#and like i completely understand the love for willow and tara. and it sounds like the buffy/angel/spike thing is a driving force of the show | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

boldlyvoid · 3 years ago

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Amoreena | chapter four

Chapter Four

summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Warnings: fluff, hurt/comfort, depressed spencer, reader has a daughter, falling in love, strangers to lovers, library smut, oral (female receiving) lots and lots of fluff

word count: 3.9k

from the beginning <3

Everyone at work was very understanding. Almost all of them saw it coming, he was taking more sick days than normal and he wasn’t putting up a fight anymore when the 30 days was required to take rolled around. They were profilers after all.

He arrives on Thursday morning to pack his desk. The team is finally home and all together to wish him well on his future journey, giving him hugs and kisses as they each visited his desk.

They had already replaced him, Will LaMontagne was giving the FBI a shot, finally. Spending more time with JJ, the kids were old enough now to accept both of them working. And Kate Callahan was back, now that her baby wasn’t a baby anymore either.

Even Penelope and Derek showed up, bringing a cake that said ‘happy retirement’ written across the frosting. They were happy for him, they shared the same excitement he had. There was a thrill in his eyes again as they asked him about his plans.

“Tell us about this Y/N you met,” Emily cut into the laughter to get to the serious topics.

“I’ve been going to the park a lot recently and I found this little reading nook by a pond. She was there with her daughter and they invited me over to their picnic,” he realized how fake it all sounded as he continued to speak. “Her daughter is wonderful and super smart, I took them to the Smithsonian on Sunday and I’m completely smitten.”

Everyone swooned, happy to see him finally finding someone that makes him gush like this. It had been a very, very long time since Spencer has told any of them about a person, let alone someone he was in love with.

“She is wonderful,” Penelope added, “she makes the best tea and she lives in a literal Disney movie.”

Spencer laughed, “yeah she does. They probably read more books than I have, they make so many references all the time and they even dress up for what they’re reading, it’s amazing.”

They were amazed by how giddy he was, unable to stop smiling at him, “here we dressed up for the museum, I was milo from Atlantis and she was the old man in Tarzan,” he pulled his phone from his pocket to show them the photo.

It was his background now, Y/N sent it to him when he finally went back to his place Monday night, knowing he’d miss them. Not wanting him to be alone.

He was beyond proud to show them the photo, beaming from ear to ear as they all complimented his attire.

“She looks like you,” Kate added, “must be the genius gene,” she added, making awkward eye contact with JJ as they both clocked it.

“She’s exactly like me, that’s why Y/N likes having me around, it’s good for Amoreena to feel normal with the way our brains work,” he spoke about her like she was his own. Forever grateful to have her in his life.

“So when are you proposing?” Matt teased him. Knowing the feeling of love like this all too well with his perfect wife and a handful of children.

“I’m not trying to jinx anything,” Spencer admitted. “I actually have a job interview at the Library she works at later, so I’ll be around here a lot more.”

“He’ll be moved in by the end of the month,” Tara smiled, proud of him and the courage it takes to follow your heart.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” he presses his lips together softly, nodding as he avoids eye contact with them. “But you can call me whenever you need my brain, I guess.”

Hugs were exchanged as Spencer had to leave, Derek even offered to drive him back to his apartment to help with 4 boxes of books from his desk, and to have a bit of a talk like they always do.

“It’s surprisingly easy to be a dad, all you have to do is be there and love them,” Derek shared a tidbit of advice

“She told me she doesn’t mind me being like Amoreena’s dad, but I don’t think I can yet. I want her to decide when she wants me in that role.”

Spencer explains his feelings the easiest to Derek. Like he was already in his mind and knew the thoughts before he said them, Derek was never mad or disappointed in him. He loved him fully, and Spencer loved him right back.

“Like when you chose Gideon?”

Spencer can only nod, it’s still too sad to think about him being gone. “You know what it’s like, you love your father but there are other people in your life who fit the role better.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “You’re going to be great, regardless of the name she uses when she thinks of you.”

“Thank you,” Spencer smiled as they pulled up to his apartment, “you should bring Hank to meet the animals this weekend sometime.”

“He’d love that,” Derek smiled back at him, patting his shoulder lightly. “I’m really proud of you.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it if you didn’t first,” he admits. “You’re a strong man who decided to put his happiness first, I can be too.”

“You sure as hell can,” Derek wrapped him up in one last hug before sending him off to live that best life he was talking about.

The only person who didn’t know yet was his mother. He wasn’t sure how to tell her, he knew she’d be proud of him regardless but that anxiety of disappointing her never went away even now that he was 40.

“Spencer!”

“Hey mom,” he smiled when she picked up. “How are you?”

“I’m fantastic, Marge and I are going on a walk later to see some ducks that were born, I really love it here Spencer,” he could hear it in her voice. She was much more joyful when she was surrounded by friends.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“you sound happy, what’s going on?”

She was his mother, after all, she could know exactly how he’s feeling from just hearing him breathe or being in the same room as him. It was like a superpower, she always knew what was going on.

“I met someone,” he can’t help but smile. “And I quit the FBI to have a family.”

“You’re kidding?” He couldn’t read her tone, not sure if she was surprised or disappointed.

“Her name is Y/N, she has a 7-year-old daughter named Amoreena who is exactly like how I was as a child, you’d really like them,” he explains and he can hear his mother's smile from his end of the phone.

“I would love to meet them, you can bring them to visiting hours next Tuesday?” Diana offered, genuinely happy for him in a way that made his heart burst.

“I’ll see if they’re free and I’ll let you know.”

“I love you, Spencer,” she reminded him. “It’s nice to hear you’re happy, that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

“I love you too, thank you, mom, for everything.”

She hangs up before they can get too emotional, leaving Spencer inside his sad little apartment all by himself. Taking the opportunity to pack his overnight bag for Y/N and pick out some books from his collection to show Amoreena.

There’s an envelope sticking out of one of his books that manages to catch his attention, taking it out to see his name written on it in Gideon’s handwriting. He almost forgot he had this, how important the words were.

Spencer,

I knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me. I’m sorry the explanation couldn’t be better, Spencer. I’m sorry it doesn’t make more sense, but I’ve already told you. I just don’t understand any of it anymore.

I guess I’m just looking for it again, for the belief I had in college, the belief I had when I first met Sara and it all seemed so right.

The belief in happy endings. When you find that, never let it go, Spencer.

Don’t let this job do to you what it did to me, get out and get a life when you can. I have faith in you, till I see you again, take care, son.

Gideon

He walked over to the window then, seeing a beautiful red and brown bird perched on his fire escape. He couldn’t help but smile, “I found my Sara, thank you,” he whispers to the bird who turns its head to the side before flying off.

Gideon always did have the best timing and the best advice.

—

“Y/N, your one o’clock is here to see you,” the receptionist at the Library said over the phone, hanging up and returning her attention to Spencer, “she’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Doctor Reid,” he hears her voice as she rounds the corner, appearing behind a stack of books in the most beautiful blue dress he’s ever seen. “Lovely to see you again.”

“You too,” he smiles.

“Right this way,” she can’t help but smile as she escorts him to her office.

“I don’t normally consider people who don’t send in a resume, but I have a feeling you’re going to be good at this,” she teased him as he sat at her desk.

“Allison is going on maternity leave in a few weeks, so you won’t start until she has the baby. If you’re serious about wanting this position, it’s only Monday through Thursday, 9 to 2:30.”

“You’re not going to ask me anything?”

“I don’t know if you know this, but the literary historian and I get to spend a lot of time together, I’d rather hire someone I know I already like,” she smiled again. “And it would be nice to see you every day without a 7-year-old taking all your attention away from me.”

“You just want to live out the fantasy of kissing someone in the encyclopedia section, don’t you?” He teased her right back, making her blush. “I knew it.”

“Sue me!” She laughed, and he finally understood what tinker bell meant when she said farries are born from the purest laughter.

He was in love with her right then and there, he was sure of it.

It had been under a week and yet as he stared at her, hearing her wonderful laughter and seeing her beautiful smile, knowing she wanted to spend time with him, that she genuinely liked him and none of this was one-sided, it made him fall harder than he thought he could.

“Come on then,” he stands abruptly, taking her hand and pulling her out the door.

She tries to giggle quietly as she follows him all the way back to the quietest section of the library. Most of the books on the shelves didn’t even have bar codes because they haven’t been checked out since the 60’s, no one needs them but they can’t seem to part with them.

She backs up against the shelf and pulls him into her space, he drops her hands and holds her face instead, looking at her beautiful eyes as they sparkled in the fluorescent lighting.

“I was expecting this to be hungrier than this when I imagined it all for all these years,” she whispers, biting her lip to force her smile back.

“You’re just so fucking beautiful,” is all he can say, brushing her cheeks with his thumbs lightly a few times before finally placing his lips against hers, ever so gently.

Her hands stretched around his back, pulling him in closer till their bodies are pressed together and then she’s kissing him deeper. Breathing in through her nose like she’s trying to keep him there forever, her fingernails dig into his shirt and he knows she wants more.

He slid his thigh between hers, opening his mouth to give her all the access she wanted and letting her take control of the speed. She wasn’t kidding when she said she expected it to be hungrier. She was kissing him like it was the first time she has had contact with another human being in years, and it just might have been. She said she was single for a while before Amoreena, probably the whole time since as well.

“Spencer,” she took a moment to gasp for air, breathing against his lips as he did the same. “Can we?”

He kisses along her jaw then, moving towards her ear to whisper, “do what? Use your words.”

“Anything, just touch me please, god it’s been 12 years,” she begged as quietly as possible, tugging at his hair as he nibbled on her earlobe.

He kissed down her neck making his way towards her chest. Holding her by the hips now, she arched her back into the shelf as he kissed all the way to where her dress started to cover her breasts but he didn’t stop. Kissing over her clothes as he dropped down to his knees in front of her.

He undid his tie, slipping it off his neck and handing it to her, “in case you need to scream into something.”

She held it in her hand for a second, registering what he just said and moaning softly in response as she held it closer to her lips, he took that as a yes and slipped under her dress.

She was wearing just a pair of regular cut pink underwear, not expecting this in the slightest when she got ready this morning. He kissed her over top of the fabric, spreading her legs so that he could kiss the insides of her thighs as she tried to desperately grind into his face. grazing his teeth against her skin as she shivers, thighs shaking in anticipation.

He kisses right where her clit should be under the fabric, knowing he’s correct when she whimpers around the tie he handed her. It's muffled and adorable as he kisses her again and again, knowing she wants more and teasing her gently.

He pulls her panties to the side, mesmerized by how perfect she is for only a second before returning to the task at hand. Being the first person to pleasure her in years, wanting her to have the best time possible.

With one hand he holds her panties back, using his other to slowly swipe a single finger through her folds to see just how wet she was. Smirking against her thigh as he’s able to slip right in.

“Please,” he hears her whisper, lifting the dress up so she could look at what he’s doing.

“Such a good girl for me,” he pressed the words against her skin.

He spreads her legs even further, resting one of them on his shoulder as he dives in, sucking her clit into his mouth abruptly as he pumps his single finger in and out. She jerks her hips at the sudden contact, stuffing the tie in her mouth and biting down as she whimpers.

He knows what he’s doing, where all the pleasure spots are and what feels the best on most women. Searching around and trying different tongue movements, memorizing the sounds she makes and attempting to hear them again and again, knowing it means she’s enjoying herself.

That’s all he wanted, to please her. Not even realizing how hard he was as he continues to eat her out furiously in the back corner of the DC Public Library. He forgets they’re even in public entirely as he moans against her clit, sending shockwaves through her body.

She’s quaking then, holding onto the top of his head with one hand as the other grips a shelf. She’s panting into the material of the tie, the hot breath making its way through the fabric and stopping the whorish moans he knew she’d make. It had been too long since someone treated her right.

He added a second finger then, wanting to push her over the edge as he curled them, finding her g spot and caressing it with every thrust of his fingers. She clenched around him then, a high-pitched noise left her mouth as she finished around him.

He couldn’t help but smirk, re-moving his fingers and cleaning them off in his mouth. Releasing them with a pop before dragging his tongue along her one last time. Gathering up everything she released and placing her panties back over her nicely.

He kissed over her underwear one last time before fixing her dress and standing up, “did I manage to fulfill the dream?”

She couldn’t help but laugh, looking like she was coming down from a real high, not just an orgasm. She pulled him in close and held onto him for dear life as she continued to catch her breath, and then her hand started to wander.

“Nope,” Spencer whispered, moving her hand away from his aching cock. “As much as I want to, I’d rather fuck you at home.”

“Home huh?” She teased him, kissing his cheek softly as she pulled back.

"I love you," he whispers against her ear, without a fear in the world that she didn't feel the same way.

"I love you too, Spencer."

They couldn’t stop smiling at each other, it felt surreal to be this happy. He kissed her a few more times, staying hidden in the back corner until the blood in his body let this dick and went back to where it was supposed to be.

She just held him in her arms, leaning back against the shelves as they kissed softly, running her hands through his hair gently, over and over. She whispered a few thank you’s to him, letting him know it was everything she waited for.

It was truly perfect.

—

Amoreena was so happy to see him back at the farm when she got off the bus, she missed him during the few days he wasn’t there.

She asked him to help with her homework, her teacher assigning them an “all about me” project to showcase their growth at the end of the year ceremony. It was almost June, she only had a few weeks left before she was off for the summer and free to show him around the whole kingdom.

Y/N brought out a box of craft supplies and a collection of photos. Showing Spencer every single moment of her and Amoreena’s life.

From her first sonogram to the first bump photo, she had and every maternity shot on the farm you could think of, to the day she was born, her first bath, first steps, chocolate cake shoved on her nose at her first birthday, everything. He felt like he watched her grow up in the blink of an eye, staring at all the photos while Y/N and Amoreena made a plan for her project.

She did look a lot like him, in some instances, she even looked like his mom. There was a look Diana would get when she was intrigued with something, or when she was trying to figure something out. She’d bite her tongue and tilt her head, and it was exactly what Amoreena did.

He never thought he’d see a child-like himself this early, he always expected someone to contact him at 18 and surprise him like Rossi. He really never, ever thought he'd have a child in his life who he was blessed with watching grow up. He never believed someone would have a kid so much like him and allow him to see the world through their eyes. He was amazed by how lucky he got, to be brought into an already happy family that wanted him, they didn’t just need him.

There was no need for a father in Amoreena’s life, she was happily living her life with her grandparents and her mother, explaining to him that she had a bunch of aunts and uncles, plus 15 cousins and they all lived close too. Her life was full of people to love her, and yet she wanted Spencer to love her too.

“Can I put the photo of us at the museum on here too?” She asked Y/N, looking at Spencer to see if he was okay with it too. “I already told my friends that you’re my dad.”

He felt like he couldn’t breathe, he didn’t want to cry in front of her so instead he just stopped all movement inside of his body and held it in. Looking at Y/N who was also a little emotional as Amoreena went back to looking through the photos.

Amoreena didn’t even notice how their expressions changed, she didn’t understand the weight of the words as she said them. She was oblivious to the hole in Spencer’s heart that she was filling with glitter glue, making him feel like he was whole again.

“Yeah,” he finally managed to speak. “I’d love to be on your project.”

“I know you said we don’t need dads but I kinda want one,” Amoreena’s soft expression made his heart melt even more. He was putty in her hands, willing to be whatever she wanted from him as long as he could.

“When did you say that?” Y/N asked softly, confused as to where she was when they had a conversation.

“The other morning at breakfast, um, my father left when I was little. It was just me and my wonderful mother until I was 21, then I found someone to call Dad. His name was Jason Gideon, he was my mentor and he made he feel like I was smart and loved,” he smiled, letting her know he genuinely meant it. “There’s a big difference between being a father and being someone's dad.”

“What’s that?” Amoreena’s innocent mind running wild as she tried to figure out his meaning.

“Anyone can be a father when two adults make a baby,” he said softly, making eye contact with Y/N as she blushed. Knowing where he was going with this. “But dads are special, they’re the people who are supposed to make you feel safe and loved. A person who you can turn to for advice and know he’ll love you no matter what you have to say. Dad’s are supposed to love you forever, regardless of what happens in life. Just like your mom does already.”

Amoreena leaned into his chest, pressing her head against him softly. He wrapped his arms around her gently, giving her the tiniest hug he’s ever given. “I pick you then, you’re the best guy I know and I think that means you’d be a good dad.”

Y/N silently cried, getting up from the table and walking into the kitchen so Amoreena wouldn’t see her sob. Spencer tried to widen his eyes so the tears he was generating would slip back into his tear ducts. Not wanting to cry as she held him.

“I’d love to be your dad,” he whispered, kissing her head softly as she held him tighter. “But first I’ve gotta check on your mom,” he whispered into her hair. Watching her pull away and look for where she was.

“Okay,” Amoreena shrugged, returning to her project as he wandered into the kitchen.

She was leaning against the counter when he walked in, her dress pulled up over her face as she cried into the material. Wiping her face as Spencer walked in and looking at him with the happiest smile.

She was laughing into her tears then, shaking her head as she sobbed, “why am I crying?”

He laughed then too, pulling her into a hug and spinning her around gently as she kept laughing. Her face buried into his neck as she smiled, he set her down gently so he could pull her into a kiss.

Her cheeks were all wet as he held her face, peppering kisses to her lips as they both tried to stop smiling.

“I’m going to miss hearing her call you Spencer,” Y/N whispered.

“Me too,” he giggled again. “But dad does have a good ring to it.”

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roostercrowedatmidnight · 3 years ago

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TV Show Soundtracks, and Why Buffy’s is So Great

There are a lot of ways in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an incredibly intelligent and well-crafted show, so much so that there are tiny details in the costumes, the acting, the set, etc. that you only notice after your fourth or fifth rewatch. One of the places where you can see how much care went into the production is the soundtrack. Buffy had a lot of different composers, some of which would compose the soundtrack for a few of the episodes and some of which were the primary composer for entire seasons. Some of the most prominent composers include Christophe Beck, who was one of the main composers for season 2, the sole composer for seasons 3 and 4, and composer for one episode in season 5 and one in season 6; Thomas Wanker, who was the main composer for seasons 5 and 6; and Robert Duncan, who was one of the main composers for season 7 (a complete list of Buffy composers can be found here). I’m mostly interested in these three composers because they wrote a great deal of the music overall, and their music tracks are most important in terms of what I hope to convey here, which is that one of the best things about the Buffy orchestral score is how beautiful it sounds and how smartly it is utilized. To convey my point, I will explore the use of music in the show, especially in the season 5 finale, ‘The Gift.’

WARNING: gonna be lots of Buffy spoilers. Mostly just up to the season 5 finale, but possibly smaller spoilers for seasons 6 and 7 as well.

A TV show doesn’t need a fantastic soundtrack to be good — many shows have a more minimalistic, atmospheric score which serves its purpose. A lot of shows also use contemporary pop songs instead of an orchestral soundtrack (which Buffy also does). However, I think having a good orchestral soundtrack elevates a show to an even higher level, and can add layers of emotional complexity that would otherwise have been absent. To achieve this greater emotional depth, I argue that there are two main criteria a score must have: music that is enjoyable to listen to, and music that is intelligently employed.

It’s difficult to define what ‘enjoyable’ music is. Any song is going to reach some people and not others. However, some are definitely more likely to create a response in people. It is important for composers to make soundtracks that create an emotional reaction in the viewer. Some composers do this very subtly, and others more saliently. There is no definitive way to determine if music is good or not — that is completely up to the individual. However, I’d argue that there are some composers who are better at creating a consistent emotional reaction in viewers. (If you’re interested, a few composers I love include Ludovico Einaudi, Murray Gold, my man Christophe Beck, Rachel Portman, Thomas Newman, and Joe Hisaishi. I would definitely recommend checking their stuff out if you’re into soundtracks.)

The second criterion for a good TV score, which I will be discussing in more detail, is that it is intelligently employed. What I mean by intelligently employed is that the music is thoughtfully applied to the story. This ultimately ties back to emotional reaction as well -- if the people behind the scenes are smart in where they put the tracks, they’ll create a stronger reaction in the viewer. Soundtrack is best employed when certain tracks, or leitmotifs, are used for specific characters, ideas, or plot threads, without being over- or underapplied. If you just slap the same track over every single emotional scene in a show, or add a random new track when you could have reused one that relates back to the character/theme in the scene, you’ll be missing out on a chance to create a response in the viewers.

Before I continue, I just want to quickly clarify that a leitmotif is essentially a small chunk of music that is associated with a specific character, relationship, setting, or idea. Basically, it’s a theme, and is tied exclusively to a certain element in the story. For this essay, I will be using leitmotif sometimes to refer to an entire track that is tied to a story element, and sometimes to refer to a shorter phrase of music, which may sometimes be contained in larger tracks. That’s not super important, though. Basically, leitmotif = theme for a specific thing.

When a leitmotif is given to a specific story element, such as a character, then using the leitmotif in scenes that are significant to that character gives the viewer a sense of familiarity and nostalgia. This is especially great if the character has been gone for a while and has just returned, or if they have died and the leitmotif is used while other characters are remembering them. Leitmotifs can be used to draw subtle parallels to earlier episodes or certain story arcs, and if the viewer is paying attention then they will be able to understand the show in a deeper way.

Some shows have great music but a poor application of it. One example of this is BBC’s Merlin. For the record, I am not dragging the composers here, because they did a beautiful job and created some great music for the show (if you want to check out the soundtrack, a few tracks I love are ‘The Burial’/’Merlin Buries Lancelot’ by Michal Pavlíček, ‘Merlin Lost’ by Rob Lane, ‘Farewell to Gwen’ by Rohan Stevenson, and any of the suites from the finales). I don’t know who actually makes the decisions about which tracks to put where in a show. It probably differs from show to show, depending on how involved the composers are. Budget probably also plays a role, with some shows being forced to reuse music if they can’t afford a full score for every single season. With all this in mind, Merlin has a lovely soundtrack, but hardly any thought went into its application. Songs are reused constantly, to the point where they have no special attachment to specific story elements, and therefore carry no emotional meaning. You won’t gain very much insight into the text when you hear them, and they appear so often that you lose the emotional reaction you once had to them. Simply put, the Merlin soundtrack is not intelligently employed.

There are a lot of shows with great soundtracks that follow these criteria of emotional reaction and intelligent employment. A few that I know of include Once Upon a Time (composer Mark Isham), Sherlock (composers David Arnold and Michael Price), and Doctor Who (composer Murray Gold from s1-10, and Segun Akinola from s11-present). I especially love Murray Gold’s work in Doctor Who — he created a leitmotif for every single Doctor, practically every companion, and even for some of the major villains, and the music would sometimes even be used to foreshadow the return of a character. I could write several dozen essays about the thought that went into Murray Gold’s composition, though that obviously isn’t the point of this particular piece.

Now onto Buffy. Buffy has such a wonderful soundtrack because the music is enjoyable and emotionally evocative (in my opinion), and it is very smartly employed. The show has certain tracks it reuses which hold significant meaning, and that are used throughout an entire season, or several seasons. Some of these include the Angel/Buffy theme (plus an Angel/Buffy breakup theme used towards the end of season 3), the Buffy/Riley theme, the Spike/Buffy theme, the Giles/Ms Calendar theme, the Tara/Willow theme, and doubtless many others that I haven’t noticed yet. As you can see, the Buffy composers are big on relationship leitmotifs which often span multiple seasons. There are leitmotifs for recurring ideas as well, like Joyce’s illness in season 5. All of these are used over many episodes. They create an emotional reaction in the viewer because they carry a sense of familiarity, tie plot arcs together, and give you nostalgic feelings towards character relationships.

Other tracks in Buffy are limited to a single episode or a single scene, instead of being reused frequently. Because of this, they pack a lot of emotion and make the scene or episode even more memorable. Think the score for ‘Hush’; ‘Restless’; the track ‘Slayer’s Elegy,’ which plays during the big final fight scene in ‘The Wish’; or the track ‘Spellbound,’ which plays during the Faith/Riley-Willow/Tara sex/magic parallel scene in ‘Who Are You’ (by the way, all of these episode scores were composed by Christophe Beck). The track ‘Spellbound’ is actually sort of an extended version of the Willow/Tara leitmotif. 'Spellbound' only plays in one scene, and it’s my favourite track in the entire show. By using certain tracks sparingly, instead of overapplying them, the composers can create a memorable musical experience out of a single scene or episode.

Some tracks get reused across episodes, but only once or twice, instead of many times. They may be attached to a very particular setting or idea. Reusing this kind of track in a later episode draws you directly back to the previous time it was used, creating a sense of familiarity and reminding you that you have encountered this sort of thing before. For example, there is a track called ‘Little Miss Muffet’ by Christophe Beck, which appears in the dream sequence shared by Faith and Buffy in the season 3 finale, ‘Graduation Day Part 2.’ This track does not appear again until part way through season 4, when a version of it plays in the episode ‘This Year’s Girl.’ It appears during the opening scene of the episode when Faith and Buffy are sharing another dream together, establishing it as the leitmotif for Faith/Buffy dream sequences.

Even when you aren’t consciously aware of the significance of every leitmotif in Buffy, they still create subtle emotional reactions in you which help you engage with the story better.

To wrap up my point, I want to offer an example of a fantastic track in Buffy and how it is used to draw viewers to a specific moment and create an intense emotional reaction. One of the absolute best episodes of Buffy is the season 5 finale, ‘The Gift.’ One of the many great things about it is the soundtrack, done by composer Christophe Beck (who also composes the orchestral score for Frozen, Frozen 2, Bring It On, WandaVision, and Ant-Man). Christophe Beck came back to the show to compose for this episode, and the most important track he created was ‘Sacrifice.’ From what I’ve observed, there are only three instances in which this leitmotif is used: twice in ‘The Gift,’ including Buffy’s pivotal final scene, and once in ‘Bargaining Part 2’ from season 6. The most important time that ‘Sacrifice’ is used is obviously when Buffy is sacrificing her life for Dawn’s at the end of ‘The Gift’; that’s why the track is called what it is. The track is used earlier on in ‘The Gift’ when Buffy and Giles are talking as they prepare for the final battle, and Buffy expresses her exhaustion with life and her vow that if Dawn dies she will stop being the Slayer. The use of ‘Sacrifice’ here is to foreshadow what’s to come. The longing for rest Buffy feels, and her wish to stop being the Slayer, will both be fulfilled when she dies at the end of the episode. The track is used in this scene to hint at what’s to come for viewers. The track is repeated in the second part of the season 6 opener, ‘Bargaining Part 2,’ when Buffy is standing at the top of the tower shortly after being brought back to life. This entire scene is a very deliberate callback for viewers as well as for Buffy: she is standing right where she was when she died, flashback clips play of her final moments, and Buffy repeats her own words to Dawn from ‘The Gift.’ Using the track ‘Sacrifice’ in this scene helps make the callback even more obvious. The song is able to elicit an extreme emotional memory for the audience, which the familiar setting and flashback clips may not have been able to create on their own. It reminds you not just of what happened in the season 5 finale, but of how you felt.

Of course, this foreshadowing and flashback use of ‘Sacrifice’ would not be as emotionally effective if Buffy’s last scene from ‘The Gift’ wasn’t such a fantastic scene, the song so skillfully employed, and the song itself so beautiful. ‘Sacrifice’ is one of my favourite tracks in Buffy. I love playing it on the piano. I love listening to it. When it plays at the end of ‘The Gift,’ it makes me almost cry. It’s saved for one of the most significant scenes in the entire series. The emotions are so elevated because soon after ‘Sacrifice’ starts playing, the rest of the audio is stripped away. All you can hear is Christophe Beck’s music and Buffy’s voice as she says her final words to Dawn, overlaid with silent shots of Buffy’s body, her heartbroken friends, and finally her gravestone.

In summary, I think the Buffy soundtrack is especially strong for a TV show, since it not only features breathtaking music but carefully applies that music to create the best emotional response from the viewers. TV shows don’t require a fantastic soundtrack to be successful, but I definitely think that the strength of the soundtrack makes Buffy infinitely better than what it would have been without it. The orchestral soundtrack for Buffy sadly isn’t available on Spotify or Apple Music at this time (though the soundtrack for the musical episode is). However, if you like instrumental scores, the official Buffy soundtrack can be found in various places on YouTube, and there are also many people who upload unofficial tracks (including here and here). Either way, I would definitely recommend checking out the music, or at least paying closer attention to it next time you watch Buffy. The creators clearly put a great deal of thought into it, and once you start recognizing the leitmotifs of the show, it reveals a whole hidden layer of storytelling.

#happy 20th anniversary of the gift #this took a lot out of me im tired now #anyways enjoy #this is for all you music buffs (enjoy my pun)#essay #analysis #meta #buffy #btvs #my post

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luesmainblog · 3 years ago

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so, i've been thinking about this a lot more, and i think i oughta write my thoughts down. i'm not looking to cause any discourse here, just.. thinking aloud, i guess. when i was a little girl, my understanding of the word "lesbian" was "girl who likes girls". i grew up watching a show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer. now, i wasn't really old enough to totally understand everything infront of me, i just thought the whole vampire thing was cool. and in this show, there was a character named Willow, and she loved a girl named Tara. i don't think i even really noticed any difference between their relationship and the straight relationships? i really liked them both, and them being a couple was just A Fact About The Show to me. and while she was with Tara, Willow would often call herself a Lesbian. another fact in my head was that Willow had, in previous season, been with a guy named Oz. so, in my infinite childhood wisdom, it became solidified that being a lesbian was about liking women, and having liked guys before didn't really effect it any. now, the show itself does actually make the distinction that she's exclusive, i just didn't really pay attention at the time. and as i grew up more, i would come to find that the word WAS meant to be exclusively for girls who are attracted to girls and NOT men, and the way willow was written was a product of the biphobia of the time. so, i mentally corrected my definition of the word and moved on. this was before i realized i myself liked girls, so i never identified with the lesbian label myself. ... but, that's not really the end of it, is it? because i would later find out that lesbian DID used to mean "girl who likes girls", with no exclusion necessary. that bi women were a key part of building the lesbian community. but over the course of only about a generation and a half, a lot of things had happened at once that resulted in Bi girls being kicked out of the lesbian community. namely, a combination of the movement to recognize bisexual as A Thing That Exists, and a movement called Political Lesbianism that was all about rejecting men in their entirety. (in many ways, the ancestors of modern terfs; a lot of the misandry and biphobia of the PL movement would feed radfems of the future who wanted a valid-sounded excuse for their transphobia.) by the time i got there, the doors had been sealed shut, leaving any new bi girls completely shut off from a huge section of their history, and a community that would have once welcomed them. when i learned this, i did know that i liked girls. and it felt... awful. it felt like a wonderful community had been stolen from me, and i was too young to say anything about it. so... i didn't. and i never identified as a lesbian. the first queer term i ever identified myself with was Bi. at the time, i was a girl, and i knew that i liked boys, and i'd come to accept that i also liked girls. and while i didn't totally understand nonbinary people at the time, i didn't think that would really effect whether or not i could like someone, either. i wasn't Totally Straight, i wasn't Totally Gay, i was bi! and i was happy to id that way! i would later find the term Pan. at the time, i was... Accepting but Uneducated with gender. and to me, the various explanations i'd seen sounded REALLY accurate to how i felt. i didn't care about gender at all; i liked people for who they were, indiscriminately. i certainly didn't care if they were trans! a huge fight broke out on tumblr between bi and pan, and honestly, it's still going on. it was made extremely clear to me that i had to pick One or The Other, so... i chose pan. ... but... it didn't feel entirely right, either. at the time, i did not know about the Split Attraction Model, and learning about asexuality left me with a lot of uneasy feelings and questions. i knew that i liked people romantically, but i'd never felt any kind of sexual attraction towards any Real, Actual People. on the flip side of that, what i did recognize as "probably attraction?" was aimed wildly in all directions when it came to

the world of fiction. i didn't really know how to identify. for a while i called myself "ace with real people and pan with fictional people". again, i did not know that romantic attraction could be different at the time. i settled on a more solid label. i made a post. tumblr ate me alive for three days straight. i re-closeted myself and went right back to feeling broken. it would be a few months before i learned the term Autochoris, but in that time, i'd at least learn about split attraction and feel more comfortable in that. when i got there, i finally found some peace with myself. not the same as i'd felt before, but... some peace. but, yknow... looking at it all Now, from within the ace community, i find myself with that same terrible feeling again. that feeling that i've had a community Stolen from me. see, in the ace community, it's generally understood that there are different types and levels of ace. someone might read the description of Asexual and think "well, that's Sort of right, but not entirely. what if i work like this?". and usually, there's a more accurate label that they can feel comfortable with! and more importantly, that bigger label- Ace- serves as an umbrella term. you can call yourself Ace and Gray, and Demi, and whatever else might be in your russian nesting doll set of identities. not because you "need to feel special", but because this shit is really complicated sometimes and it's comforting to have sharp accuracy. and there are a LOT of ways to be bi, too. and a lot of people feel that same feeling of "this is MOSTLY right, but here's the thing..." and make their own labels. but they don't get the safety shield that is the russian nesting dolls... because Bi doesn't want to be an umbrella. every single time, if someone has one of those more complicated identities, they're told to "just call yourself Bi". no matter where they sit or what their reasoning, they're told that they're just suffering internalized biphobia, or worse, hurting a 'real' identity by using the term that feels most comfortable to them. and they ultimately feel that they have to make a choice: identify as Bi and deal with having to explain their specifics every single time, or identify as the label they chose and be completely shunned by the bi community. it isn't an easy choice. i call myself panro because there are a lot of bi experiences i just do not relate to. i don't have different types between genders. i don't just not have a preference, gender does not come into consideration in the slightest. i don't think about it at all. i Could, theoretically, come up with why i love girls and why i love boys and why i love insert-nonbinary-gender-here, but ultimately, any reasons i could come up with would be entirely superficial. because the same things are cute on all sides. it doesn't... matter, to me. and i know that there are people who identify as bi while feeling the same way, and that's great! i'm glad they feel comfortable with that! but... i can't shake my need for being Accurate to my feelings. and i can't shake this knowledge that if it weren't for this strictness in the label, i would be identifying as bi and pan, the same way i identify as ace and autochoris. the big doll everyone recognizes, and the little doll hidden away inside, protected until it's safe to show off. .. and were it not for the way the label's changed in such a short time, i'd probably be calling myself a lesbian, too. because i do love girls, and up until pretty recently, i used to be one. in a lot of ways i still am. but i can't use those labels. they're not mine anymore, and they don't want me. i can learn about the history all i want, but i'll never be welcomed in the communities that would have been happy to have me if i'd been born earlier. ... but, hey. 'least i'll always have Ace, right?

#long post #rambles #i am specifically not tagging this with any labels because i do not want to enter discourse. do not drag me into it.#might private later if it causes issues #i survived the acepocolypse of tumblr man i'm too tired to fight people #i got re-introduced to The Discourse recently and i just feel so.... sad and defeated.#like wow i'm not only barred from communities i could have inherited had history gone differently #but i'm also just gonna be widely hated for being honest with myself and using the labels that feel right #i guess that's just the cost of not feeling broken

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miss-robot-mr-edith · 3 years ago

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For the send me a character thing, Eliot Spencer and Spike?

Bless you for sending me two of my absolute faves 😭💖

Okay, here it goes.

Eliot:

Favorite thing about them: Wow, this is so hard because I’m just in love with Eliot Spencer lol. If I have to choose, I think I’d say that my favorite thing about Eliot is that he would do literally anything for the people he loves and seems to genuinely expect nothing in return. I think it’s common in the fandom for Eliot to be considered the group’s protector, and while it’s more than that, he definitely is. And the safety and happiness of his loved ones is the only reward he seems to desire for doing so.

Least favorite thing about them: The flip side of that is that it’s always seemed to me that Eliot thinks he deserves less than everyone else in the group. He makes due with lurking just outside the group, watching over them (at least at first), and doesn’t expect them to fulfill his needs. The problem with that is that he sometimes fails to see how much they need him, for more than just his skills.

Favorite line: For the feels, it’s “Till my dying day.” Gets me every time. For humor, it’s, of course, every single “Dammit Hardison!”

BrOTP: Maybe this is weird, but Eliot and Sophie. The two of them have always had a really interesting relationship to me because they didn’t seem to get each other at first and there was tension between the two of them for a while, but they developed an understanding over the series. Their scenes together were always great.

OTP: The OT3, baby. Eliot, Hardison, and Parker are in love.

nOTP: Nothing specific, just any ship that gets in the way of the OT3 lol.

Random headcanon: That he’s bi 💖 Not just because of Hardison, he has great chemistry with a lot of guys in the show!

Unpopular opinion: Huh, that’s a tough one. Maybe just that I won’t be upset if the OT3’s not officially canon in the new series. Like I would love it, but I would really understand if that’s not part of the vision they have for it (and I know the subtext will be there regardless).

Song I associate with them: Christian Kane’s very own “Different Kind of Knight.”

Favorite picture of them: His look in the French Connection Job is one of my faves.

Okay, now Spike!

Favorite thing about them: Again, so tough. This might sound odd, but I love his vulnerability. I love that it’s been a decade since he was a shy, lovesick poet, and yet no matter how hard he tries to turn his persona in the complete opposite direction, he still can’t help how much his feelings show. At times it gets him in trouble, but I think it’s also why he’s able to connect to humans in the show pre-soul, in a way most vampires never could.

Least favorite thing about them: At times he lets his feelings have far too much free reign (this is both pre- and post-soul imo). At his best, his perceptiveness allows him to see someone hurting and know the right thing to say. At his worst, his big emotions sometimes bulldoze over other people’s.

Favorite line: For the feels, it’s “I made a promise to a lady.” For humor, it’s literally every line lol, I can’t choose.

BrOTP: This is a tough one because Spike makes a great BrOTP with so many people. I’m gonna cheat and pick two. I love Spike and Willow together. We don’t get a ton of it, but it’s always amusing when we do. She seems to feel bad for him even when he’s doing bad things (like when he kidnaps her in Lovers Walk or tries to bite her unsuccessfully in The Initiative) and he always seems to kinda like her even though he claims to hate the Scoobies.

I also love Spike with Dawn. It makes perfect sense that she’s always trying to tag along after him. She says herself that he’s the only one who talks to her likes she’s not a kid, and I think what she’s picking up on is that Spike, as an outsider, doesn’t have the same interests or concerns as the Scoobies. I think it’s the same reason she loves Tara so much, albeit a very different relationship lol.

OTP: Spuffy, of course (though as I’ve said, I will always love Sprusilla too).

nOTP: I don’t really have an answer for this. It’s been said a lot that Spike is shippable with pretty much anyone, and I tend to agree. The only thing I wouldn’t ship is something inappropriate, like him and Dawn, but I’ve rarely seen that shipped anyway.

Random headcanon: I didn’t come up with this because I’ve been seeing variations of it for a long time, but that Spike is really good at doing makeup and nails and has done both Drusilla’s and Buffy’s in their respective relationships.

Unpopular opinion: That he’s not superior to Angel because he fought to get his soul back and Angel didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love him for that. Like, it’s AMAZING that he was able to do it. But it doesn’t seem to me that people choose how far gone they are once they lose their soul.

Song I associate with them: “I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones, naturally.

Favorite picture of them: I love 70s Spike.

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ifeveristoday · 4 years ago

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i need to be writing instead of reading comic books

but after I post this it’s back to the grind

Spoilers for Willow #4: “The subtext is rapidly becoming text” (actually there isn’t a chapter name for this issue. Purposeful? Read on)

In the many, many years since Buffy has been off the year, and tbh during its run, a lot has been written about the metaphors the show used to stand in for real life terrors. My opinion is that when they did it correctly, it was subtle and fit the story - and when it wasn’t...it really, really wasn’t. Anvils of foreshadowing, if you will.

One of the takes was that the vampires represented homosexuality/queerness - which I don’t agree with, because that aligned gayness with something bad or immoral, and when the vampires weren’t shown to have grey nuances, they were complete monsters with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

However the show definitely played around with Otherness in regards to Buffy and the Scoobies in varying degrees: the feeling that you’re the only one/no one will understand/you exist on the fringes from mainstream society, and chosen family because the people who are supposed to care for you don’t and can’t understand.

It’s about identity and finding out who you are and what you do with that knowledge.

Identities and queerness is something that the Willow miniseries has baked in from the very first issue. Willow is lost and trying to figure out who she is - not just as Xander and Buffy’s best friend, Rose’s ex, dutiful daughter and excellent student and survivor of trauma. She is trying to figure out where she fits in post Hellmouth and losing Xander (who is a huge part of her life and as we see in this issue, the one person who made her feel like she belonged pre-meeting Buffy.)

She even divides her life like this: Pre Buffy and After She Went to Hell and Back. The dangling thread metaphor is a lovely way to sum up Willow’s feelings - she continually references not feeling comfortable in her skin, and being a little undone, of being an Other in Sunnydale. This could refer to both her sexuality and not fitting in with Sunnydale’s typical ‘ignore it and it will go away’ vibes/and also high school is just difficult for different kids. Her circle is really two people at the beginning - Xander and Rose. When she meets Buffy, it expands to include Buffy, Giles and Ms. Calendar (I’m sure Willow knew Ms. Calendar before, but it was in a strictly teacher/student way and not Ms. Calendar knows the big picture and is almost a friend way).

And for a while - that’s enough for Willow.

But then Xander is taken away. He’s her anchor, moreso than Rose was. And even though Jordie didn’t write the Willow comics, it’s a really lovely thing to see Willow and Xander’s platonic bond as the emotional core of the series repeated in her miniseries. Romantic relationships often take precedence over platonic relationships (especially those between men and women) so it’s refreshing that the Boom!verse acknowledges how important Willow and Xander are to each other. They love each other and the loss of that love unravels Willow. She’s suddenly that dangling thread again. As much as she cares for Buffy, and Giles, and the new Scooby gang, Xander is her person.

Without him, everything else doesn’t seem to fit right - so when she settles into Abhainn, it all clicks. Suddenly she’s in a place where everyone else is like her - the comic uses the witch identity as a nod to Willow’s interests, but really, it’s also not subtle shorthand for Willow has found a queer community. The word ‘witch’ comes up a lot in this issue but it might as well be LESBIAN in bright flashing lights.

It’s a self sustaining commune, where it seems to be a primarily plant based lifestyle, with cozy sweaters and women of all races and ethnicities and flowing dresses and undercuts and mason jars and it might as well have a flannel emporium and home improvement store, you know?

The way Willow talks about witches and how it saved her life - I felt also applied to when one realizes their sexuality. She doesn’t have to pretend or feel like an Other in Abhainn, she’s accepted as she is because everyone else is like her.

Except...the whole secret town hidden from the majority and everyone believes the same thing and dismisses the outside world kind of sounds less like a utopia and more like a cult. (Call your best friend, you’re in a cult)

And the cult leader is the charismatic, older Aelara, who praises Willow constantly and tells her how special she is, how necessary she is to Abhainn. Willow may even have a little bit of a crush on her.

It’s only when a mysterious blonde bursts into Willow’s room that her life changes again. This girl has a completely different take on Abhainn, and the fear in her eyes gets through Willow’s rose-tinted glasses. Because Willow’s had these doubts too, but didn’t feel she could do anything, because so much about Abhainn feels right.

Who is she? (*cough* Tara? We shall know soon enough.)

Like the other blonde in Willow’s life, she’s inspired to take action and to figure out what Abhainn’s secret is and they meet in the woods to leave - where they’re met with a pack of wolves.

Willow’s power has increased over the span of the comics and she manages to stop the wolves in their tracks. Only to be met with Aelara who is no longer channeling Stevie Nicks but a hooded, scary figure. She tells them they can’t leave.

It’s a really great place to end on for the penultimate issue because there is a real sense of danger - we know Willow does make it back to Sunnydale, but the how and why will be explained, hopefully in the last issue.

This maybe Tara character has promise - she asserts herself in front of Willow’s doubts, has a family that doesn’t know where she is, implying they would care that she’s been missing. And the fact that Willow just trusts her at her word and does the scary thing to meet in the forest at night shows the glimpse of the Willow post Buffy - a girl who does question the status quo, who does fight for what she believes in, even if it’s hard and terrifying.

Another excellent issue.

#willow comics #boom! verse #boom! studios #thoughts and reactions #read this miniseries if you haven't #really stresses that people should have facets to their personality and shouldn't define themselves by One Thing

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noelmu · 4 years ago

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Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “The Body”

Excerpted from my 2010 AV Club review.

“The Body”

I’ve experienced two major deaths in my life. In 1996, one of my best friends was murdered out in Los Angeles, where he was in the early stages of a promising acting career. I hadn’t seen him in a while or talked to him in months, and I got the news the night before I was supposed to leave on a vacation with my fianceé’s family to the Atlanta Olympics, so I didn’t go the funeral. In the years since, I’ve realized that I probably could have rearranged our schedule and found a way to go, but I was 25 years old then and insecure about almost everything, so I didn’t assert myself. Instead I spent the hours after I got the news babbling nervously and incessantly to my fianceé about my memories of my friend. I didn’t know how to process his death. I didn’t know what was appropriate.

Four years later, my dad died. It seems like a much longer stretch of time, because in the interim I got married, bought a house, moved to Arkansas and started writing full-time. And when I look back, I have to remind myself that I didn’t have any kids yet, and that I’d only been a home-owning grown-up for a few months. My friend’s death feels like ancient history to me now, but my dad’s death feels like fresh news, even though it happened a decade ago. My dad died suddenly��a heart attack, while he was taking an afternoon nap—and I didn’t have any real responsibilities after it happened, beyond driving up for the funeral. My stepmother dealt with all the arrangements, and because my dad was the pastor of a small-town Episcopal congregation, our family had plenty of support. And it wasn’t like I was that close to my father. We talked on the phone every few months, and I’d just seen him at Christmas, but there was always a little distance between us, for various reasons. Still, my most abiding memory of that time was my physical reaction. That whole week, I felt as tired as I’ve ever felt, almost like I was wearing a weighted vest. I felt like something was pressing down on me.

The remarkable thing about “The Body” is how well Joss Whedon captures those particular, eclectic reactions when a loved one dies. The episode opens with a reprise of the final scene in “I Was Made To Love You,” in which Buffy comes home on a sunny morning and finds her mother laying dead on the sofa. Joyce’s body is cold and motionless, and appears slightly out of focus in the back of the frame for a moment before Buffy sees her. Once Buffy realizes what’s happened though, Joyce’s body becomes a hard reality that Whedon keeps returning to, by cutting to shots of her on the floor, or at the morgue. The second-cruelest cut comes after a flashback to a recent holiday dinner, which ends with Joyce and Buffy dropping a pie, followed by a cut to Joyce’s corpse. The cruelest comes after Buffy imagines the paramedics reviving Joyce and everything being okay, before she realizes that it’s not. That’s the way it goes when something terrible happens to us—be it a death in the family or even something as mundane as a bad grade at school. These things preoccupy.

Whedon takes a lot of chances with “The Body,” some of which may have been ill-advised, albeit in a way that’s in keeping with the episode’s subject matter. There’s no “right” way to react to a death, or even to document one. Whedon drops the music entirely (outside of the opening and closing credits), and employs multiple techniques to replicate Buffy’s disorientation. When she rushes to call 911, Whedon goes handheld. When the paramedics arrive, the camera zooms between Buffy and Joyce as Buffy tries to determine if her mother looks presentable. (Buffy ultimately reaches over and tugs Joyce’s skirt down a little.) When a paramedic explains that Joyce probably died of an aneurysm, Whedon only shows the man from the nose down. When Buffy tells Dawn that their mom is dead, Whedon shows them at a remove, through a window, with the sound muffled. When Xander frets, he walks in and out of frame. When the Scoobies arrive at the hospital, Whedon records their sympathetic hugs with quick dissolves. Some of these shots and edits come off a little gimmicky, but the ones that work are so effective that it seems petty to complain that Whedon overdoes it at times. (Besides, different moments are likely to move different people.)

Similarly, Whedon tries different ways through dialogue and action to convey how people grapple with the meaning of “lifeless.” Some of those ways are fairly blunt, as with Dawn’s mini-arc, which sees her go from being emotionally distraught at school over some petty insult, to cheering up when she has a conversation with a boy she likes, to being so distraught over her mom that she needs to touch Joyce’s dead body in order to understand what happened. (“Where’d she go?” Dawn asks, as if wondering how her normal teenage ups-and-downs took such an unexpected turn.) And some are more subtle, as when Dawn’s art teacher asks her students to explore the negative space around their subject—a body, as it happens—just as Whedon does with this episode, showing Buffy’s characters with a Joyce-sized hole in them.

My favorite sequence in the whole episode though is one that’s a little more down-to-Earth. It takes place in Willow’s dorm room, where she frets over what to wear to the morgue—“Why do all my shirts have stupid things on them? Why can’t I dress like a grown-up? Why can’t I be a grown-up?”—while Tara, who’s gone through a death in the family before, tries to be helpful, and Xander gets so frustrated with his feeling of impotence that he punches a hole through Willow’s wall.

And then there’s Anya.

I was holding it together fairly well while watching this episode, until Anya started saying inappropriate things on the periphery of the scene, like, “What will we be expected to do?” and “Xander cried at the apartment; it was weird,” and “Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? Is that the helpful thing to do?” I finally lost it when Willow blows up at Anya for not acting like a human being and Anya yells back that as a recently re-mortaled person dealing with the real meaning of death for the first time in centuries, she just doesn’t understand.

Here’s the whole speech:

I don’t understand how this all happens, how we go through this. I mean I knew her and then she’s… there’s just a body. I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid. Xander’s crying and not talking and I was having fruit punch and I thought that Joyce would never have any more fruit punch and she’d never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever and no one will explain….

Yes, that speech does spell out the whole point of the episode in bolded, capitol letters, which ordinarily would be a bad piece of writing. But damned if Emma Caulfield doesn’t make Anya’s frustration real. And damned if there aren’t some times when even witty fictional characters need to say exactly what’s on their minds, even if it’s “writerly.” Besides, Whedon earns the speech with all the ways he emphasizes the physical aspects of life and death throughout “The Body:” Buffy cracking Joyce’s ribs while administering CPR, and Joyce feeling no pain; Buffy grabbing some paper towels to mop her own vomit, and watching the stain spread; Dawn being stalked by in the morgue by a vampire, a creature who is dead and yet animate.

This is going to sound strange, but it’s the vomit-stain I find most compelling. Here’s this warm, oozing essence of Buffy, seeping into a neat stack of Bounty; while in the next room an entire adult woman is sprawled on the floor with a broken bone that��s not bothering her in the slightest—because the “her” that was is no more, and persists only inasmuch as she’s seeped into the people who knew her. There’s the corpse—inescapable, inconvenient—and then there’s the spirit that has completely vanished. To make out its shape, you’ll have to look at the people gathered around where it used to be. At one point in “The Body,” Dawn’s crush-object Gavin asks, “Negative space… what’s that all about?” This episode is the answer.

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initiumseries · 5 years ago

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Riley was terrible... and it's not even because i'm team bangel. And I never understand why Xander sided with him.

But if we look at the show it makes COMPLETE sense Xander would side with him. While I love Xordelia, Xander slutshames her repeatedly. He's a CLASSIC high school chauvinist. He treats Willow like garbage, and only wants her when Oz does. He feels entitled to Buffy, lusts over Willow/Tara and condescending as shit to Anya. So it makes complete sense to me that when Nice Guy Riley is looking for a place to lay his insecurities with Buffy (literally right after she admits she's starting to fall for him), it's in Xander's chauvinistic lap he lays them in. Who, but Xander, would understand how inadequate, insecure and emasculated Riley feels around Buffy? So of course, after Riley puts Buffy through hell, then breaks her heart because she wasn't vulnerable enough around him for his liking while her mother was potentially dying, and lays the shittiest ultimatum at her feet, it's Xander who not only jumps to his defense, but shames Buffy for maintaining her boundaries? Sounds perfectly in-line with his character to me.

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #buffy summers #xander harris #anti riley

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theexecutionerssong · 5 years ago

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hi! I think you're a Destiel shipper and I was wondering if you could explain how a crack ship can have a fandom that big? I don't get it. It must be frustrating to watch? Why do so many people ship it when there are other explicit ships in other shows, with actual representation? I hope I don't sound rude, it's just something I've been trying to understand and I thought I'd ask you xx

I started rambling whoops, this turned into an essay on queer characters representation in TV shows from the early 2000s to today lmao so it’s under the cut.

Well, for me, it was a matter of chemistry and that we had nothing else elsewhere, actually. I don’t know how old you are but I think most people nowadays either weren’t there or have forgotten that we didn’t have much if anything to latch onto in terms of LGBTQ representation. Most popular mlm and wlw ships back then weren’t canon and the characters weren’t even queer and the popularity of the ships was not because people really just wanted to see two boys or girls fucking like I’ve been seeing for years. It’s because the chemistry we saw could be interpreted as romantic and because we had close to nothing to compare to.

Like, just a quick look at the canon mlm or wlw couples and shows with LGBTQ representation I’ve enjoyed over the years:

2000: Willow and Tara in Buffy The Vampire Slayer

2008: Ianto and Jack in Torchwood

2009: Arizona and Cali in Grey’s Anatomy

2010: Naomi and Emily in Skins

2011: Ian and Mickey in Shameless

2012: Nasir and Agron in Spartacus, Sara and Nyssa in Arrow

2013: Ethan and Danny in Teen Wolf, Captain Holt in Brooklyn Nine Nine, Orange Is The New Black, Cosima and Delphine in Orphan Black

2014: Oliver and Connor in HTGAWM, Kieren and Simon in In The Flesh, Black Sails

2015: Sense8

2016: Wayhaught in Wyonna Earp, Philip and Lukas in Eyewitness, Even and Isak in Skam, Alec and Magnus in Shadowhunters, Clarke and Lexa in The 100, Maggie and Alex in Supergirl

2018: Eliot and Quentin in The Magicians, Omar and Ander in Elite

2019: The Umbrella Academy, the Skam remakes, Grizz and Sam in The Society

As you can see, I personally had barely nothing canon to relate to between 2005 when I started questioning my sexuality and 2012. I didn’t like Glee. Cali and Arizona had so much heartache. Tara, Ianto and Naomi die. Ian and Mickey in the early seasons of Shameless weren’t the prime exemple of a healthy relationship.

So when Cas came along in Supernatural in 2008 and there was this immediate intensity with Dean (even if you don’t ship it you can’t deny that), fans saw their relationship as possibly romantic because there is no way to deny that if Cas had been in a female body, all their scenes would have come off as romantic to everybody and they would have been together by the end of season 4. What else did we have? Nothing. Scraps. Hints. Two minutes of screentime for a guest star. Bury your gays tropes. Smallville, Veronica Mars, Lost, One Tree Hill, Prison Break, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, all these incredibly popular shows in the 2000s and none of them had really positive LGBTQ representation if any (the crazy murderous lesbian in Smallville, the psychopath in Prison Break, and I’ll never fucking forget Andrew coming out in Desperate Housewives and Bree telling him “I would love you even if you were a murderer” azsdfghjk nice comparison).

Subtext was all we could latch onto for the longest time. So of course, Destiel became popular, and so did Johnlock, and Sterek, and Stucky at the same time. I was also still closeted and it felt safe to watch shows about seemingly straight dudes while nobody knew I was reading fanfics at night. It wasn’t (only) straight fangirls fetishizing straight white pretty men. It was because the subtext was more than we had in canon anywhere else.

Ships, especially wlw and mlm ships, used to be for fandom only and never made it to being explicit on screen, but it didn’t make them any less real in fandom space (think of Kirk and Spock in Star Trek in the 70s for exemple, that ship has always existed). I remember the debate around 2013 about “will it go canon or is it just now queerbaiting”, and the massive push for ships to go canon and I was confused because as much as I would love it and was frustrated with the queerbaiting… being explicitly canon didn’t use to factor in whether fans shipped it or not. Fandom spaces and TPTB didn’t use to interact so much before social media, it got more common around 2012. So we could ship in peace, confined to myspace, livejournal and ff.net. Now that we have more representation, non canon ships feel cheap for many people, and that’s fine. But I personally won’t forget that some older ships were all I had 10 years ago and they gave me a safe place. So yeah, I still ship Dean and Cas. Not as in I need it or expect it to be explicitly canon in the show (though that’d be nice), but in the fandom space, hell yeah. It isn’t a crack ship. Crack ship used to mean shipping completely random chacarters that have never interacted or aren’t even from the same fandom. Nowadays, I feel like anything that isn’t canon is a crack ship. Nah. Not for me.

#gaelle parle #does that make sense #does that even answer your question #this got deep #idk #fandom #basically #representation matters #long post #just in case the cut doesn't work sorry i talk so much #Anonymous

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comradesummers · 5 years ago

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BtVS for the meme. What other shows do you watch btw? :)

Hi, thanks for the ask!

(lol, yeah I do in fact watch other shows. Right now, I’m really into Legends of Tomorrow, and I’ve started Black Sails, but I’m only on the first season. I’m also a huge fan of Veronica Mars, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, One Day At a Time, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Carmilla, and a bunch of other shows that have probably slipped my mind).

Favorite Male Character: Rupert Giles. In fact, he’s probably the only main male character on the show that I absolutely love with no reservations.

Favorite Female Character: Buffy Summers. Shocking, I know.

Least Favorite Character: Hmm. Generally, with a question like this, I usually try to consider what character I’m supposed to like and I really don’t. If the character is supposed to be reprehensible, like say Warren, then the fact that I find him adequately reprehensible means that the show is characterizing its characters effectively. If I’m supposed to like a character and they’re terrible, that’s when I start having issues.

And this is all my very long winded way of saying that I kind of can’t stand Wesley (and yeah, I’m crossing over into AtS territory here, but technically he was on Buffy, so it counts). Like, I get that he is a complex, interesting character, and I totally understand why people love him. But personally, I could not get over the fact that he locked a woman in a closet and tortured her for months, and I was still supposed to see him as this cool, interesting broody anti-hero, as opposed to a violent, sadistic asshole. And honestly, I realize that this makes me sound like a colossal hypocrite, because I love Faith, and she’s an interesting, cool, anti-hero who tortures people, including Wesley. But at least Faith is actually forced to confront her actions, and recognize that they were wrong. She actually works at becoming a better person. Wesley never does that, he just becomes progressively more broody, and that is not a quality that tends to endear me to characters. It also doesn’t help that Fred dies in the name of his character development. Like, I know I shouldn’t hold this shitty writing decision against the character, but I can’t help but be a little resentful.

And to be clear, this isn’t me discounting the inarguable fact that Wesley is an interesting, well-written, and well-acted character. But I just personally really dislike him.

Favorite Ship: Fuffy. I love them so much.

Favorite Friendship: BtVS is one of those shows where I generally care more about the friendships and platonic relationships than I do about the ships. If I had to pick a favorite platonic relationship, I would go with either Buffy and Giles, Dawn and Buffy, or Dawn and Tara. But since I consider those relationships more familial than proper friendships among equals, I have to go with Buffy and Willow. Buffy and Willow just love each other so deeply and so completely, and yeah they fuck up, and they hurt each other, but that love is always there.

Honorable metions go to Buffy and Tara for being consistently kind to one another, and Willow and Anya for giving us Triangle, and generally being fucking hilarious whenever they were in a scene together. Also, I would watch a spin-off about Tara and Anya hanging out together, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of that.

Favorite Quote: There are so many! How do you even choose something like that in show so obsessed with language and communication like Buffy is. I guess, if I had to pick something of the top of my head, it would still be Buffy’s speech in Chosen, just because it means so much to her character, and to the show in general. And I just love the idea that after spending seven seasons struggling against this horribly unjust system she was thrown into, Buffy’s last big monologue is about overthrowing that system and creating a new one. And besides it’s just one of the greatest TV speeches ever delivered. I read somewhere that when SMG did the scene for the first time, the entire room burst into applause, and man do I believe it.

Worst Character Death (if any): Tara.

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: “Buffy Summers, Class Protector.” Just seeing Buffy get the recognition she deserves makes me so incredibly happy. I can’t even describe how happy it makes me.

Saddest Moment: Plenty to choose from. Probably Joyce’s death, and not just because of the Body, but because the show presents us with the entire grieving process in painful detail, in a way that it doesn’t for other character deaths. So you really feel it, even if you, like me, are pretty ambivalent about Joyce as a character.

Favorite Location: I feel kind of guilty for saying the Library, just because I generally prefer the later seasons, so I should probably be going with a location from the later seasons. But I love the Library, it really is the most iconic and just plain cool looking set ever on the show. Plus, kudos to any show that demonstrates the perennial importance of library sciences.

#rupert giles #buffy summers #anti wesley i guess #i hate writing about characters i dislike because it makes me painfully aware of how subjective this kind of thing is #especially with a character as well liked as wesley #there are characters that just aren't for everybody #and i guess wesley is that for me #fuffy #willow rosenberg #tara maclay #joyce summers #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #ats #angel the series

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sunnydaleherald · 2 years ago

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The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Wednesday, October 26

FAITH Huh. (looks at the chains and shackles on the wall behind Spike's cot) SPIKE (looks over at the chains) Right. Not what it looks like. FAITH Hey, to each his own, man.

~~Dirty Girls~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

The Ick Factor by badly_knitted (Buffy, Giles, PG)

between thought and consequence by madimpossibledreamer (crossover with Constantine|Hellblazer, Xander, Teen)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Passable Italian - Chapter 1 by momentofbored (Buffy/Angel, G)

Après, Ch. 21 by Ninereeds (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Kaddara Hade, Ch. 11 by hostile17 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Night Without Day, Ch. 25 by HappyWhenItRains (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Everything Has to Go, Ch. 5 by rkm (Buffy/Spike, R)

Bound, Ch. 25-26 by RavenLove12 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Footprints Left Behind, Ch. 7 by Willow91 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Randy + Joan: As Long As You Love Me, Ch. 6 by BewitchedXx (Buffy/Spike, R)

Learning To Be Love's Bitch, Ch. 8 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Fade Away Again, Ch. 4 by Willow25 (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Shoot the Radio, Ch. 1 by Dynamite (Buffy/Spike x Faith, NC-17)

Ode to a C*nt, Ch. 1-2 (COMPLETE!) by EllieRose101 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Psych-Out Wolves 1 ½: The Almost Sequel, Ch. 2 by calikocat (crossover with Psych, Xander, FR18)

Consequences of Bargaining, Ch. 14 by All4Spike (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Gifset: Blood by deadwivesclub (ensemble, worksafe with blood)

A tattoo with Slayer weapons by katiemoonart ()

Gifset: I just like to be useful. You know, to the gang? by slayer-pride-parade ((Tara, Willow/Tara, worksafe))

Spike gifset by slayerbuffy (worksafe)

Artwork: Spooky Spike by snottiesnot (worksafe)

Icons from s6e06 "All the Way" by slashericons (Scoobies, worksafe)

Vid: my hand was the one you reached by loveisntbrains (Buffy/Spike)

Drawing: Spike by sushibananawater (worksafe)

Manip: There's nobody here, just us together, part 1 by scratchmeout (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Artwork: On the Road Again by HappyWhenItRains (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Artwork: Spike, The Cunning Linguist by Grief Counseling (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Reviews & Recaps]

["Damage" makes very little attempt to understand Spike's character] by disco-tea and others

BOOM! The Vampire Slayer Thread (spoilers) by BAF and others

Anyone else hate re-watching the second half of [AtS] Season 3? hosted by Defvac2

Now, what episode of Buffy did you not enjoy as much that a lot of people seemed to really like? by aerolies

Pop Culture Role Call: It's a Demonic Life - Angel S03E11 - Birthday

[Recs & In Search Of]

Recs: My Five (favorite Buffyverse vids, art, and stories) by apachefirecat

More Links than a Bag of Sausages by petzipellepingo

Fic recs: Spuffy style Reading Challenge - #12: This or That by mcgnagallsarmy

kazeddie85 seeks a Spike roleplayer to write against his OC

Buffy prints (fan art misprints for the cost of postage) offered by illustrated_mixtape

[Community Announcements]

r/spikes_crypt is a subreddit for fans of Spike

[Fandom Discussions]

OK intense FUFFY thoughts here ("Dirty Girls" basement scene) by juanabaloo

"Intervention" ruined all other romance on television for me by juniperhillpatient

Buffy Kicks and Faith Throws by kyliafanfiction

[The prospect of marriage just follows Spike and Buffy around] by mulderscully

[Re: the headcanon that the demon they used to create the Slayer was a vampire] by disco-tea

Do you find Angel attractive? (cont'd) by DeepBlueJoy and others

Parenting - Giles' series-wide arc by Stoney

I never could decide: is this a perverted joke or a wholesome one? (re: Xander in Primeval) by Shadow_Boxer1987

Xander (I don't hate him) by emrvberts

That's when I knew Joss Whedon has never worked food service by TheMoondance

What do you guys think of the lion growl sound when someone turns into a vamp? by Lobothehobosexual

How Buffy Treated Spike in last few episodes by AccordingReference3

Can we just talk about how versatile Spikes character is!? by sushibananawater

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #7 First Look – BOOM! Studios

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

#btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #angel the series

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parallel5ths · 6 years ago

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Buffy paper!

I had to write a paper for my English class and wrote this in about 12 hours. It's definitely a little haywire, but a good starting point for expanding on the universe.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has become a cult classic since it’s premier in 1997. After it’s unsuccessful predecessor by the same moniker, no one would have imagined it would explode to the icon it is today. Buffy Summers, introduced as a high school sophomore, has a destiny and that is to be the Vampire Slayer. Each generation, there is only one Slayer who is chosen in her teenage years. Buffy’s path from high schooler to adult is an obvious one in age, but less obvious in other ways. This series is widely appreciated for its exemplars on serious issues such as depression, addiction, and death. Through these outlined examples, the mystical are used to illustrate the complex problems faced by ordinary people throughout their lives creating a series that is entertaining, serious, and relatable.

Buffy seamlessly interweaved the real world with the mystical to find a unique way to tell a story. This gave it a unique following due to the numerous subjects it tackled. “Buffy used the monsters that crossed into the human world through the Hellmouth as a metaphor for the horrors of high school, which in turn were a metaphor for the horrors of life in general” (Genzlinger 2017). Season Five is a great example of this. This season finds a way to weave interpersonal family dynamics with an otherwise outrageous storyline. While Buffy navigates a romantic relationship as well as being a big sister to a whiny teenager, she also must find balance in her role as the Slayer. One moment of distraction is all that is needed for someone to get the upper hand, a point which she is very familiar with after her brief death in the first season. As if all of that wasn’t enough, her mother then falls ill. Buffy had been surrounded by the reality of death for years now, but there is something vulnerable about it being your mother.

In a show usually filled with comedy to offset the seriousness, the episodes about Joyce Summers had a very different feel to them. The music is either very quiet or completely absent, only making the backdrop starker. In the hospital scene where it is revealed Joyce has a brain tumor, we are met with a close-up of Buffy’s face as the color drains and the sound falls away. Dr. Michael Bryant, who uses this scene in his medical classes comments “Patients’ minds often fixate onto the most serious condition possible, once told they have a brain tumour. Any other words become white noise and static, and float past on empty currents of dead air.” This portrayal of that heartbeat in your head feeling when confronted with news you cannot comprehend is relatable.

Episodes pass, and we are lulled into a false sense of security. Up to this point, we have lost characters but none this close to the main group. As I Was Made to Love You ends, you see Buffy arrive home, putting her jacket down and calling for her mom as the audience sees a blurry background behind. She turns, pulling this into focus as we see Joyce laying lifeless on the couch. Buffy calls her again, hoping for her to wake but the reality starts setting in. Her voice softening, she says “Mommy?”, a departure from the “mom” directly before as the screen cuts to black. Amidst the monsters and boogeymen of Sunnydale, they found the monsters we really face every day.

Throughout the season, Buffy is seen becoming unsure of her roles as parent, sister, and Slayer as they start to conflict. The episode Intervention begins to show Buffy’s depression and detachment forming. Buffy goes on a vision quest to find answers about her role while the Buffybot fools the rest of the Scooby Gang into thinking she’s the real deal. This is the first stark difference between the Buffy from season one and who she has become now. “The relentlessly cheery Buffybot functions as an idealized version of the Slayer, restoring something of the human Buffy’s youthful chirpiness and being used as an emotional substitute by Dawn who actually lies down on the bed next to her as if she were the real thing” (James 147). With a few exceptions, the Buffybot is able to take Buffy’s place in all roles of her life while also being more likable to her friends and family. Buffy’s resurrection at the beginning of the penultimate season is the final nail in the coffin before Buffy’s depression is shown in the foreground.

At the end of After Life, the audience gets the moment they have been waiting for. Buffy has her heart-to-heart with Dawn, thanks her friends for saving her from a hell dimension and there’s a group hug. She walks out the back door into the sun which is almost too bright, a reference to Buffy’s time in the afterlife. The speech that follows is one any Buffy fan will remember vividly. After Buffy’s sacrifice to save her family and the world, she was rewarded with Heaven. She was finally happy, loved and at peace. She was ripped away from perfection by the people in her life who love her most and they can never know. Knowing what she lost was already weighing on her as she mentions how everything on Earth is “hard and bright and violent” (“After Life” (41:42-41:47). As the tragic hero figure she is, the episode ends with her emphasizing that no one can know what she has shared.

Through the next few episodes, we see Buffy once again struggle with where she fits in. Buffy’s “rebirth” symbolizes her official birth in adulthood in many ways. The rest of the Scooby Gang has established their lives while she was gone. Everyone is in committed relationships, they have jobs or are in school and she is just the Slayer. Her new “enemies” in this season even comment that she is unfocused while jumping job to job. She is stuck in two roles she didn’t choose, despite the name “Chosen One”. It’s at this point she starts spending more time with Spike, the only one who seems to see her pain and understand how she feels. He understands more about the supernatural side of her that no one else can relate to. In Once More with Feeling, the musical episode, there is no disguising Buffy’s pain. Through the various songs she features in, she describes going through the motions and being unable to feel anything. Buffy’s secret is laid bare to the rest of the gang, forced to reveal she was in Heaven. Finally, she tells Sweets, the demon orchestrating these catchy numbers, to “give me something to sing about. Please, give me something” (43:48-44:00). Her depression has progressed to the point where she doesn’t feel like she has anything left. She immediately starts dancing, eventually spinning in circles progressively faster until she appears to start burning. An assisted suicide attempt in front of everyone she loves. Yet, Spike is the one who jumps in to save her, from the fires of Hell it seems, by telling her she has to keep on living. The episode ends on Buffy “getting the fire back” and kissing Spike, the beginning to a complex relationship between Buffy’s human and supernatural side.

Although the rest of the season primarily focuses on Willow and her addiction to magic, Buffy is still fighting her battles throughout. She takes a minimum wage food service job to make money since she is now the sole provider and has no qualifications she could put on a resume. Dawn starts acting out by stealing and sneaking out with boys, a cry for help and attention. Buffy is drowning too deep in all her own roles conflicting while also battling the lack of desire to do so to notice what is happening. In rapid fire, Buffy finds out about Dawn stealing, her ex-boyfriend shows up with a wife and Xander abandons Anya at the altar. Everything is completely in flux, but it is always her responsibility to hold everyone and everything together.

With Buffy as her most confused and detached, her best friend needs her the absolute most. Once again, things start getting back to normal when Tara is suddenly shot and killed. With Buffy also in critical condition, Willow no longer has the desire or ability to hold back her rage. From the beginning of the show, Buffy has many moments of powerlessness, but this time is different. Willow is stronger, faster and has nothing left to live for. This is also the ultimate betrayal to Buffy. Willow was her first friend when she came to Sunnydale and has been there through everything. Not only has Willow killed a human but has tried to kill Buffy’s sister and father figure. In Willow’s effort to kill her pain by giving further into her magic addiction by literally absorbing it from Giles, she can feel everyone’s emotions at once. A throwback to the third season when Buffy hears everyone’s thoughts after she’s infected by demon blood, we see how differently they deal with their depression.

As the season starts to come to an end, Buffy and Willow’s storylines diverge. Having handled their problems differently, it makes sense their paths parted, and they end them separately. Buffy and Dawn become trapped together in the Earth by Willow’s hand, in a similar way that she was forced to dig her way out earlier. The Summers sisters are forced to finally face each other and talk. Buffy comes to terms with the fact that Dawn is also becoming an adult like she did and shielding her isn’t the same as protecting her. Willow’s solution to the pain in the world, hers included, is to end the world. A departure from previous seasons, Willow cannot be defeated by magic or strength. Xander, the final piece of the trio and Willow’s friend from childhood, talks to her and reminds her of who she is. As Dawn and Buffy fight a parade of demons off side by side, Xander refuses to leave Willow’s side. Despite the threat of death and being pushed away, he continues to tell her he loves her after each lashing. Her power fades as she starts to feel again, crumbling to tears as the weight of all the pain and loss hits her. “When Willow took the power from Giles, she exulted in feeling ‘connected to everything’. But that connection was false, and it led Willow to try to end the world. Buffy found the true connection in her inner humanity” (Field 540). When the scene switches to Buffy, she breaks down in happy tears, happy she has time to fix everything she has neglected. Standing with her as they were both faced with death opened her eyes to how much she had been ignoring.

Although many viewers were understandably upset with the finale, it was important to the overall arc of Buffy Summers’ growth. As opposed to their usual triumphant ending where they beat the bad guy, their denial, pain, and grief were killing them instead. At some point, these feelings needed to explode in order to resolve. From these examples, we see two women who have gone down the same path but react differently to it. Having flawed characters who fight their demons, physically and metaphorically, in an unperfect way is important for young people and older alike. Showing vulnerability in a female character while also keeping her strong is a tough feat few writers have achieved. Buffy the Vampire Slayer does it time and time again. It is no surprise to the fanbase that there is a new show coming out. Into every generation, a Slayer is born, and this generation needs one to look up to too.

#buffy #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #Joss whedon #whedonverse #buffyverse #depression #addiction #psychology #essay #paper

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jennycalendar · 6 years ago

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untraditional, unconditional

read it on ao3!

for @jackalopingintothevoid !!! who Came Up With This Amazing AU In The First Place and as such inspired THE actual first fic i ever wrote that involves a giles/jenny wedding!!!! well. in the ripper au. still counts

complete with orange blossoms, cupcakes, and ring pop proposals: this fic is an unholy amount of fluff.

In movies Ripper occasionally watches (covertly, and with Buffy) the will-you-marry-me moment is generally outside, or in the rain, or after a passionate declaration of love, or something ridiculous and romantic like that. What actually happens is that he’s bringing home the groceries (oranges for a citrus-banana smoothie he wants to try and make, coffee because his girlfriend is a nightmare without her morning cup, and an unholy amount of noodles since the children are stopping by for dinner) and Jenny, Jenny who he trusts, ambushes him as soon as he comes in, thrusts a ring pop in his face, and says, “Hey, I found this and it got me thinking—”

“No,” says Ripper, horrified. “Jenny, no. Don’t you dare propose to me with that, I sent for my grandmother’s ring and you are not proposing to me with a ring pop.”

“—that we should really institute a no-candy policy in this house when the kids are—what?” Jenny goes pink. “You sent for your grandmother’s ring?” she asks. Then, blushing even more furiously, “For me?”

“No, it’s for my other girlfriend,” says Ripper dryly, realizing too late that he has completely fucked up. Then, “And—I didn’t send for—anything.”

“I was just talking about a no-candy policy,” says Jenny. She’s grinning ear-to-ear. “On account of me finding this under the couch.”

“Why is it this close to my face if you found it under the couch?” Ripper demands, trying to switch the subject from accidental marriage proposals to Jenny’s absolute inability to understand that the five-second rule isn’t applicable to everything.“For god’s sake, Jenny, just—just throw it out and talk to me about it without shoving it in my face—”

“Will you marry me?”

“Jesus,” says Ripper, “yes, just put that away.”

Jenny drops the ring pop and kisses him. Ripper drops all the groceries and kisses her back. Oranges are everywhere on the floor, he’s sure, and he hears the thud-thud of the noodle boxes falling out of the bag, but this is his fiancée he’s kissing and they’ll have quite enough groceries to last a lifetime.

Then Ripper pulls back and says, “I had a perfectly lovely ring, you know, and you just proposed to me with a ring pop you found under the couch—”

“Excuse me,” Jenny huffs, “you’re the one who brought up your ring in the first place, I was just finishing the job so we’d have an adorable proposal story instead of, oh, I don’t know, my husband fucked up and told me before the ring even arrived!”

“So that’d make you my wife, then?”

“Ugh,” says Jenny, and kisses him again. “So domestic.”

The ring arrives two days later, and he puts up lots of fairy lights in their small backyard, stringing the trees and the fence with little glowing dots. She gets back from work at eight, and he takes her out to the backyard and gets down on one knee at eight-ten precisely. Well-timed, he thinks, and well worth it to see the way she presses her hand to her mouth, smiling.

“You’re getting married!” Buffy shrieks, rushing into the Magic Box and nearly knocking over a display. Jenny and Ripper, who have been engaging in some vaguely PG-13 rated activities behind a bookshelf, hastily jump apart and do their best to look like the kind of people who are responsible enough to exchange nuptial vows and wedding rings. “Oh my god you’re getting married and Jenny’s gonna be a computer science teacher and Ripper can run the magic box and, and—”

“Breathe, Buffy,” says Jenny, who’s rebuttoning her shirt. Ripper steps in front of her to give her an extra few seconds.

“Can we see the ring?” Willow asks excitedly, hurrying in with Tara close behind.

“Yeah, sure!” Jenny steps around Ripper, turns to give him a last, lingering kiss, then steps up to Buffy and flips out her left hand so that the diamond catches the light. “Family heirloom,” she adds proudly, and it strikes Ripper how much that sort of thing means to Jenny. He gets the sense that she picks up on his realization, because she holds out her right hand and wiggles her fingers until he steps up to stand next to her.

We’re going to be a family, he thinks, and likes that.

“Ooh, sparkly!” Buffy takes Jenny’s hand, examining the ring more closely. “Are you guys gonna have a big blowout wedding, or—?”

“We’re on a budget,” says Jenny, who doesn’t sound too bothered by that fact. “We’re probably gonna just get married in the backyard in a few days or something. Maybe have a barbecue.”

“Are you going to invite family?” Tara asks, and it’s perhaps that it’s Tara asking that makes the question a little easier to handle; she more than any of the children knows the complexity of Ripper’s and Jenny’s situations, because she’s had difficult family of her own.

Jenny and Ripper look at each other, and then Ripper says, “We’re inviting you all, I think,” because he sort of likes the idea of having a party that’s just him and Jenny and the kids, and he doesn’t want to wait all that long for a terrifyingly big Watcher wedding. There are traditions on both his and Jenny’s sides that involve large weddings, and if they involve one family member, he’s pretty sure he has to involve them all, so—

“We should start figuring out what to wear,” Jenny says, and grins at him. Ripper grins back.

Ripper thinks he’s going to wear a suit to his wedding. He likes the idea of a fancy tuxedo, and he ends up fussing with his hair early in the morning the day before he and Jenny are scheduled to get married in their backyard, just because he wants to find the style that looks best for a soon-to-be-married man. Then he starts thinking that if he’s married, maybe he should cut his hair so it looks less shaggy—he’s edging towards his late twenties, now, and he’s a respectable shop owner with a fiancée, he should have a haircut that reflects that—and just as he’s mulling over what haircut would be best, he feels Jenny’s arms wrap around his stomach from behind and she says, “You know it’s still gonna just be you and me, right?”

Ripper thinks he gets it. “Yeah,” he says, and puts the comb down, turning around to look at Jenny. She’s wearing a pair of his boxers and a tank top, her short hair is alarmingly, adorably mussed, and his grandmother’s engagement ring is on her left ring finger. I’m going to be her husband, he thinks. She’s going to be my wife. It’s an alarmingly grown-up thought to have for someone who still plays in a band in his garage, but then maybe growing up sneaks up on you a bit.

Buffy, his best man, helps him with the wedding cake. She’s over the moon about being such an important part of the wedding planning process, and she has so many recipes she wants him to try that they end up with three dozen different test cupcakes, all frosted, iced, and decorated.

“I am not eating this many cupcakes the day before I get married,” says Ripper, staring with some horror at the many, many, many cupcakes that are taking up his kitchen.

Buffy gives him an angelic look, and he knows exactly what she’s going to say exactly before she says it. “Looks like you’ve got your wedding cake, then,” she says, sounding delighted by the notion, “or should I say wedding cupcakes,” and then she busies herself with arranging the cupcakes on a few little display stands she’d brought from home.

Jenny, who’s being fitted for her last-minute wedding dress (or, more accurately, trying on a bunch of different thrift store dresses brought over by Willow and Cordelia), pokes her head in and is immediately dragged back into the bedroom by a giggling Willow. “Can’t see your groom before the wedding,” Ripper hears her say, “it’s bad luck!”

“He and I have had scores of bad luck and managed fine, I wanna see the cupcakes!” Jenny objects in return. Ripper feels a soft warmth curl in his chest and sneaks a cupcake while Buffy isn’t looking.

Cordelia is in charge of what she calls the “Wedding Aesthetic” but what’s really just fussing with decorations and redoing all of the very nice work Ripper did with the fairy lights. He wants to start complaining, but can’t really find anything when he sees how nicely she’s spruced up the backyard with balloons, candles, Buffy’s cupcakes, and a very nice painted banner that says Ripper and Jenny in big black letters. Ripper has a feeling that if he’d sprung for the big wedding, it would have been Rupert and Janna on that banner, and it’s nice to see the name he chose for himself right next to the name Jenny picked as her own. Well—Jenny can call him Rupert, and he sometimes calls her Janna, but that’s between a soon-to-be-married couple so it’s not really anyone else’s business.

“I’ve almost got the flower arch set up,” Cordelia announces to the group. Despite the fact that she’s been doing most of the heavy lifting in the backyard, she looks absolutely impeccable in her cream-colored dress and heels.

“Isn’t it bad form to wear white at a wedding if you’re not the bride?” Ripper asks, bemused.

“It is if the bride is wearing white,” says Cordelia cryptically, which makes Ripper grin. He likes it when Jenny’s got a trick or two up her sleeve.

“Something blue!” Willow shouts, barreling past Ripper and Cordelia with a bright blue corsage. “Gotta adhere to the traditions—”

Ripper adjusts his leather jacket where Willow had knocked it, and that’s when he sees someone waiting right outside the gate to their backyard. Stepping around Cordelia, he opens the gate, and he feels as though the wind has been knocked out of him.

“Hello, Rupert,” says his grandmother, and gives him a small, proud smile.

“Gran,” says Ripper, feeling a little sheepish. “I, um, suppose you—”

“Figured you wouldn’t be wasting all that much time with your Jenny?” his grandmother finishes. “I meant to drop by and congratulate the both of you on your engagement, but it seems as though I might have arrived just in time for another happy occasion as well.”

“Yeah, a bit,” says Ripper awkwardly. He should have thought through the concept of asking his gran for her old engagement ring—she’s a lot smarter than he gives her credit for, and he gives her credit for a lot. “Sorry I didn’t invite you—or Dad—or, um, anyone, really. It’s not that big an event.”

Cordelia, whose occupation at the moment seems to be making his life as difficult as possible, shouts across the yard, “XANDER HARRIS, THIS IS THE BIGGEST EVENT YOU’VE EVER BEEN INVOLVED IN, STOP SLACKING AND SET UP THOSE TABLES!”

“She’s a bit dramatic,” Ripper adds.

His grandmother looks at him for a long moment, her smile quivering, and then she claps him on the shoulder and says, “Rupert, I am intensely proud of the man you have become. Might I stop by and give my congratulations to your bride?”

It takes Ripper a moment to speak, after that. Shyly, he smiles too, then says a little awkwardly, “I-I suppose you could stay—a bit longer than that. Meet the kids. I’d like it.”

The backyard really is coming together. Faith and Anya are helping Xander with folding chairs borrowed from the Magic Box storeroom, Cordelia is holding various floral-print dresses up to Tara to see which looks best on her, and Buffy, armed with a portable video camera, is recording the entire process with excited narration. Willow, Ripper supposes, is still off helping Jenny; a maid of honor’s job is never done.

Unsure of what he’s supposed to do, Ripper heads back inside and nearly collides with Jenny. “Oh, don’t look!” she gasps, squeezing her own eyes shut and quickly covering his eyes with her hand.

Ripper grins a bit, closes his eyes, and takes both of Jenny’s hands in his, squeezing them tight. “Not looking,” he reassures. “I know that’s bad luck.”

“I don’t believe in that,” says Jenny stubbornly, “I just don’t want the kids giving me a hard time about it.”

“Of course,” Ripper agrees.

“And—”

“Yeah?”

“No one’s giving the bride away. Just to be clear. That is a patriarchal, dumbass tradition and I don’t want—”

“No, actually, I think my gran’s walking me down the aisle to you,” says Ripper quite seriously. “You are, after all, the one who proposed.”

Jenny giggles, and then lets go of his hands, placing her hands on his shoulder to press a slightly off-center kiss to his mouth. “I love you, dumbass,” she whispers against his mouth, and then she pulls away and moves back. He hears the sound of her colliding with the wall, then her laugh, and then the sound of her footsteps retreating to the bedroom, and waits five extra seconds before opening his eyes.

“I love you too, you know,” he calls after her, grinning like an idiot, and then heads back out to the backyard to help lay tablecloths or something.

Angel’s officiating. Weird as fuck to have the bloke who almost killed his wife marry them, but according to Jenny it’s a gesture of goodwill, and Ripper really will do anything for Jenny so he figures this is a small sacrifice to make. He examines himself in the floor-length mirror in his and Jenny’s bedroom. Neatly combed hair that, yes, is still a bit more on the side of singer-for-Wretched shaggy, but it seems a bit more honest than a married-man haircut; Jenny’s right about things not magically changing just because he calls her his wife. Sensible button-down bought for exactly this occasion, tuxedo jacket from one of his band mates, dusty green waistcoat that he’d taken from his father’s closet before leaving for college all those years ago—light blue pocket square handed to him by Cordelia.

New, borrowed, old, blue. For all his rebellion in college, Ripper always has had a bit of a soft spot for traditions.

Someone knocks on the door, and Ripper turns to see Buffy standing there in a black dress with a tuxedo T-shirt thrown over. Everyone’s been having quite a lot of fun with the rather lax dress code. “Hey, you ready?” she says, her voice soft and very happy.

“Yeah,” says Ripper, and grins. It feels—the easiest thing he’s ever done. Best decision he’s ever made. Took him years to figure out Jenny was the one he wanted to be with, let alone even think about marrying her—after that mess with Ethan and Randall and the rest, part of him had been afraid his heart made the wrong decisions. She’s the person that makes his head and his heart match up, he thinks, and he gets the sense he’s that for her too. He likes that.

“C’mon, lover boy,” says Buffy. “She’s waiting.” With that, she disappears, leaving the door ajar, and heads out to the backyard. Ripper’s not sure, but he thinks he can make out a slightly louder rendition of “Here Comes The Bride,” complete with electric guitar—of fucking course those kids would invite the rest of Wretched to be the wedding band. God, but he’s got a good family.

He adjusts his tie one last time, then heads out to the back door, where his gran is standing all dressed up in one of those matching pastel skirt-jacket-hat things that all grans seem to somehow own. She extends an arm to him, then opens the door, and—

oh.

There’s Jenny, at the end of it all, her short hair framing her face, holding a bouquet of orange blossoms, wearing a shimmering green dress with a flared-out skirt that ends at the knees. She’s woven orange blossoms into her hair, and she’s looking at him, and she’s smiling. Ripper wants to take off and fucking run towards her and wrap her in his arms and never let go.

“It’s your wedding, dear,” says his gran with some amusement, as though she knows what he’s thinking. “And you’ve never really needed anyone to point you in the right direction—you always do find your way there in the end.”

So Ripper runs. He almost trips over the front step, and he can hear the delighted exclamations of the children and of his band, but the music doesn’t stop and Jenny’s laughing as he scoops her up in his arms and twirls her around. He’s fairly certain she drops the orange blossoms.

“Um,” says Angel. “You two aren’t—you’re not married yet. You know that, right?”

“I love you,” Jenny whispers into Ripper’s collar.

“I love you too,” Ripper whispers into her hair, and puts her down in front of him. She stoops to pick up the orange blossoms, then pulls herself up, hair mussed, eyes sparkling. My wife, he thinks, and his heartbeat picks up.

“All right,” says Angel, sounding a little confused. Buffy whoops. “Okay. Everyone knows they’re not married? Great. Let me just read some stuff.” He starts in with some speech that Ripper really isn’t listening to; Jenny’s reached out and taken his hand, stepping just a bit closer to him, and now all he’s thinking about is the vows he’s got planned. They’re rather nice vows, in his opinion. He spent a good amount of time on them—three months, in fact, long before he’d even proposed—and he’s got them memorized very well at this point. He was even practicing in the shower. Jenny, you—

“The rings?” Angel says again, and points to Xander, who’s holding them out on a pillow and looking pointedly at Ripper.

“He’s too busy looking into my eyes,” says Jenny very loudly. “I’m irresistible.” She takes one of the rings, then takes Ripper’s hand again, slipping the ring onto his finger. He’s never going to take it off, he decides. Never, never, ever, and he picks up Jenny’s ring and slips it onto her finger. She sniffles a little and smiles; for all her supposed disdain for tradition, Jenny shares the same love for it when it’s him she’s sharing traditions with. He can understand that.

“Rup—” Angel gets a very disapproving look from Jenny. “Uh, Ripper,” he says, looking a little frightened at the way Jenny’s still glaring, “do you have any—do you both have vows you wanna say?”

“I’ll go first,” Jenny whispers to him, “I know you’re gonna make me cry, and I don’t think I can handle that right now.”

“Apt and accurate,” Ripper agrees. “I’m bloody touching when I put my mind to it.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Jenny, and sniffles again, still smiling. “Okay. Um, Rupert—I love you so much. Like, crazy much. It’s almost ridiculous. I only had two days to write these vows, so they aren’t that great, but—marriage to me is honestly just an extension of what we’ve already got, you know? I want to promise that I’ll always stick by you, and that I’ll always be there to patch you up after patrol and listen to you complain about the customers who come into the Magic Box and don’t buy anything, and that I’ll always be down for making out in the training room when the kids think we’re having important research talks—”

“Is that what they’re doing?” shouts Faith indignantly. “That’s not fair! Ripper said the training room is a no makeout zone!”

“Shh,” says Ripper. “My wife is talking.” She’s not his wife yet, but he likes saying it.

Jenny likes hearing it, too, because her cheeks go pink and her smile widens. “Yeah,” she says. “I want to promise all those things, but—I think you already know me well enough by this point to know I’m not going anywhere. So that’s my promise. That I’ll always keep on living up to my word, making good on my promises, and loving you like crazy.”

This is staggeringly romantic from someone who proposed to him with a ring pop she found under the couch. Ripper resists the temptation to say this thought out loud only because he’s doing his best not to cry in front of absolutely everyone before he’s started in on his own vows. He doesn’t really do all that great at it, and raises a hand to his face, smiling through his tears. “Right,” he says, his voice wobbling. “Well. You’ve certainly made my vows look quite awful before I’ve even started them.”

Jenny giggles. “I did, didn’t I?” she agrees. In the front row, Willow has burst into tears and is sobbing into Tara’s shoulder.

Ripper clears his throat, then tries to sort out his thoughts. “Jenny,” he manages. “You—have known me at my worst and at my most confused, and you have loved me all the same. You have given me kindness and patience, and you’ve always told me when I’m making an incredibly stupid decision. I’m a better person for knowing you, and—and there’s nothing that I want more than the opportunity to be able to make you feel happy and loved for as long as you’ll let me, because the both of us know you’re the one calling the shots here.”

“Damn straight,” Jenny agrees, eyes bright.

“Truly,” Ripper finishes, “I-I count myself lucky you’re the one I love, and even luckier you love me.” Jenny’s hands in his, he turns to Angel and adds seriously, “We’re married now, aren’t we?”

Angel squints at the papers he’s holding. “Did anyone say I do?”

“Your bloody idea to get him to marry us,” Ripper says through his teeth to Jenny, and she giggles wetly.

“Um, Rupert Edmund Giles,” Angel says, still reading off the papers, “will you—follow up to all that stuff you said in your vows? You know, loving, cherishing, having and holding?”

“Oh my god,” comes a voice, and before anyone knows what’s going on, Cordelia’s stalked up the aisle and snatched the papers from Angel. “Ripper,” she says, “do you promise you’ll be the kickass husband Jenny deserves?”

“I do,” says Ripper. Jenny is in hysterics.

“Jenny,” says Cordelia, fixing Angel with a firm look when he tries to grab the paper back, “do you promise you’ll be an intensely awesome wife to Ripper?”

“I do,” Jenny wheezes.

“Cool,” says Cordelia. To Angel, she adds, “You owe me half of whatever they were paying you to do this,” shoves the papers back at him, and hurries back to her seat, high-fiving Buffy and Willow before settling herself down next to a giggling Anya.

“By the power vested in me—thanks to—someone,” Angel manages, still looking utterly confused, “I pronounce you two man and—and woman.”

“Husband and wife!” Buffy shouts.

“Husband and wife,” Angel corrects himself. “Yep. You two can kiss now.”

Ripper picks Jenny up and kisses her, the children tossing orange blossom petals everywhere. One gets in Jenny’s eye and she has to pull back a bit to brush it away, and that’s when it really hits Ripper that they’re truly, properly married. This is his wife that he’s holding, in her green dress, her bouquet held behind his head as she twines her arms around his neck.

“So I’m your husband now,” he says. “You’ve locked me down.”

“I’m sorry, I locked you down?” Jenny looks positively joyful. “You’re the one who sent for your grandmother’s ring—”

Ripper kisses her again, and again, and again.

Everyone dances to Wretched at the reception. Ripper hops up for a few songs (and yes, of course he sings the one about Jenny, what kind of husband would he be if he didn’t), but most of his time is spent dancing with his punch-drunk wife(he loves calling her that, loves it so much) and eating cupcakes with the bridal party. Xander ends up eating most of them, but Ripper doesn’t mind; he and Jenny are rather preoccupied being happy newlyweds.

“So are you two gonna have any kids?” Buffy demands, icing all over her nose.

Jenny hands Buffy a napkin, then says, “Give us a break, we’re adulting one step at a time.”

“I wanna see the wedding video when it’s edited,” Dawn adds. “Particularly that part where Cordelia saved the entire wedding.”

Angel mumbles something about “didn’t need saving” and “was doing fine.” Cordelia pats his shoulder and continues to gracefully drink sparkling apple juice from her champagne flute.

Jenny smiles a little, then leans back into Ripper, tucking an orange blossom into his lapel. “How’s marriage treating you?” she asks, letting her hand linger on his chest.

“Am I still going to be able to play with the band?”

“As long as I never have to cook you dinner,” says Jenny, and settles her cheek against his chest. Ripper kisses the top of her head and listens to the band, and—they’re happy. He likes that bit the most, out of all the things that have happened tonight: they’re happy. It seems like the best bit of luck any wedding could have.

#fic #calendiles #ripper au #rupert giles #jenny calendar #again. an unholy amount of fluff #this is possibly the Most Soft thing i have Ever written and i'm very happy with it

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marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer · 7 years ago

Text

MTVS Epic Rewatch #182

BTVS 7x03 Same Time, Same Place

Stray thoughts

1) I think it’s cute that Xander used a yellow crayon to write the welcome back sign for Willow. And the guy is right, he did save the world with his mouth. And his heart. Let him have that.

2) Buffy’s and Dawn’s concerns are 100% totally valid, though:

BUFFY Yeah. It's gonna be weird seeing her. What do you say to someone in this situation?

XANDER I'm gonna say "Hi, Willow."

BUFFY C'mon. You're saying it's not going to be the least bit strange? We saw her kill someone. She was about to kill Dawn—

XANDER And Giles wouldn't let her leave unless she completed that whatever recovery course.

DAWN Right. Right?

BUFFY She kinda didn't finish.

DAWN She didn't finish? She didn't finish being not evil?

3) I fucking love when shows pull this type of stunts, okay?

Also, poor Willow. I mean, it’s kind of a bummer that she went all dark and veiny and murdered Rack and flayed Warren and beat the shit out of Buffy and Giles and kind of tried to end the world, but it doesn’t matter if you’re evil and trying-to-end-the-world-y, NO ONE deserves to be stood up at the airport!

4) Gnarl is definitely one of the creepiest Monsters of the Week. And the writers achieved the creepiness way before we actually saw the monster, you know? Just its sing-songy, taunting voice and eerie words are enough to give you chills.

5) This has nothing to do with the episode itself, but guys, I have to share this. So I’m getting to the part where Willow arrives at the Summers’, and I’m thinking about the plot of the episode, you know, how Willow can’t see the Scoobies because she’s ashamed of herself and doesn’t want to face them. And then I’m thinking, oh, but she does see Anya, I guess she didn’t feel guilty about any of the things she did to her. Or maybe it was because Anya was a demon, and that protected her against this accidental spell? And then I’m thinking, I wonder why she wasn’t nervous to see Tara, what would have been like if they had written Tara into th… ??????????????????????? Like, I actually forgot Tara was dead????? And I was like, happy???? And imagining what it would be like for them to meet again? And then, you know, I fucking remembered. Anyway, moving on. (I just thought I’d share because it’s the first time I’ve actually forgotten a character is dead….)

6) Willow remembers, though. Vividly.

DAWN Well, if she's doing that—ducking Giles—then, she's evil, right?

XANDER Well, I've avoided Giles tons of times. Just meant I was lazy, not evil.

8) Dawn says it like it is, is all I’m saying…

BUFFY He's blaming himself pretty hard, like he should've known she wasn't ready to come back. I-I kept telling him, you know, it wasn't his fault. Maybe something about us she couldn't face.

XANDER Like she didn't think we were ready to forgive her? I get that.

DAWN So Giles is blaming Giles, and we're blaming us. Is anyone gonna blame Willow? Oh, don't give me shock face. I mean, will anyone around here ever start asking for help when they need it?

9) The Magic Box is out of business, and it’s so sad. I guess they couldn’t nab the same contractors the Bronze has, huh?

10) This is kind of rude of Willow, isn’t it?

ANYA They've been a little temperamental lately, just between you and me. We had this little mix-up a few days ago, and —

WILLOW That sounds great. So, um, where do you think they'd be?

I mean, she’s so insensitive towards Anya, even when Anya is the only person in Sunnydale who’s giving her the time of day (to her knowledge) and actually listening to her and answering her questions. Yet, when Anya tries to talk about her stuff, Willow immediately cuts her off. Rude much?

11) And then this…

I get that it looked too coincidental-y: Willow’s back and so are the flayed corpses. But… it’s pretty disheartening that they immediately assumed it had to be her. Even when she was dark and evil, she was only driven by revenge. She had only hurt or tried to hurt those who’d hurt her and those who tried to get in the way of her hurting those who’d hurt her. She didn’t go after innocent bystanders. So why would she flay a random guy in the school’s lot? Unlikely.

12) I really feel sorry for Spike, though. The fact that he’s the only one who can see and talk to everyone in the room makes him look extra crazy. But he is, in fact, the only one who actually gets what’s happening? Of course, he’s talking in riddles a la Drusilla and therefore he’s not conveying the message clearly. Kudos to James, though, because he reenacts the scene twice to a tee.

13)

SPIKE Look at you... glowing. What's a word means "glowing"? Gotta rhyme.

14) Anya is me.

EXHIBIT A

WILLOW I need help.

ANYA I don't have any money.

EXHBIT B

ANYA Come in. Enjoy my personal space.

EXHIBIT C

WILLOW So, will you help me?

ANYA Is it difficult or time-consuming?

15) Character development + mutual understanding = perfection…

ANYA And the vengeance itself, it's not as fulfilling as I remember.

WILLOW Really? 'Cause I got the impression that you enjoyed—you know, inflicting.

ANYA Well, causing pain sounds really cool, I know, but turns out it's really upsetting. Didn't use to be, but now it is.

WILLOW Is it like you're scared of losing that feeling again. And that having it be OK to hurt people. And then you're not in charge of the power anymore because it's in charge of you?

ANYA Wow, that was really over-dramatically stated, but, yeah, that's it.

WILLOW I get it. Believe me.

ANYA I'm sorry, Willow. I wish it were better for you.

WILLOW You too.

16) This moment is fucking perfect…

Sign me up for the bisexual Anya mailing list.

17) Also, sign me up for the Dawn Watcher mailing list.

18)

XANDER Well, we could ask some questions over at Willy's place

BUFFY Or, we could be smart. Sorry, Xander

XANDER What?

19) See? She’s a dork. She’s already meeting the requirements to be a perfect Watcher.

BUFFY It's pretty easy. Spike follows the exciting smell of blood, and we follow the fairly ripe smell of Spike.

DAWN It's smellementary.

And let’s be real. Puns? She’s totally emulating her big sis.

20) I don’t know why this is such an iconic exchange, but it is.

SPIKE That's it. End of the line. Everyone off. Keep your ticket, you'll need that.

BUFFY That's a rock cliff.

XANDER Well, give him a break, Buffy. Maybe it's a vicious skin-eating rock cliff.

SPIKE There's a cave in it. Look. I'm insane. What's his excuse?

21) Creepy!!!!!!!!

And the slurping sounds!! Just ugh ew yuck!!

22) Paralyzed Dawn is one of the best things to come out of this season. I mean…

23) Didn’t they learn in Fear Itself to read the fine print before jumping to conclusions?

BUFFY Oh, got it. It says the paralysis is permanent. (Dawn squeaks) No, oh, wait, my bad. Permanent until the creature dies. Sorry.

24) Your fave could never…

25) tHE ACTUAL BEST!

26) This scene is so beautiful and heartwarming and seven seasons in the making, you know? It’s such a hopeful and bright way to start this season, especially considering the last time we’d seen Willow and Buffy interact they’d been kicking each other’s asses. It’s kind of sad knowing that towards the end of the season they’ll be growing apart yet again. I mean, Willow is even admitting Buffy was right to doubt her because that’s what Buffy must do, she just has to be the person who considers the worst case scenario and ponders the tough choices because else, she won’t be doing her job right, you know? If she were an accountant, that’d be okay. But in Buffy’s line of work, not doing your job right equals dead people. And Willow gets it. It’s kind of ironic that this trait and thought process will turn out to be the very same thing they will throw on Buffy’s face when things get rough.

WILLOW It's nice to be forgiven. Too bad I need so much of it.

BUFFY I have a confession to make. I thought it might be you. With the flaying.

WILLOW I know.

BUFFY I wanna be the kind of person that wouldn't think that. Xander never thought it.

WILLOW He did, a little. Heck, I did a little. Xander has the luxury of not saying it, but you're the slayer. You have to say stuff like that. It's OK. It's OK too if you still don't think I can recover from this magic stuff, 'cause, honestly, I'm not that sure about it either.

BUFFY I thought you were too tired.

WILLOW It hurts too much not to try.

BUFFY I'm sorry.

WILLOW It just takes so much strength. I don't have that much.

BUFFY I got so much strength, I'm giving it away.

WILLOW Are you sure?

BUFFY Will it help?

WILLOW Much.

BUFFY Good.

Not gonna lie, I got all teary-eyed at Buffy giving away her strength to Willow. That’s what true friendship looks like, kids. When someone gives you the strength you can’t find in yourself to help you overcome something.

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #BTVS #Buffy Summers #Willow Rosenberg #Xander Harris #Same Time Same Place #recap #mine #MTVSepicrewatch #BTVSrewatch2015 #btvsrecap

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arsenicolada · 7 years ago

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I have seen that 'story' go around a lot and I still don't know what it is. WHAT is My Immortal??

Ok buddy get yourself comfortable cause this is gonna be a long one:

Let’s go all the way back to 2006, when the internet was just becoming a thing to young people. Back when a majority of the websites we know today were either just starting out or just starting to pick up in popularity, including fanfiction.net. A lot of fanfictions had already filled the archives, both bad and good, but one fanfiction in particular caught people’s attention almost immediately. And it was ‘My Immortal’ by “Tara Gilesbie”, or ‘XXXbloodyrists666XXX’ as was her username on the website. Supposedly taking place in the world of Harry Potter, this particular fanfic gets to a point where, had it not been for the actual characters’ names being present, you can’t really tell what it’s supposed to be referencing as it has very little acknowledgement of the source material’s canon. The story’s main focus is “Tara’s” self-insert OC, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. Also known as Enoby, Egogy, Evony, Ibony, or just Tara. To anyone who has only heard of ‘My Immortal’, it just sounds like your typical run of the mill “mary sue” fanfiction. But what made ‘My Immortal’ stand above the rest were three things: the butchered grammar, the author’s seemingly obsession with the gothic subculture, and the mary sue herself.

The grammar is terrible, there is just no other way to put it. “Tara” had a very distinct way of writing, which was better exemplified in her ‘author’s notes’, her little thoughts that she always puts at the very beginning of each chapter or sometimes at the end. And other times in the middle of her story, to either talk back to the ‘flamerz’, go on about how much she loves a band she mentioned, or point out a pun she made. And it all greatly resembles someone sending a text message:

“AN: STOP flaming! if u flam it menz ur a prep or a posr! Da only reson Dumbledeor swor is coz he had a hedache ok an on tup of dat he wuz mad at dem 4 having sexx! PS im nut updating umtil I get five good revoiws!”

That kind of style is present throughout the whole story. Granted the actual chapters have better spelling, but the way it’s put together is all the same. And it actually worsens the further it goes to the near point of illegibility. In fact, legend has it that the story’s grammar was apparently so bad that fanfiction.net deleted it due to the sudden drop of intelligence on the site. No one knows if that’s true, most likely not as that seems like quite a stretch. However, it was actually deleted, perhaps by Tara herself, though she later reposted it.

But the real kicker is exactly how the fanfic interprets the source material. Hogwarts is no longer a school of wizardry divided by bestowed houses, but is now a more high school-based setting where everyone is divided by cliques, though only three are present. Goths, preps, and posers:

•Goths are the good kids. They’re the only ones who understand this dark and depressing world better than anyone else, and shows their individuality by shopping at Hot Topic together and listening to the same exact bands. They’re also half vampires for some reason. And they’re all part of Slytherin even if they’re originally from another house in the actual story.

•Preps are the mean kids. They just like, totally don’t understand goths so they’re like so mean to them and call them scary and stuff. They’re all just bitchy and are like totally jealous of the goths and only shop at stores like American Eagle and only listen to crappy music like Hilary Duff. And all those stupid preps are in Gryffindor.

•Posers are just goth wannabes who listen to Avril Lavigne and probably don’t even know who Good Charlotte is. What houses are they even in, no one knows and no one gives a shit. They’re mostly there just to show the reader what being goth is really all about.

And above them all is the only true goth, the queen of Mary Sues herself, Ebony. Now the definition of what makes a “mary sue” has been drastically skewed over the years, and probably shouldn’t even be relevant anymore, but if you at the very least want a true-to-heart example, Ebony is the way to go. Tara’s obsession with being goth is greatly reflected in this character. She loves bands like My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, and Evanescence (who wrote the song ‘My Immortal’ which this fanfic is named after). She shops at Hot Topic and wears the type of clothing that any 13 year old goth wishes they could. In fact, Ebony’s outfits are always described in great detail and takes up to almost paragraphs in every chapter:

“For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow.”

And trust me when I say they only get longer. It isn’t just the outfit descriptions though, the whole entire story is written in Ebony’s favor. Like a Hot Topic being in Hogsmede despite it being a nonmagical store (not to mention being an american chain) and a club where Ebony’s favorite bands just happen to be playing concerts in despite being muggle bands. And how cutting, underage drinking, and smoking is glamorized as being “dark” and “beautiful” and has no repercussions whatsoever. And how there’s no uniforms so Ebony can show off her over the top wardrobe.

Since Ebony is the main character and this is a fanfiction, all of Tara’s favorite characters from the Harry Potter world are Ebony’s gothic friends and accompany her in Slytherin, even if they’re canonly in other houses as I’ve mentioned previously. And all of Tara’s hated characters are Ebony’s enemies, and are depicted as either nasty preps or a bunch of posers that belong in Gryffindor. It doesn’t stop there though, as all the male characters have a thing for Ebony because she is just so sexy and looks exactly like Amy Lee. But Ebony only focuses on her two main love interests, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, who now goes by Vampire Potter because he likes the taste of human blood.

This is all just the very basics of the fanfiction, there are plenty of more absurdities you’ll stumble upon the further you read. Like Voldemort and the Death Eaters disguising themselves as My Chemical Romance, Snape video taping Ebony taking a bath, characters from different sources making cameos like Marty Mcfly, the list goes on.

But what truly, TRULY made ‘My Immortal’ such a phenomenon is that no one knew if it was legit. There were two sides to how people felt about it, those who thought it was a real story and Tara at the time was another young angsty teen who had just been introduced to the internet (which would explain the terrible grammar and botched sex scenes), and those who thought the story was one big joke written by a genius troll who made Tara up as a persona, which was extremely plausible since everything about the story was so wrong and completely blown out of proportion that there was no possible way someone could’ve come up with it and been completely serious. But people on the other side have argued that they’d have a very, VERY dedicated troll.

One of the biggest factors to their argument was Tara’s friend Raven, who not only had her own OC named Willow that was featured in the story, but also had a helping hand in writing it. She even had her own fanfiction.net account called ‘bloodytearz666’. Raven was Tara’s creative filter, as she was in charge of spelling and grammar and came up with some plot points in the story. At least until chapter 16 when the two apparently had a falling out and Tara killed off Willow, but later brought Willow back as an apology. So this troll would’ve had to not only make Tara, but also make Raven as a means to support their persona, unless Raven was created by a second troll. But both of those trolls would’ve had to write other stories pre and post ‘My Immortal’, as well as manage several social media accounts, which is a whole lot of effort just for the sake of making a joke.

Since the story was made, many people have come forward claiming they are the mysterious Tara, with promises of more material and continuations of the infamous story. So no one knew for sure who Tara is or her whereabouts. Until now.

After years and years of shrouded mystery, “Tara” has finally logged back into her more than decade old account and revealed herself to be Rose Christo. As it turns out, she co-wrote ‘My Immortal’ with Raven, who was actually a real person and her friend, during a very hard time in her life. And it wasn’t for a reason most might have thought. She revealed that she purposely made it as bad as possible so she could gain enough publicity to find her younger brother that she had been separated from.

She even wrote a memoir about it that is set to be published in 2018, which you can read about here.

You can also read the fanfiction itself if you’re interested here. Even if it did turn out to be a fake, it’s still a very humorous read, and very interesting since we now know its backstory.

EDIT: So as it turns out the whole thing with Rose was a hoax and the real Tara is still out there. Waiting, longing, in a dark alley with her hand stretched out so that I may one day shake it.

#bunny-carrothunter #pirate fabbles #my immortal

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