alley with Buffy’s cash and beyond the end of Gift with him outright sobbing, would be his bit at the end of Crush where he realizes Buffy has dis-invited him from her house; I think I rewatched that bit 3+ times because the betrayal and hurt in his eyes is just so good

- also re: the end of Crush, I love how his hurt stems not just from Buffy shutting him out, but him getting shut out from the whole Summers family because at that point he’s friends with Joyce, he’s friends with Dawn, he wants to be a part of their family... which I think really ties into the flashback bits of Fool For Love too; the night in Shanghai was the best night of his life, not just because he killed a slayer, but because he had his whole family to revel in the chaos with; saying it right here, right now, screwing being on Team Angel or Team Spike, I am firmly in TEAM GIVE SPIKE A FAMILY

- I love how in the entire season, there was only one Buffy/Spike kiss and it was a chaste one at that; I love how Spike’s development was one from conditional love (say you love me and I’ll spike Dru, say you love me or I’ll get a buffybot who HAS to love me) to unconditional love (I know you don’t love me and you won’t ever love me, but that’s okay). I think it was important that Spike not get “rewarded” for slowly changing sides

- also the buffybot, I thought it was going to be a terrible, awkward episode but it ended up being one of my favorites in the season; i mean, it was still awkward in spots (as buffy said, “gross and obscene”) but the buffybot was just too plain funny for the awkwardness to stick long; the bits where the buffybot asks Anya about her money and starts listing off insults about Angel had me bursting out in laughter; especially the Angel insults because I could just imagine with Spike and a pad of paper in his crypt, scrawling them down like, “YEAH. AND HIS HAIR. GRANDSIRE HAS STUPID, SPIKY HAIR”

- so... with Buffy (temporarily) gone, is Spike just going to hang around Sunnydale? he’s the main vamp killer, so is he going to be the vampire slayer in order to help protect Dawn (aka Buffy’s legacy)? will he and Dawn hang out because they’re still bros and they both miss Buffy and don’t have any other family? I JUST WANT SPIKE AND DAWN TO BE BROS LIKE SPIKE AND JOYCE WERE BROS. THEY CAN GO WATCH EPISODES OF PASSION TOGETHER AND LAUGH AND CRY AND BOND. THIS IS ALL I WANT FROM SEASON 6, JOSS. IT’S ALL I WANT.

On miscellaneousness...

- Anya is officially my favorite character on Buffy after Spike. When I whole bunch of rubble fell on her at the end of the Gift I temporarily stopped breathing because I was just like “NOT ANYA. SHE CANNOT DIE. NO, NOT ANYA. NO.”

- Joel Grey as a demon, yay emcee from Cabaret

- before I started watching Buffy, I, like the buffybot, also thought Giles’ name was pronounced with a hard-G

- so... with Giles still alive, I’m starting to get pleasantly confused. At the beginning of season three, I posted this list of stuff I got pre-spoilered for before I started watching the show. But now I’m starting to wonder if Giles actually dies. Because I thought I remembered something about him dying in season five, or like stuff about a dying scene... except now I’m thinking that the “dying scene” was actually talking about a “dying” scene. Like dying but not ACTUALLY dead. Because I think it was the one that happens at the end of the season with him impaled... which would mean Giles doesn’t die. I think I might’ve gotten a schroedinger spoiler

Angel - Season 2

On the Darla arc...

I thought I would hate this arc, and I half-did. I hated the whole start of it with Darla in his dreams and Angel distancing himself from his crew via restlessness/extensive sleeping. I loved everything after they ended up meeting in real life, from her coming to grips with her humanity to becoming a vampire again with a bit confusion, to her slipping fully back down the darkside. It helped that Dru was there. I was starting to think that Dru would only ever appear in flashbacks again. I love Dru

On the post-Darla arc...

I really kind of hated this arc. I get what the show was trying to do, showing Wesley, Gunn, and Cordelia coming into their own WITHOUT Angel (among other things), but the Angel episodes with just Angel were so borrrrrrrring. (With the exception of the Angel/Lorne episode. That was awesome. Lorne in general is awesome. He’s my favorite Angel character after Cordelia.) They’d show W/G/C fighting a fire-breathing monster or solving a murder mystery clue style for 5 minutes and it was awful because I’m like “no, stop cutting back to Angel, THAT’S the show I want to be watching right now.” And because of the short screen time, I felt there was less W/G/C teamship than there was Wesley and Gunn becoming closer bros with Cordelia getting shafted. Cordelia, I felt, got shafted a lot in this season with the except of the finale, which speaking of...

On the Pylea finale...

OH MY GOD I LOVED THESE EPISODES SO MUCH. Like they were definitely silly in spots but I LOVE silly and the whole off-world aspect reminded me of Stargate in all the best ways. I want to print these episodes off somewhere and frame them. (NUMFAR! DO THE DANCE OF JOY!). And Cordelia got so much focus that I actually got pretty dang worried towards the end that these would be her send off episodes, that she’d choose to or be forced to stay behind and be princess of a demon dimension. (Which would’ve been an awesome send off, ngl.) If Angel ends up moving in a direction more like that, I’m going to be super stoked because while a lot of this season was objectively “good”, it didn’t pull me into watching it like Buffy season 5 did.

Also the finale made me realize, just how much I want to see more of happy!Angel. His whole bits with the sunlight and the mirrors were puppy-endearing, comedy gold (”There’s some branches over in that patch of sun. I’ll get ‘em!”). :D 

On Lorne...

Lorne is my perfect man. He loves music, he’s at inner peace with himself and helps the inner peace of others, and his wardrobe is fabulous. The fakeout with his death was terrible... and then awesome as soon as his eyes popped back open. You guys have no idea how scared I was in the Pylea finale, that I might’ve been about to lose BOTH of my favorite characters.

Which, by the way, I’m starting to think that’s one of the reasons why I don’t love season 3 of Buffy quite the way that others do. Spike and Cordelia are my two favorite characters; Spike wasn’t in season 3 and Cordelia got largely shafted after Xander broke up with her.

On Lindsey...

He’s a bro. I’m hoping we see more of him... but also not because he seems to be in a good place and if he pops up again, he probably won’t be in a good place anymore.

On what I hope for going into Season 3...

- more team bonding

- more team bonding

- more team bonding

- Cordelia being awesome

- more Cordelia/Angel friendship moments because theirs is a beautiful friendship

- more team bonding

[iknownothingihearnothing]

UGH (update and rundown)

UGH

I’m sorry. SORRY SORRY SORRY. I know it’s been an absurdly long time-like, years. My health has, unfortunately, been SHIT. And while it has improved recently with the medications I’m on and the physical therapy I’m currently in, it is not exactly up to par yet.

I IMPLORE you guys, if you have health, don’t take advantage of it. Please? Because this shiz is BANANAS.

As it is, I’ve only recently been able to leave the frigging HOUSE, if you can imagine THAT crap. And I was on all these meds before that caused my hair to start shedding; I’ve been taking biotin like mad because it’ my HAIR and HELL NO. 

ANYWAY. That unpleasant business ‘splained, let’s get down to brass tracks. By which I mean pop culture because what else is important in life?

First off, Droughtlander--the show won’t be back until SEPTEMBER this year and, much like Jack Dawson before he froze to death and Rose did, indeed, let go, many fans tend to write a s-s-strongly w-worded letter to the W-white S-starz Line. September?!

See? Even Bernie agrees. 

Once Upon A Time has jumped aboard the Random Musical Episode train. I believe it’s this week’s episode. Emma’s getting married to Captain Hook. Yay! One of my ‘ships finally worked out (at least on camera). Buffy did the Random Musical Episode fantastically with “Once More With Feeling” but the trope has withered since then. It has become a trope instead of a cool new thing. And, granted, I am not the best judge of character for musicals anymore. When “OMWF” premiered, I could still hear, but now that I’m deaf, I’m just going to have to guess. Y’all are going to have to help a girl out. Lemme know how the episode goes. If it’s awesome or an epic fail. 

Speaking of Buffy (like my segue?), HOLY SHIT THE Entertainment Weekly reunion!!

When I saw this, I...may have emitted not quite human-sounding fan-like squeals of excitement. Buffy was THE show, man. It got me through high school. “Two more hours of this crap and I can go home and watch BtVS.” I had wicked serious emotional reactions to what the characters did or didn’t do. I puked once. Cried WAY more than once. And that is mainly due to how amazingly the actors embodied their parts. 

As well as the chemistry between the core couples. 

I watched both Buffy and Angel. Both shows garnered such reactions. They’ve been off the air for years now and my insane obsession had waned. No more searching endlessly through the internetz for spoilers, no more bitching on message boards (this was in the Time Before Social Media *gasp*), no more love-hate watching. I could breathe again.

AND NOW THIS! EW, you have officially reignited my Buffysession. I recently bought two shirts, an “I was born on a hellmouth” mug, a stake necklace, and a cheap replica of Anya’s pendant. 

I haven’t tried to turn my exes into trolls yet. It’s on my to-do list.

What’s that? Angel or Spike?

Duh.

<3<3<3 

Good lord. That last kiss from the “I Will Remember You” episode (voted the best in Angel’s run in the magazine that went with the show) makes my toes curl. All girls wanna be kissed like that. Particularly by a guy that looks like David Boreanaz. 

Oh, David. You hunka hunka burning something or other. 

Seriously. Is any other guy in Hollywood aging better?

Or at least drinking the blood of innocents. But even Angel didn’t do that. 

Angelus on the other hand...

Yeah, even in game face he’s hot. 

BT-Dubbs, Hollywood people? Hire the Buffy makeup crew. All that ridiculous CGI looks stupid. It’s like we’re all watching a video game. 

So yeah, Buffy and Angel are my OTP. They were my original OTP back before OTP meant anything. I just love those star-crossed, Romeo and Juliet-type romances where the pairing in question are obvs totes meant to be but THERE BE OBSTACLES. And being a vampire and a vampire Slayer, there were gonna be MAD obstacles, son. Like, whoa. 

Look, I will admit Spuffy had chemistry. But it was unhealthy from the beginning (James Marsters himself has said this). I was young during the original airings of the earlier seasons so I didn’t really get into the show until season 5ish. I was intrigued by Spuffy after OMWF aired, but then FX aired a marathon of the earlier seasons and I fell in love with B/A. I preferred them. 

Then, of course, “Seeing Red” premiered, and made me a diehard. I don’t care what anyone says, yo. Soul or no soul. I could NOT look at the character of Spike the same way after that. It made me want to throw up...and did. That was just horrendous. And no one’s gonna change my mind about that. People have tried; you’re wasting your breath and/or your keyboard strokes. 

So, yeah, that’s my main ‘ship.

Never has there been a more accurate gif. 

I also like Cordelia and Xander. I thought they brought out the good in each other. Plus they were hilarious.

Willow and Tara or Willow and Oz. Either one. Though Willow and Tara was groundbreaking. It really was the first lesbian relationship to be shown on television in a true, respectful way. Not as a joke.

Of course, this just made her death at Warren’s hands all the more horrifying and heartbreaking.

And, personally, I think Giles and Joyce shoulda hooked up *snerk*. I loved them in “Band Candy”.

Oh man. Imagine the future awks if this had occurred. Hysterical. 

Moving on--painfully, sigh--from the Buffyverse, 13 Reasons Why on Netflix was fabulous. I read the book ten years ago when it came out and I remember liking it a lot, but the series was even better, and I do NOT say that lightly about a book adaptation. It was fantastic. All the parts were perfectly cast. Dylan Minnette and Katherine Langford, especially, were exquisite as Clay and Hannah.

It’s been kind of a phenomenon--remarkable, considering most of the actors were unknowns or close to it before the show premiered. And now some stalker is leaving notes on Dylan Minnette’s car.

Yikes!

People are wondering if there will--or even should be--a season two. If season one was about Hannah’s story, a potential season two would likely follow those loose ends dangled in the finale. Cray Peeping Tom Tyler and his guns, Alex’s suicide attempt, Victim Blame-y Guidance Counselor Mr. Porter’s tape, and Awful Bryce. The PTB at 13 Reasons Why certainly have enough to work with to warrant a second season and fuck me if I ain’t curious. Hell, Jay Asher himself is curious. So I say...sure! Go ahead with yo’ bad selves, 13 Reasons Why peeps! 

There’s been no official announcement yet but the show made oodles of Bennies for Netflix. Methinks one is forthcoming. 

No new shows have really jumped out at me, otherwise. I like Riverdale, Making History, and This is Us, though I do not cry during every episode like every media outlet repeatedly tells me I should be doing. 

Timeless and The Good Place were good too. For me, a noted history nerd, Timeless is exactly my cup of tea. I could see recappin’ it next season. I am also looking forward to Still Star-crossed and The Handmaid’s Tale. Oh and I’m liking Girlboss. Sophia is my kinda awful.  I may recap that sum’bitch. 

Okay, to wit--my health sucks, I am a diehard Buffy/Angel shipper, the reunion was awesome, 13 Reasons Why was fantastic, the new class crop was kinda meh with a few exceptions. And I’m back to posting and not taking a year and a half break in between. 

So, ‘til then!

-Deaf Chick

[tialovestelevision]

Revelations

Well, that was fun. Let’s see what’s next on the list, why don’t we? I don’t really remember this episode at all. 1. Another Dingoes Ate My Baby concert to start us out. 2. Guuuuuilt. 3. They think Buffy is acting strangely. The thing is, even without knowing about Angel, her behavior isn’t strange at all. Maybe they should watch Dead Man’s Party again. 4. Buffy thinks she and Faith are just good friends. I’m not sure Faith agrees. 5. Where was Faith during the last episode? She would have been helpful. 6. I love watching Buffy and Faith work together. They get the best action scenes the show’s yet generated. 7. Huh. New Watcher for Faith. 8. I know Faith gets another Watcher later in the season, so Mrs. Post is doomed, evil, or both. 9. Given how awful she’s being to Giles, probably both. 10. “Interesting lady. Can we kill her?” “I think the Council might frown on that.” 11. Now Buffy and Angel are doing yoga together. 12. And barely not making out. 13. David Boreanaz is starting to age a bit, visibly. Not a ton, but he distinctly looks different from the first episode of the show. I mean, so does everyone else, but Angel’s a vampire, so that’s a small issue. 14. Angel knows the name Lagos. But he’s not giving details. 15. “Then go home. If you choose to stay, then work.” 16. Xander and Willow are together again. We’re getting another scene in the painfully slow-burning disintegration of their relationships. 17. Willow says stop. Xander expresses that he understands what that word means. Xander does not stop. 18. There. He stopped. 19. And now they’re kissing again. 20. Giles saved them from kissing even more. 21. If that’s Lagos, he just no-sold Faith’s high knee. That’s a bad sign. 22. Then he gut-punched her and left. 23. “Hey, Giles, here’s a nifty idea. Why don’t I alleviate my guilt by going out and getting myself really, really killed?” I’m all for it, Xander. 24. Xander just saw Angel. That’s probably a bad thing. 25. Angel didn’t see Xander. 26. Now Xander is in Angel’s house. That’s not a good place to hang out alone and uninvited, Xander. 27. And now Xander has seen Buffy making out with Angel. In other news, Buffy is making out with Angel. 28. Angel found the Glove of Mynhegon. That was nice of him. 29. Xander arrives at the worst moments. Always. 30. Great. Group confrontation on Buffy. Again. Lovely. They need to stop that shit. 31. Xander: “I hope not. Because I think you’re harboring a vicious killer.” Xander, you do not want to go down the road of things people do when possessed by demons, do you? I seem to recall a certain hyena demon and a certain attempted rape in your past. 32. “You must have known it was wrong seeing Angel, or you wouldn’t have hidden it from all of us.” Or maybe it’s because Dead Man’s Party happened. That’s a possibility, isn’t it? 33. “What, you just tripped and fell on his lips?” Xander, do you want to get into it on ill-advised kissing? 34. Willow is handling this… relatively well, except that she’s failing to account for the fact that everyone else involved - especially Xander and Cordy - aren’t. I mean, she’s still misguided, but she’s a very reasonable sort of misguided. Xander is venomous, and Cordy is being her worst self. 35. Giles cutting that one off was the best action anyone took during that scene. 36. I get Giles here. He probably suffered the worst trauma of anyone during Evil Angel’s actions with the possible exception of Buffy herself. But his personal connection to the issue means that keeping him out of the loop could easily be a sign of respect for his job - a respect that knows its boundaries. Giles is an angry man, down at his core, and Evil Angel murdered someone he cared for then tortured him at length before having Dru violate his mind. Nobody could be unbiased after that, and nobody could remember that it wasn’t Angel the man, but Evil Angel the demon who did it when looking into the eyes that watched his torture. 37. And here’s Mrs. Post trying to drive wedges between Faith and Buffy. Definitely evil and doomed. 38. Buffy’s brilliant plan is actually pretty good. It would be better if they secured the Glove first, but it’s a pretty good plan. 39. And Xander’s playing right into Mrs. Post’s plan, because of course he is. 40. Now Xander and Faith are going to try to kill Angel. Because of course Xander’s going to encourage that. 41. Mrs. Post doesn’t want Giles to destroy the Glove. And has now KOed him. Definitely evil. Probably doomed. 42. Guilt Girl Willow. 43. Oh, look, Willow and Buffy found Lagos. 44. He’s underselling Buffy’s moves, but at least he’s not no-selling them. 45. Headless Lagos! 46. … Wow. Xander didn’t jump straight to Angel having brained Giles. He’s… being reasonable. Of course, he’s already done his part - Faith is riled up to the point of murder. But this is a surprising attempt at actually being helpful from him. 47. Xander is actively attempting to murder Angel again. 48. Mrs. Post just brained Angel. That’s… not going to help as much as one might think. 49. I just watched through the whole fight between Buffy and Faith, and against Mrs. Post. That was quite good… Buffy vs. Faith is probably the best fight scene the show’s had so far, and Mrs. Post with the Glove was scary. The way they won worked. The emotional dynamics worked. That whole scene just worked. 50. Buffy should not be asking Xander if they are cool. She was right, all along, he was wrong, and he tried to have an innocent man murdered. Again. Xander should be pleading for forgiveness, if social dynamics are our main concern. 51. Why was Giles not informed when Mrs. Post was thrown out? Why didn’t he call the Council to check? The Watchers never talk and that causes all the problems in this episode. 52. Buffy trying to build bridges here is sweet. Overall: There’s a lot to break down in that one. It once again wanders into the fact that the show tends to absolve some characters (Xander, Joyce) of blame while others (Angel, Buffy) are expected to carry guilt for things that they had no power over or knowledge of the implications of. But that’s incidental to what was a fairly well-assembled episode. It’s also a good opportunity to talk about television and institutions. I’ll put up another post about that once it’s written. Good episode, action-packed, enjoyable, and Mrs. Post was an effective villain. Xander was also a fairly effective villain, but in ways that really should be pushing him out of the main cast and aren’t.