#that & the moment where after Buffy is resurrected that time & she tells everyone that they pulled her out of hell

[portmantaur]

do y’all remember when Buffy like cut her hand or something and then held Dawn’s hand and was like “your blood and my blood” as a way to basically say “no matter what you’re the sister I choose” because I remember that every day of my life

[melonsmessymusings]

Just seen a post about S6&S3 parallels and @rachaeljurassic made some super interesting points in the tags about Giles’ departure and how INFURIATING it is that I really want to expand upon, so I guess this one’s for you :) I get it, the mentor figure needs to be gotten out of the way in order to progress Buffy’s own arc, that’s fine. It narratively makes complete sense, but it was handled badly.

@rachaeljurassic suggested that maybe we could’ve gotten him out of the way with a coma. I vibe with that. Let’s have the head injuries catch up to him and have him totally incapacitated. Big battle, dire injuries, that works. We could still have Buffy spiralling after, but this time she’d be blaming herself because Giles got hurt as a result of her being the Slayer (even though he’d never blame her for it and it isn’t her fault except for like twice). That also works better because it would be more in character than having Giles go “I know you can’t even breathe right now but I’m gonna flake because you need to be a grown up. Even though when I was your age I was raising demons, doing dr*gs and having orgies so like lmao.” Plus, have a couple of gratuitous scenes of a very injured Giles being visited by someone to pepper throughout the season that were pre-recorded so we don’t get confused as to why they wouldn’t be sat there with him at least every now and then to make us cry. Imagine a scene with Buffy in a hospital room watching a ventilator force air into her Watcher to keep him alive and pouring her heart out because she’s terrified with no idea what to do and he always knew and she needs him and just cries. You could even have it where he’s like slowly deteriorating or something and Dark!Willow uses her magic to cure him so that would explain how he just got better and was like... fine.  

I also love the idea of him having a total breakdown after Buffy’s death. I absolutely thrive off him becoming a completely numb droid (he probably was and only bothered to put on façade for the Scoobies but that’s for another day) and the Scoobies decided it’d be better for him to try and find a new purpose in life by sending him to England. We could’ve had like the first episode of them helping him settle with the Coven or something and it’d have been AWFUL to watch, but it would make sense and then when Buffy gets resurrected, they just don’t tell him and they tell Buffy that the grief killed him or something like that? idk... or having them explain that Giles isn’t Giles anymore and he’s doing better (because Tara gets updates from the Coven) but being in Sunnydale was killing him and they never told him that Buffy was resurrected. That wedges the group dynamic enough tbh and would cause Buffy to turn to Spike because he’d have had no clue about anything except that Giles had gone off the bloody rails big time and it was good he was away from this hellhole. 

Family emergency? Let’s be honest, the Giles family are probably scum so I’d buy that way less but it’s still more convincing than what actually happened. 

Another suggestion was having the Council snatch him. I also adore this. That would make sense. But let’s have them make it look like they killed him because I love that. So they send in a team, take him away but make it look like he’s been completely murdered. 

My idea is that they put a glamour or something on a vampire to make it look like Giles (but the audience don’t know this yet) and so Buffy drops by and finds a body that is in every way identical to Giles in a destroyed apartment and just breaks and is like clutching at him or something and there’s blood and its horrendous. Then you could either have swoopy Council guys come in and take Giles away when he ‘wakes up’ as a vampire because “there’s a procedure to this Miss Summers” or have her stake him herself then and there because after Angelus she’s taking no chances. Could you imagine the emotional payoff of that? She then has to go and tell the others, who don’t believe her but they all see the apartment, bloodstains and pile of dust and they all have to cope with the grief of losing him throughout the season in addition to everything else.

But wait! There’s more. Travers ends the episode with a folder in front of him, a report from the team that carried out the operation and smiles saying something evil like “I warned her of dealing with grown ups” so the audience all thinks that Giles got offed by the Council. 

BUT REALLY Giles was taken and held in a like prison facility thing, very much alive. Then we get like a showdown of Giles chained to a chair in this cell being forced to watch the video footage of the whole operation and Travers telling him that it’s over and his oh so precious Slayer will end up killing herself with guilt/grief and the Council can have a new start because they’re going to off Faith too. And the last shot is Giles crying in a dank hole.

As far as the audience goes: imagine having Giles showing up at the end of S6 if THAT had been the departure? It’s already an “AAAAAHHHHHH HOLY SHIT!” moment but it’d be magnified tenfold. Then Buffy being completely confused because “I killed you!” then having that moment when she ends up hugging him and he’s warm and breathing and not dead. And Dark!Willow being really confused but trying to kill him anyway because if he was alive all this time why didn’t he come back? That’s when we get the scene with Giles watching what happened on the monitor. Everyone is confused and Giles explains that the Council kept him in one of their facilities and now Buffy feels sick because she’s like “they tortured you... for months!” and Giles is like “Well yeah but it’s fine because I’m here now and I’m so sorry for abandoning you all.” Still can have Evil Willow being evil and Xander saving the day. I don’t care that much but we could’ve had this worked in.

Because the Council would’ve tortured him for fun. Not necessarily physically but they would’ve paraded him around as the example of what happens if you don’t toe the line. They could’ve completely humiliated him and it caused like cracks in the Council because some of them hate that Travers is abusing his power like this on one of their own and others finding it good that such a strong message is being sent. At which point, Travers would give the order for the Special Ops team to start the beatings. Of course, Giles is used to having the seven bells kicked out of him, but to be used as a training dummy by other human beings? They’d practice on him and that’s as far as I think the physical side of it would go, the rest would be mental/emotional torture. Or having hexes/curses tested on him and all the while, Giles genuinely wants them to kill him because everyone he cares about already thinks he’s dead so it makes no difference if it’s the reality. All the while, he’s being kept vaguely up to date with the events of Sunnydale so that he can hear how his Slayer is edging closer into just giving up and it breaks his heart. So Giles spent a year either being locked in a cell translating texts or being used as a punchbag to teach the S.O. team how to interrogate people. That’s how I see it going anyway. We could’ve seen like flashbacks of parts of it in S7 or something idk.

That would explain why he’s so distant in S7. Because he was kept prisoner for almost a year by the people who practically raised him (because the Council kind of did) and how that would mess anyone up and the First tormenting him about how he should’ve gone through with any attempts to end it instead of being a coward because Buffy doesn’t need him and she already thought he was dead. 

I dunno if this is actually what you were going for but it’s where my mind went and it would’ve given Tony Head something really juicy to do by playing a slightly crazed version of Giles who freaks out if there’s more than five people in the room because a year of living on your own in the dark drove him mad. He would’ve completely nailed it. Way better than sitting there going, “I’m headed back to England, and I plan to stay indefinitely”. Ugh we were robbed.

[takaraphoenix]

spuffy for the ask game since you have a spuffy story coming up on your schedule?

Yes, yes I do! And sure can do! ^-^

I love Spuffy. It has been one of my absolute favorite ships from all fandoms for many years, but ever since I also read the comic continuation, I gotta say, Spuffy is the favorite ship. The most beloved of all ships I've ever sailed.

They are the embodiment of hero/villain enemies turned lovers.

And they have my favorite m/f dynamic; he's full of snark and bastard energy, but oh is he soft for her.

And they also have that thing that makes me love ships the most; it's a ship between my two favorite characters from that franchise. If a ship unites my two faves, it just instantly gains more of my love, because it means I get them both, at the same time, happy, with each other.

I love the way their dynamic slowly changes over the seasons.

I have a soft spot for early bastard secondary villain Spike, he is hilarious and Buffy's annoyance with him is delightful.

And then he has his literal oh moment of realizing he's into Buffy and he doesn't know how to handle it and he handles it in the whackiest, weirdest way possible. I mean, role playing with Harm? Having Warren build a sex bot? The incredibly awkard stalking?

But things get more serious and less of a comic relief "look at that poor bastard" when Spike becomes one of the people Buffy trusts. One of the people she trusts the most, I'd say, considering she leaves her mother and her sister with him, repeatedly.

Season 5 is such a good Spuffy season in that Spike becomes a Scooby by sheer force of will. Somewhere in my mind still lives an alternate spin where the Scoobies do escape Glory in their RV and just... have a merry roadtrip with each other.

And sure, it's easy to dismiss Spike - easy for Buffy and the other characters. Because he's a vampire, and not a fancy one with a soul like Angel. He might lust for Buffy, but it can't be love, right.

But, and that's what makes me love this ship so much, it is love, even without a soul. (It's also what makes me love Spike so much, because he is such a complex character with so much growth who was already so much more than just a vampire even without his soul.)

Him bringing flowers after Joyce died, not to somehow score points with Buffy, but because he genuinely liked Joyce and they had genuinely bonded with each other. Because he mourns, even without a soul.

And, the biggest evidence as to him genuinely loving her - he stays, when Buffy dies.

If it were all misplaces lust that he blows out of proportion, he wouldn't have stayed. Buffy was dead and since Willow, Tara and Xander didn't tell him about wanting to resurrect her, he had no reason to stay, no reason to believe she would ever be back.

But he stayed in Sunnydale. And not just to mourn and get drunked and fucked up, the way he did when Dru dumped him.

He was a Scooby. For months, he worked with them to protect Sunnydale, to fight demons, to help raise Dawn. He took on so much responsibility and for the first time truly became a hero, a good guy. He fought for the good cause, not to impress Buffy and score points with her, not out of any misplaced reasons. Solely because she was gone and he wanted to honor her legacy, he wanted to do what she would do if she were still there, he wanted to protect those she had died to protect.

I have a very complicated relationship to season 6's Spuffy. It's very self-destructive, on both parts. She's only using him, he becomes her bad coping mechanism with being brought back to life. And he knows that, but he can't stay away. Personally, I think all of Seeing Red was a huge mistake and especially after the build-up of what they had Spike do for Buffy so far without a soul, it... it felt like a whole different writer with entirely different ideas just grabbed the script and hijacked it at that point, to be quite frank. I do think that at that point in how Spike's character was established, it was OoC. Even if you try to argue that their relationship had already been a mess of mixed signals, with "I hate you, you disgust me" being followed by mindblowing sex, I still think that this was pushing things too far.

But it brought us Spike going to get his soul, so I digress.

And then comes season 7 and season 7 is just peak Spuffy. Season 7 is my happy place. Gods. The way Buffy cares for him, the way she protects him, from the others, from the First, from himself. The way she stands up for him. How she keeps choosing him.

The way they banter and raise "the children" together once he feels better.

And when everyone in an act of being incredibly, impossibly, forcibly OoC just turns their back on Buffy and also stabs hers, repeatedly, he is still there. He tells them off the way I was yelling at my screen too and then he found her and comforted her and simply held her.

And then he died. Not for her, but because he actually was a hero. And it wrecked me. (The best thing AtS ever did was bring Spike back to live, imo.)

Let's skip season 8 to the end, where he comes in as the knight in shining armor, having done his research on how to stop the apocalypse unfolding once again and how, even though she had just hooked up with Angel, she immediately starts fantasizing about Spike as soon as he's in the room? I swear, season 8 is a freaking mess.

But season 9... really hurts. That she'd come to him, of all the people she knows and loves, she comes to him when she doesn't know how to keep going, when she considers running away and raising a child, being a family. He is the person she thinks about. And he is the person she comes to for back-up when she decides to have an abortion. Whether she goes to a happy place or a dark place, in both scenarios she chose him over everyone else, to have him at her side.

And season 10 finally gives us the canon romantic relationship between them. Finally, they actually get together and it is so good. The way they communicate with each other, the way she reassures him that she chose him and no one's going to come between them, tells him that he is a good man and also finds for herself that she is not just happy in this relationship, she also finds that she loves herself more, she likes the person she is when she is with him (she literally says that).

Buffy has a freaking mind-journey, traveling into Spike's mind and seeing and feeling just how much he loves her, how regardless of what else is going on, he loves her.

They are... They are everything I always dreamed they could be in a real relationship - they have their problems, but they talk them through, they reassure and support each other, they're domestic and cute, they make each other better, not by changing the other but by supporting the other and giving each other the chance to be their best self.

When they actually are in a real relationship, neither of them is jealous. And both have shown in the past to be prone to jealousy. But when Buffy tells Spike that Angel is her past and that he is her present, he accepts that and he doesn't feel the need to be a jackass around Angel. And when Spike tells Buffy about his could-have-been Dylan, Buffy doesn't get jealous over her, no, she decides they should go to Dylan's art-show and she gets along splendidly with her.

Season 11 is an overall rough ride, I mean, they are literally locked inside an internment camp for nearly the whole season. But the Spuffy keeps you going, because they are so strong together, they make this work, together.

The season ends with them kissing, with Buffy saying "I love you" for the very first time and all Scoobies being together and it's... the picture-perfect ending to Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I could have ever imagined.

(There is no season 12 in my mind. That was Fray-centric garbage that did a disservice to Buffy as a character.)

Send me a ship and I will explain why I do or don't ship it

[ex-vengeancedemon]

Averting Disasters and Other Ways to Avoid Your Problems

Chapter 3

Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mentions of things that occurred in Angel: The Series season 5.

Main Pairing: Buffy x Spike

Characters: Buffy, Spike, Giles, Willow, Xander, Andrew, Faith, Dawn

Summary: Set in 2008, five years after Spike’s resurrection at Wolfram & Hart. Buffy is living in Cleveland guarding the hellmouth. Spike has left Angel and company and is hiding out in Chicago. The Scoobies are scattered. When something starts going wrong with the slayers around the world, it’s time to get the gang back together.

Masterlist & Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Cleveland, Ohio 

Spike and Andrew arrived in Cleveland shortly before sunup, much to Spike's relief. Andrew was a bit of an erratic driver and if Spike wasn't already dead, he might have bothered to fear for his life. He had never been to Cleveland before. Never had a reason to. Sure there was a hellmouth, but why would anyone choose it over California? Ohio was a flyover state for a reason. What'd they even have in Ohio? Corn?

Andrew parked the car outside of what looked to be an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district on the outskirts of the city. The windows were all dark and Spike couldn't hear or see a soul around. There was a faint scent of iron in the air that smelled almost like blood, but Spike could tell it was actually emanating from the slowly corroding metal walls of the warehouse. Unlike Spike, the building wasn't timeless. He raised an eyebrow at Andrew, but the eccentric Watcher-in-training was already jumping out of the car. Spike followed after him, only hesitating for a moment. Could barely be called hesitation really. Just... taking a breath. That he didn't really need. Bugger it. It's not like Andrew noticed.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to off me," Spike commented as he looked over at the group of motionless cranes dangling equipment that likely violated several OSHA regulations.

Andrew laughed with a grating kind of chortle that for a second brought Spike back to a different time. At Buffy's house, back when they were still at war with The First. He waved off the memory. No point in getting all sentimental. What's done is done and over.

"No silly," Andrew replied. "This is where Willow said to meet."

"Nice digs. Perfect spot for a demon."

Andrew rolled his eyes at the quip and opened the rusting metal door, motioning for Spike to enter. Spike eyed the door, surprised it hadn't crashed down off its tracks. 

"Alright then," Spike said as he walked into the darkness. No point in arguing. 

Inside, the warehouse was completely empty except for the heavy coating of dirt covering the spalling concrete floor...and a strange rectangular pool of what looked like liquid silver situated at its center. Andrew's footsteps echoed behind him in the cavernous space as Spike moved to get a better look at the curious centerpiece. Despite the lack of light, the silver pool seemed to shimmer and emitted a faint glow. Probably radiation. Spike took a couple of steps back from the man-sized pool. 

"Now hold up a minute," he said, turning on Andrew. "Pretty sure the mercury baths went out of style." He held a finger up for emphasis. "And, if memory serves, Xander was the one with the syphilis problem."

Andrew ignored him and walked to the edge of the pool. "It's a portal. You coming or are you just gonna stand there?"

With that, Andrew stepped off the ledge and disappeared beneath the surface of silver. Spike stared after him. 

"Right, quick trip to hell. Was getting bored anyway. Well, if that git can do it," Spike muttered.

He ran after him and leapt into the pool. For some reason he had expected it to burn, like molten lava. Instead, he felt absolutely nothing, not even as his head sunk under the waves. And then everything was unnaturally bright.

Spike winced away before realizing it wasn't the sun, just orbs of floating white light scattered throughout the sizable room. He recognized the type. This was a magic shop. A multi-dimensional magic shop. 

The shop was quiet despite its size and selection. Spike recognized more than a few rare items that would fetch quite the price on the black market... if one was into that sort of thing. The shelves were fully stocked with spell books, grimoires, various herbs, crystals, and other magical curios. It made the old Sunnydale magic shop look like the kiddie leagues. 

Sitting at a long oval table in the center of the room was Willow, dressed in clothes that looked a day old with a cold cup of coffee sitting next to her. The red-headed witch was surrounded by books scattered around her on both the table and the floor. She didn't even look up at their arrival. It seemed that - apart from Spike and Andrew - she was the only one in the shop. 

"Hey Willow," Andrew said, giving her a little wave. "I got Spike."

Willow looked up from a particularly thick tome covered in a language Spike didn't recognize. She gave a small smile that did nothing to hide the worry on her face or the exhaustion in her eyes.

"Hey guys," she said. "Good to have you on the team."

"Any luck so far?" Andrew asked.

Willow shook her head. "Nothing. There's nothing about mass memory loss in slayers. Of course, there have never been multiple slayers before so. You know, we're back in uncharted territory."

Spike cut in hesitantly, "And Buffy?"

He thought he caught an odd expression cross Willow's face, but it had been a while since he'd seen her. Maybe it was normal.

"I still haven't been able to reach her," Willow replied. "I just got here last night. Called in a favor to a friend and got us a lease on this magic shop 'til we figure out what's going on. I'm hoping Giles will know more."

"Well we should go check on her then!" Spike said, throwing up a hand. "Slayer wandering around out of her head? It's a death sentence."

Willow pursed her lips and glanced over at Andrew uneasily. "We can't. Or...well we're not sure we should. It's not just memory loss."

She paused and Spike began to get more and more agitated. There was something they hadn't been telling him. Something bad.

"During the blackouts," Willow continued, "you know, the times they can't remember? Well, we think that there's someone...else. Someone else is controlling their actions, it's almost like they're possessed. But whatever is doing it-"

"It's a scary good copy," Andrew blurted out.

Willow nodded. "It knows about their lives, how they act, their friends. It even goes on doing the regular day-to-day slayage duties. But we've noticed some things are just a bit...off."

"What do you mean, off?" Spike pressed.

"Well...one of 'em did try killing Angel a few days back," Andrew replied. "They had been working together temporarily and apparently she just snapped one day."

"Well I don't see the problem there," Spike said with a grin.

"Another one didn't recognize her parents when they came for a visit," Willow added. "She hadn't seen them since becoming a slayer and just nothing. Freaked them right out. But she remembered everyone else, insisted they weren't her family though."

"Okay, yeah, a bit odd," Spike conceded.

"And then, two days ago, Giles was training with one of the London slayers when her fighting style switched from streetfighter novice to jujitsu master in the span of a minute." Willow sighed. "And that's when I did a revealing spell. There were was something in her that wasn't her. We don't even know when we're talking with the real person...or the other. Whatever it is."

"And that's why you haven't contacted Buffy," Spike stated.

Willow nodded. "We don't want to spook...it."

"Yeah who knows, it could run off to Timbuktu with Buffy's body," Andrew agreed with a vigorous nod.

"Andrew, could you get me some cannis root from the back storage?" Willow asked him. "I need to do a translation spell."

"Sure, of course!" Andrew replied as he scampered off behind the rows of shelves.

Spike pulled out a chair and took a seat next to Willow at the table without speaking.

"It's good to see you, Spike," Willow said without smiling. "I just wish you would've told us before disaster struck again."

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Well, being back in the land of the living has been one should've after another I suppose." He fumbled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up with a flick from his lighter. "Do you think-"

"I don't know if she'll be glad to see you," Willow said, answering the unspoken question. "I don't know."

"Right."

Spike sighed as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. Andrew returned with a large jar of what looked like...well, roots. Willow took it from him and set the jar aside without opening it. It seemed the cannis root had just been a task to keep Andrew busy. Spike wasn't surprised. Andrew took a seat at the table and began perusing through some of the scattered books. Spike watched as the two continued their research. It wasn't really his forte. 

What felt like hours later - though he knew it had only been minutes - Spike heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Familiar tread. Instant irritation. Bollocks.

"No. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. No way. What the hell is he doing here?" Xander exclaimed as he squinted in the light.

[fics-for-my-heart]

Newbie (s.s) p.2

Summery: Starting a new school with the ability to see that someone is supernatural takes a crazy turn

Word Count: 5720  

Warning: someone gets taken, talk of blood, talk of torture

A/N: Woah this got out of hand. I wasn’t expecting this to take so long, and to be this long either. I hope the ending doesn’t come off as rushed. I kinda enjoyed this and if anyone wants, I could do another part? I’d need some ideas for monsters though! Hope you enjoy

Part One  Part Two

Masterlist

You spent every day after school with Stiles and the pack in the week since your trip to Sunnydale. Stiles had insisted on taking you home after school, or picking you up whenever there was a potential lead. Stating that it would be faster to show you than to hope you didn’t get lost. You’d rolled your eyes, but secretly you didn’t mind being driven around. Plus, Stiles was cute, so that may have been another reason. 

Argent and Derek had taken over most of the actual searching. Scott joined them most nights, but the rest of you had been tasked with connections and trying to determine who the skincrawler currently was. Which was proving difficult. You couldn’t do much without the identification of the skinned body, and you hadn’t been able to find anyone with the grey colored aura. 

“We got an ID on the last body.” Sheriff Stlinski announced as he and Parish walked into Scott’s kitchen. Stiles grabbed the file folder from his dad, immediately shifting through the new information. 

“We also think the church connection was the start. But it turns out that there’s also a family connection.” Parish added. “The first three victim went to the same church, but the fourth is related to the second and third.” 

“It’ll stay with the family.” You sighed. “Once it finds easy prey like that it’ll stay. Who is it?” 

“Stephan Milligan?” Stiles looked around the room. "Anyone know him?" 

Heads shook, shoulders shrugged, then Mason, Liam's best friend, spoke up. "Yeah, he was in my math class." He turned his phone around to show a photo of an innocent looking kid. "He said something a few weeks ago about his aunt being sick. I didn't think anything of him not being in class."

Sheriff Stlinski nodded. "His aunt was the second victim. His cousin was the third." 

"It's probably trying to keep a low profile." You said, thinking back to something Willow had told you before you left. "The resurrection ritual needs to be done just right to work. If anything goes wrong, or something interferes, then everything could go wrong. Most of the time they try to put themselves in the lives of whoever they have taken over. But because this one is trying to do this ritual it’s definitely not going to try and be noticed.”

"It's doing a poor job then." Stiles said, he was still looking over the files. "It's just leaving the bodies around in the open, like it wants to get caught."

"I can't figure that part out. Normally they are discreet. Unless it's part of the ritual or something." You pulled your phone out to text Buffy and Willow.

"Mason, can you send everyone that photo. It'll help knowing who we are looking for." Scott asked, before he could say anything else everyone's phones vibrated. "Thanks. I'm going to go out tonight with Derek and see if we can maybe track his scent." He looked at you. "Do you think that will work?"

"Honestly, not sure. The only other werewolf I know wasn't around when this was going on. But it wouldn't hurt to try."

After a bit more planning, with Malia agreeing to go with Scott, and Lydia going with Mason and Liam to see if she can pick up on anything from Stephans locker, you all called it a night. Per the new norm, Stiles took you home, he was silent almost the entire way. His brows pinched as he worked his lip. You’d picked up on this being his tell that his mind was racing.

"What's going on up there?" You asked, tapping his forehead.

He startled, glancing at you a moment before looking back at the road. "It's bothering me."

You waited for him to finish, but he  grew quiet agan. "What is?"

He pursed his lips. "This thing, it's not being stealthy. I can't shake the feeling that it wants us to find these people. Wants us to find it. Something just isn't sitting right with me." He put the Jeep in park in your driveway, then turned to face you.

"It's not sitting right with me either. I texted Buffy and Willow, but they haven't gotten back to me. We still have a few days before it attacks again."

"That's what worries me."

"Me too. But, with everyone on the lookout now, I'm sure we will find it before it takes another person." You grabbed your bag, looking back at him. "Try and get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

He looked at you a moment before smiling softly. "Goodnight."He waited for you to get in your door before leaving, and you waited for his tail lights to disappear before closing the door.

-----

"Alright class," Mrs. Hopkins started handing papers out, speaking as she went. "I want you to pick a partner, and go over this assignment. We are about to start The Crucible. I want you and your partner to pick a character and write a character Analysis on them. This project will be done over the next couple of weeks but I want you to pick the character now. And no you can’t change it. Get started." She waved her hands, then returned to her desk.

Stiles immediately moved his desk against yours, blocking you in. 

"Howdy, partner." He winked.

You laughed, rolling your eyes. "Who said I wanted to work with you?"

His hand went to his chest in fake offence. "Unbelievable. I thought we had something building here."

Your cheeks warmed, you knew he was joking, but you really had been growing some feelings for him. You grabbed his desk as he tried to pull away. "I'm kidding."

"I know. I just like messing with you. So, witch trials." He leaned on his hand, his fingers covering his lips as he looked at you.

"Ridiculous. And barbaric. Witches weren't even seen as being bad till some crazy dude was convinced one of the local witches cursed his horses. Then it was 'she made me ugly' and 'my crops died because of that hag'. And the tests? Who the hell even thought of them?"

Stiles had a smile on his face, his brows slightly raised.

"Are you laughing at me?"

"No, but it's kinda cute when you get all defensive over something you care about."

You rolled your eyes again before picking up your pen and getting started on the assignment.

The rest of the day went by quick, and before you knew it you were sitting in the Jeep waiting on Stiles.  You'd been waiting a bit so when someone tapped on the window you jumped.

"Sorry." Liam cringed when you rolled the window down. "Scott told me to meet him here. Said there was some news?"

You shrugged, moving to the back of the Jeep so he could get in. The two of you talked for a bit before you saw Stiles and Scott coming out of the school. Their heads were close as they made their way to the car. Although the colors around Stiles were slightly muted, Scotts glowed like a light blue fire around him when the sun hit just right. You had become hyper aware of the auras to try and locate the skincrawler, you hadn't had much luck. You'd been working a few hours a day with whoever from the pack was available to try and hone in on making the colors appear more vivid. It had helped, but you hadn't had any luck locating the grey aura. But, you did notice that the colors around Stiles wern’t nearly as vivid as you had first thought. You also hadn't brought it up to him yet. It never felt like the right time, and you wanted to try and figure it out before springing it on him.

"Hey." Stiles said when he climbed into the driver's seat. "Ready to hear some good news?"

"Always." You responded, turning your attention to Scott who was leaning in the window.

"Argent thinks they may have found where the skincrawler is hiding."

"Let me guess, a really old crypt?"

He chuckled. "Yeah. Him and Parrish found one that had the door busted open and there were some clothes and stuff. They aren't 100% sure if it's the skincrawler, but they set up some cameras to watch it.”

"What is it with bad supernaturals and crypts?" You groaned. The boys laughed. "I'm serious. I've gone on patrols with Buffy and I can't tell you how many times we have cleared out crypts. That's where we took out the group of skincrawlers. It's weird. Plus they are always full of spiders." You shivered. Just the thought of spiders made you get creepy crawly feelings. 

Liam spun around in his seat. "Wait a second. You've encountered actual demons, but spiders scare you?" His face was dead serious for a moment before he busted out laughing. "That's so fun..ow!" He reached for his arm. "What was that for?" He asked Stiles who was shaking his fist out. 

"Get out of the Jeep if you're going to make fun of Y/N." His face was deadly serious as he eyed the young wolf who could easily whoop his ass. 

"Oh stop." You laughed, covering Stiles' face with your hand. "Don't try and intimidate the wolf."

Liam stuck his tongue out as Scott pulled the door open and grabbed him by his shirt. "Alright, we don't need either of you crying later." He was already dragging Liam away from the jeep. "I'll catch up with you guys tonight." He waved bye and gently bumped into Liam as they both walked off. 

You flopped yourself down into the passenger seat, taking a moment to look at Stiles as he fiddled with the sheriff department scanner. It surprised you that in a little over a week you had become close with everyone. Lydia and Malia had already talked you into girls night, and the boys kept an eye out for you just like they did each other. It was nice considering the seriousness of the situation in which you came into their lives. After losing the one person outside of family who understood and didn't judge you, you put up a wall. But these people, this pack that welcomed you with the understanding that being a little different isn't a bad thing, had slowly poked hole in that wall. 

You pulled yourself from your thoughts, eyes focusing on the multicolored boy at your side. "Feeeeeeed me, Stilinski." 

He turned to look at you, a smirk on his face. "Dude, I gave you my mini muffin pack like an hour ago." 

"I'll have you know I've been working very hard in that hour and now need more food if I'm to have the energy to start this project early."

He rolled his eyes with a laugh as he started the Jeep. He didn't even have to ask you where you wanted to go as he headed in the direction of the local sushi place.

Thirty minutes later the two of you were sitting at the dining room table, the book for class and an ungodly amount of sushi between you both. 

"I think we should go with Reverend Hale." You suggest, popping a piece of sushi in your mouth. 

Stiles shrugged, looking up from his phone. "Sure, he seems like might be a bit of a complex character."

You look at him a moment, then look at his phone and back up at him. "Did you google it?" He slapped his phone face down, stuffing a piece of sushi in his mouth. "Oh my god, you did!" You reach for his phone and he pulls it back to him. 

"Noh!" He laughs, his mouth still full. 

"Ew. I know it's seafood, Stilinski but I don't need to see your food!" 

He laughed harder, opening his mouth wider as your hand tried to close it. 

Then there's a knock at the door and you both freeze. Stiles quickly swallowed the food. 

"Were you expecting someone?" You shake your head. "Hold on, I'll get it." You follow behind him as he looks through the peephole then sighed with relief as he unlocks the door. "Hi Willow." 

"Oh, hello! Sorry to just pop in like this." 

"Wil!" You jump around Stiles and hug her. "What are you doing here? Everything okay?" 

"Yes. Yes Everything is fine." She said, coming further into the house. "I brought you some protective charms, even though most of you won't need them, I feel a bit more comfortable knowing you have an extra layer of protection." She passed you the charm necklaces, they were subtle, looking like any normal necklace, but you could feel the slight hum from the protection spell. "Also. A slightly selfish reason." She glanced over at Stiles. " I was wondering if it would be possible for me to see The Nemeton." 

"Uh." Stiles looks at you, then back at Willow. "I, uh, let me call Argent. He might be available to take you." He stepped into the kitchen as you and Willow sat on the couch. 

"How's the search going?" She asked, taking your hand to trace your palm. 

"They think they found where it's hiding, and who it is wearing. But nothing solid yet." 

"How are you doing?" 

You rested your head on her shoulder, relaxing a bit as her finger gently traced the lines of your hand. "I'm making it. Knowing it's out there is pretty scary though. I just keep thinking back on what happened last time." You grow quite a moment, deciding to tell her something you hadn't shared with anyone else. "I've been having nightmares." Her finger traces up and back down your finger. "I'm back at the crypt, and that, thing, is wearing Alice's face. Taunting me. It's like I'm reliving that night all over again. I wake up and I can't breath. I've never been so scared of anything before." 

Willow laid her cheek on your head. "The protection charm will help with those. And you know I'll always answer my phone." 

You snuggled deeper into her, feeling the comfort from something you use to do as a kid. "Thanks, Wil." 

Before she could say anything more, Stiles came back, the tips of his ears were slightly pink, and he looked worried. "Sorry, uh, Argent said he would meet us in the woods and take you to The Nemeton." He seemed nervous about something and you made note to ask him later. 

The three of you piled into the Jeep, but you could feel the nervous energy coming off of Stiles. By the time he parked the jeep he was practically vibrating with it. Argent was already at the gate waiting. 

You opened the door, looking back at Stiles who had both hands on the wheel. "You coming?" 

"No." 

"Oh. Okay." You slipped out of the jeep, leading Willow to Argent. "Chris Argent, this is Willow Rosenburg. One of my aunts from Sunnydale."

"Nice to meet you." He said, shaking her hand. "Ready? It's a bit of a hike." 

Willow smiled with a nod. "You coming with us?" She asked.

You looked back at the jeep. "No, I think I'm going to go check on Stiles." 

"Good idea. He's got a past with this area of the woods, so he might need someone with him." Argent said, his brows pinched with worry as he looked at the jeep. 

"Be safe." You called, watching them walk into the woods. When you turned around, Stiles was staring blankly after them. His hands were still gripping the steering wheel. He didn't even move when you climbed in. "You okay?" You whispered, there was worry growing in the pit of your stomach, you hadn't seen him so quiet before. 

"Fine. Yea. Good." He stammered, his hands released the wheel and he rubbed them on his pants. Then he signed, as if he was trying to push out the unwelcome feelings. "Two years ago, Scott, Allison, Chris's daughter, and I performed a Druid ritual. We submerge ourselves in ice water to slow our hearts down so we could find our parents who had been kidnaped by this psycho teacher. But doing that we supercharged The Nemeton. We also lost a piece of ourselves. It also left us vulnerable." He cleared his throat, running his hand across his jaw. "I got possessed.”

Your eyes grew wide, there was a shiny spot down Stiles cheek where he had a tear slip. Your hand moved to his, your palm on the back of his, fingers weaved between his. 

“At first I didn’t know what was happening. But things got really bad.” His fingers tightened around yours for a bit. “It was a Nogitsune. And it thrived off the chaos it created. Scott and Lydia were able to separate us, but shit just got worse. Allison. She died.” He was crying now, his breathing going heavy. “The thing still had my face. Had control over these demon warriors. It all started with this damn stump.” 

You reached over, wiping at his cheek gently. “Hey, that’s all over now. But it explains a lot.” He finally looked at you, brows pinched. “You have this residual glow around you. That’s why I thought you were supernatural. It’s all these different colors at once, but now that my sight is stronger, I realize that it’s so muted that it takes just the right light to see.” 

He dropped his head back to the head rest, his fingers still gripped yours. “I knew I’d never really be rid of it. I still have nightmares about the stuff it did, the stuff it made me do.”

“Willow said the protection charm will help with nightmares. I’ve, I’ve been having them too. About the skincrawlers. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about the aura.” 

Stiles looked at you, his eyes still shiny from the tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about being possessed. I try to not think about it much. But I don’t think I’ve had a chance to actually process a lot of it.”

“I’m here for you if you ever need to talk about it. I promise I won’t judge. I’ve experienced some crazy stuff and I know how it feels to feel like you don’t have anyone to talk to.” 

He smiled, lightly squeezing your fingers again. Before anything more could be said there was a tapping on your window. You yelped, practically jumping into Stiles’ lap, his hands grabbing your waist. Willow and Chris were outside the window laughing so hard they had to hold each other up. 

“That was so rude!” You yelled, trying hard to calm your heart. 

“Maybe, but that was too funny.” Willow gasped as she opened the door. She looked back at Chris. “Thank you for showing me that. I think I’ve got what I need if you guys are ready to go.”

Stiles, with his hands still on your waist, helped you into the backseat as Will got in the Jeep. Chris spoke a moment to Stiles before heading to his car and following you out of the woods. 

——

Two days later, Lydia and Malia decided that you all needed some time away from the boys and drove to the mall right after school. The three of you were currently enjoying milkshakes in the food court.

"You were right." You laughed as you wiped at your mouth. "Some time away from the boys was exactly what we needed."

"We should make this a regular thing." Lydia said as she pouted at her empty milkshake. "Although, I'm surprised Stiles let you out of his sight." 

You flicked a straw wrapper at her, "Oh stop it." 

Malia nodded in agreement with Lydia before her eyes focused on something behind you. Lydia also froze her eyes wide as she searched around the food court.

"Something is here." She whispered.

Malia silently pointed and you turned to follow her finger. Your heart stopped when you saw the grey aura around the kid whose picture you had memorized. He was walking slow, but not drawing attention to himself. Someone stopped to talk to him, patted his shoulder and walked off as he turned down another wing of the mall.

"Call Scott," You told Malia, "I'll call Stiles." You jumped up.

Lydia grabbed your arm. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to follow it." You replied, pulling your arm free and hitting Stiles' name on your phone.

"Y/N!" Lydia called after you, frantically pulling out her phone. But you were already heading down the wing after Stephan, phone pressed to your ear.

"Y/N! How's the mall?" Stiles asked the moment he picked up.

"We found him. Stephan. I'm following him right now at the mall." You kept your voice down, as you walked around people, keeping your eyes on the grey aura.

"What? What do you mean you're following him? Y/N don't do that. I'm on my way there." You could hear his keys jingling and the sound of a door. "Stay where you are."

"No. We can't lose him. This is the first we have seen of him. I can at least follow him to wherever he is going." You were nearing the exit, still watching Stephan as he pushed the door open. You could hear the jeep starting up. "He's leaving the mall right now."

"I'm serious, Y/N don't follow him. Please."  Stiles' voice was full of panic, but you were slightly irritated he was trying to tell you what to do.

"No. We need to know where he is going. He might have found another person to take." You stepped out into the sunlight, squinting as you  looked around. "Damn. I think I lost him."

"Go back inside. I'm almost there."

"I'm just going to do a quick walk around the parking lot. Call me when you get here." You pulled the phone away before you would hear his response. Sliding it in your pocket as you slowly walked towards the lot. After ten minutes with no luck, you turned around to head back, spotting Stiles pulling into the front of the mall. That was the last thing you remembered before everything went black

---

Your head was pounding. Your ears were ringing, and your mouth tasted like blood. As you opened your eyes, the light in the room was blinding. You quickly assessed yourself. Your hands were bound behind you, your feet tied to the legs of the chair you were sitting in, but no bones seemed to be broken.

"Ah, she's awake." A soft voice filled the quiet room, foot steps shuffled across the floor. "I was worried I hit you too hard." A finger touched your cheek and you tried to jump back. "Now, now. This will all go easier if you just sit still."

Your eyes finally adjusted, bringing the face of the voice into focus. It was Stephan. Well, the skincrawler. His eyes were black pits behind the glasses, there was a stench of death on his breath. "Go to hell." Your voice cracked.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

"You're not my friend."

He circled around you, his finger dragging across your shoulders. "Oh, but I was once, wasn't I? Alice was quite fun to be, even though it was short lived." He laughed at his own joke. Stopping when he got in front of you again.

"What do you want from me? To use me as a resurrection sacrifice?" You twisted your wrist and pulled at your feet trying to get out of the rope.

He tisked at you. "No point in that now, you won't get out. And no. It's a funny story actually. Here I was, minding my business, becoming new people, and preparing to resurrect my family, when I saw you. Walking around here like nothing happened." His fist slammed into the wall. "Something happened! You killed my family!" The yell echoed in the small room.

"And you killed my friend, and many others! You had people locked in cages for your own fun!"

"I was going to ignore the fact you were here. That pack had no idea what or who I was. I thought maybe I could finish this, get my family back, and we would come back for you. But my need for revenge is too strong. I think I'll have some fun with you before though." He turned around and pulled the sheet off a table full of tools. "Which one first?"

The table was full of different knives and blades. The little light in the room reflected off the metal as he picked them up, examining them. “Eeny meeny miny moe.” He turned around with one pointed at you, taking slow steps your way. “I’ve been dreaming of this. But not that that I have you, I’m not sure where to start.”

“How about you start by backing away.” A voice called from the door. You both turned to see Stiles standing in the door with his bat. 

“Ah, yes. So glad you could join us Stilinski. Where is the rest of your pack?”

Stiles didn’t move from the door as he answered. “They aren’t coming.” 

You gasped, choking a bit. But, as Stephen turned to look at you, laughing, Stiles winked, and you almost sighed in relief. 

“What a shame, poor Y/N probably thought they would come save her.” The cold metal touching your cheek made you shiver. 

Suddenly, there was a thwack sound, and Stephen fell away from you cursing. Stiles was behind it, bat in the air ready to swing again. Before he could though, Stephen also had a hold of the bat, having jumped back up much faster then expected. The two struggled for it as you struggled against the ropes at your wrist again. 

Just as you thought Stiles had the upper hand, Stephen drew his head back, smashing it into Stiles face as hard as it could. A sob racked your body and everything seemed to slow as Stiles fell back onto the ground. 

“STILES!” You screamed, trying once again to break free from the chair. Your vision blurred as you failed to make it to his side. “Stiles get up!” 

A foot nudged at his shoulder, sending him to his back, but he still didn’t stir. “What a pity. I was hoping to have more fun with him.” He leaned down and sniffed at him. “Ugh and I can’t even take his skin?” With a sigh, Stephen turned back to you, “Now, where was I? Ah yes, I was just about to torture you.” A sinister grin spread across his face. Before he could get any closer, a flash knocked him out of the way. 

“Get them out of here!” Scott called out, his face was morphed into a wolf as he turned to slam a fist into Stephens face. 

Hands were on your wrist as Liam tried to untie you. “I can’t get the ropes.” He huffed. “Don’t move, I have to use my claws.” 

You could feel them slowly giving and were able to wiggle out as he quickly cut the ones at your ankles. Chris and Malia had already lifted an unconscious Stiles up and were making their way to the door. Before you could even get up, Liam had you in his arms running after them. The last thing you saw was Parish on fire and Lydia taking a deep breath. You kept your arms around Liam as the fresh air hit your face, Lydia’s scream was painful, you could only imagine how hard it was on the others. 

The moment Liam sat you on the ground you were racing towards Stiles who was laid on the grass, still knocked out. 

“He should be fine.” Chris said, letting out a relieved breath, pressing sand gauze to the cut on Stiles’ brow. “Melissa is on her way with his dad. He is breathing and his heart rate is normal.” 

You gently ran your fingers over his cheek, your eyes moving to watch his chest move before whispering. “What happened?” 

“Stiles saw you get taken.” Malia answered, sitting next to you as Chris and Liam moved to the other side. “He had called me the moment you hung up on him. And the moment he saw you taken he followed Stephen here. We weren’t far behind him, and we told him to wait for us, but he wouldn’t listen.” 

“I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked, your hand moved down his arm to trace his fingers. “I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have followed him.” 

Malia rested a hand on your leg just as Scott spoke. “We’ve all done something we probably shouldn’t have. But what’s important is that you're both fine, and the thing is dead.” He helped Parish sit on the grass as he assessed everyone else. 

You wiped some tears from your cheek. “How?” 

“Once everyone was out of the room, Lydia used her scream to disorient him, and Parish wrapped him up in a fire hug. He is now a little dusty.” His eyes landed on you. “Are you okay?”

You nodded. “As good as I can be.” You looked down at Stiles, “I just wish he would wake up.” 

Scott nodded at your wrist. “Have my mom take a look at those. And don’t worry, I’ve been listening to his heartbeat since I got out here. He’s already conscious.” 

Your head snapped around just as Stiles squeezed your hand. His eyes slowly opened. You immediately threw yourself on him, sticking your face in his neck. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” You cried. 

Slowly his arm wrapped around you, his lips pressing into the side of your head. “No need to apologize. I’ll always save you.” 

“Actually I sav….ow!” Liam squeaked, you could feel Stiles flipping him off. 

You sat up, helping him slowly to a sitting position. “If I had listened you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” 

He squeezed the hand he was still holding. “I heard what he said, he would have gotten you one way or another. Just next time, please wait for me before you go following a supernatural.” He brought your hand up to his lips, gently pressing it against them as Melissa and Sheriff Stlinski pulled up. 

“Okay,” Melissa called out, a first aid kit in hand. “Who am I patching up tonight?” 

———

“Can you pass me that water?” Stiles asked, turning his head on his pillow to face the water that was directly beside him. 

It had been almost two weeks since everything went down. The bruises on you both had faded to a gross green, your wrists still hurt, but the ointment Melissa gave you helped. Stiles on the other hand, was milking the fact that he had a mild concussion.

“It’s right there.” You groaned from his desk. He’d been having you do so much for him. Even though you complained every time, you still did it, trying to prove how thankful you were for everything he did. 

Stiles stuck his lower lip out. “But it’s too far, please?” 

“Fine.” You dropped your pen in the book and crossed the room. “You’re so needy.”

“Hey, who has been helping you change your bandages.” He cocked a brow. He was right, he had been reminding you and helping the bandaged on your wrist and ankles. 

“Drink your water.” 

After a few sips his head fell back on to the pillow, his brown eyes scanning your face. “How are you?” 

“Fine.” You said, he asked everyday, sometimes two or three times. You set the water back down. His hand gently grabbed the middle of your arm, pulling you closer. 

“I’m so sick of hearing ‘fine’. I can see it in your eyes that you aren’t. Shit, I’m not even fine.”  He tugged your arm again and you looked up. “I’m serious. Every time I close my eyes that night replays differently. Sometimes I show up and you’re all bloody and barely there. Others the Jeep wont go and my legs don’t work and I can’t get to you, but I can hear you screaming.”

“Why don’t you wear the protection charm?” You glanced at it on his bedside table. 

His hand moved to lace his fingers in yours. Something else he had been doing a lot lately. Any chance he could he would grab your hand, holding it just tight enough that there was an empty feeling when he would let go.

“Punishment.”  A deep breath. “I should have done more. Gotten there faster. Something.”

Your heart broke at the pain in his voice. “You did enough. You came, you brought the others. You made sure I knew I wasn’t left alone.” You glanced back at the charm. “I can’t be too irritated about the charm, I’ve not been wearing mine either. My dreams have been similar to yours. But you don’t wake up, or you never come. When I wake up I have to remind myself that everyone is okay. That you all came. That I’m out, and that thing is finally gone.” 

“Hey.” Stiles tugged your hand, causing you to fall into his arms. “I told you that night and I meant it. I’ll always be there.” 

Your head fell to his chest, letting him hold you for a bit. His heart beat, though slightly fast, was a reminder that he did wake up and was fine. 

“Y/N?” He broke the silence again, causing you to look up at him, almost nose to nose. “I’m going to do something that I’ve been thinking about since I saw you get taken.” 

“Stiles. If you don’t kiss me I might scream.” You whispered, your heartbeat now matching his. 

And he did it. He pressed his lips against your gently, his hand holding your head in place as you pushed yourself up a bit more. Butterflies erupted in your stomach and stars twinkled behind your eyes. But he pulled away all too quickly, resting his forehead against yours.

“Woah.”

“I almost did that the moment I knew you were awake that night.” You laughed, gently touching your nose to his. “But I was worried you might have had something wrong and I didn’t want to hurt you.” 

“I promise, you could never hurt me.” And he kissed you again, and again, and again.

[someplace-that-is-else]

“Shaking It Off...?’: Is the Magicians Surviving Post-Quentin in Season Five?

 Editor’s Note: Spoilers for the current season of The Magicians lie ahead. Read at your own risk.

 I still can’t listen to it.

 Every time I was at work, the radio loved to drop in Taylor Swift. I admit it. I love Taylor Swift. It was earned respect so I won’t knocked it. However, when I heard ‘Shake It Off,’ I changed the station. Why? Because I was reminded every time.

 The Magicians Episode 4, Season 1…Quentin Coldwater in the mind asylum. Him singing it. It was a turn left moment in a somewhat serious scene that was hilarious.

 But I was always reminded when I heard the song. Now…

 Quentin Coldwater was dead.

 In case you missed it, the fourth season of The Magicians went out with a bang. In order to save the world and his friends, Quentin Coldwater sacrificed himself. It was a heartbreaking moment and yes, there were tears at the gang’s tribute to him with a cover of ‘Take on Me.’ It was also shocking because who would have thought a show would kill off their main character, the character that viewers are brought into the show by. Even ballsier? Leaving the main character dead, confirmed immediately after the episode aired that night by way of internet interviews from the producers.

 That was the world viewers were coming into walking into Season Five.  Unlike Supergirl which I dropped in Season Four due to the on-the-nose political writing, I was curious to see how the writers would play the death of their main character.

 So how was it?

 Did Someone Order an Apocalypse?: Raising the Stakes in Season Five

 After a season where magic was rationed out, this season was different. Now there was too much magic. How much? So much that people were exploding for crying out loud.

 As a result, there were plot threads being introduced. You had Penny being made a professor at Brakebills and dealing with the presence of a signal that one of his Traveler students was hearing. You had Kady struggling with being the leader of the hedgewitches while being in the middle of a mystery involving the disappearance of a book depository. Most importantly, there was a Pig running around, encountering Julia and saying an apocalypse was coming.

 Hm…the end of everything. While the Magicians has had moments that were life and death, I do not think it has actually dealt with an apocalypse. It sounded so Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it was during one of these moments of too much magic that the apocalypse was supposed to happen.

 And this was all in light of the fact that Quentin was only dead a month. Alice, Julia, and Elliot were the ones who were hit the hardest by his passing. Julia was Quentin’s best friend. Alice was Quentin’s girlfriend. Elliot was his woulda, coulda, shoulda. But as usual, the world as they knew it needed saving.

 And there were casualties on the way to the apocalypse. Penny lost his ability to control his Traveler abilities so much so that he could accidentally kill himself now. Dean Fogg was lost to a whole dimension in Kady’s pursuit of the book depository. In the gang’s attempt to stop the apocalypse, they succeeded. But there was a BUT.

 WRONG apocalypse.

 All that struggle. Encountering goddesses with agendas. The return of evil hedge witch Marina who was behind the depository mystery. Kady almost was killed by an assassin. Elliot and Margo got stuck in a time loop.

 It was all for the wrong apocalypse. You see the Pig was talking about a whole other apocalypse that was coming. One that appeared to be tied into another plot thread from last season involving Elliot and Margo being trapped at one point in the Narniasque land of Fillory 300 years in the future and its future ruler the Dark King.

 Oops.

 The Power of Three: Character Development in Season Five

 Magic comes from pain.

 Eliot said that to Quentin in the first season. Over the course of the seasons, that has truly held up quite well. Going into Season Five, there was still plenty of it. And that brought me to the character development for Julia, Alice, and Eliot specifically. Their pain. Their grief over Quentin’s death.

 I loved Julia’s Season Four arc. The ‘is she or isn’t she still a goddess?’ arc. She had been practically redeemed in Season Three. She had sacrificed her being on a higher plane for her friends. And where did she go from here? From here led to a new relationship with Penny, getting to get close with her best friend Quentin again, and have a chance to be a full goddess again. However, that was snatched away from her by the Monster and so was Quentin. She was human again with no magic…until her pain over Quentin’s death, bringing her magic back to the surface.

 And that miracle was what was driving Julia this season. She was determined to not have Quentin’s death be in vain. She was going to stop those apocalypses. She was so determined that it was revealing cracks in her relationship with Penny. In fact, they broke up…just in time to find out that Julia was pregnant. So would Julia keep focusing on stopping apocalypses to honor Quentin’s memory, or would she focus on herself and her future which may or may not include Penny?  Oh, the dilemma…

 And then we had Alice…

 Honestly, I haven’t liked Alice since Season 2. She was cute. She was brainy. She wore glasses. And Niffin experience, while a great plot twist for those of us who hadn’t read the books, really tainted her. And any sympathy she got for her pain was destroyed by betraying the gang by helping the Library at the end of Season Three. I enjoyed everyone giving her the business in Season Four. 

So I was saddened to see Quentin take her back. Especially with someone better hanging in the wings.  

That said…the pain that Alice felt for Quentin dying. The staying in her room. Her wearing his clothes. Her trying to resurrect him. That felt real. And for the first time, Alice felt like a person again. She felt like Alice. And as the current season has progressed, a new persona has taken over: old Alice. The last few episodes had brought back the brainy, the problem solving, and dare I say it the cute Alice from the early seasons. From the darkness, she had come back into the light.

 And finally, there was Eliot. Eliot spent the majority of Season Four possessed by an ancient Monster. A Monster who was on a mission to resurrect his even more dangerous sister. In the process of Eliot trying to find a way to contact Quentin, Margo, and the gang, it was revealed that there was a scene not revealed to the audience. Back during the Season 3, Episode 5 episode “A Day in the Life,” Quentin and Eliot were trapped in a time loop of sorts and lived a whole life together. Fell in love. Had a child together. Died. In the end, quick thinking brought them back. And it was over…right?

 Wrong.

 It turned out that Quentin and Eliot had had a talk. Proof of concept. Most people took a chance when they got into a relationship. Here they had a whole lifetime and saw they worked together. So…Quentin wanted to make it real. The debatably straight character wanted to give it a go…but Eliot pulled away. Being trapped in a Monster gave Eliot that push. The push he needed to get free and tell Quentin that he was ready to give it a go.

  So of course…Quentin died.

 And just like that…they became Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Tara and Willow. They became like The 100’s Clarke and Lexa. What did I mean? I meant that the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope struck again. You know, the trope in literature and tv where two people of the same sex cannot be happy and if they found happiness it usually ended in tragedy. And the fact that Quentin got some form of closure with Alice in terms of their relationship while he did not with Eliot was quite the tragedy for fans.

 While I personally would have liked to see some closure for those two (called Queliot by their fans) due to the relatability of their situation (which happened more in real life than people thought), I was pleased to see that in the latest season that Eliot was definitely dealing with his unsolved feelings about Quentin. Not only did he find some closure to it, he even got to some closure with Alice as well since they had quite a bit to deal with between each other. Bonus, Eliot had been bantering with the Dark King, this season’s potential Big Bad who happened to be flirting with Eliot.

 A happy ending for our resident gay man? This is The Magicians. So…iffy. LOL!!! Especially after that reveal in Episode 9.  So time would tell how the relationship between Eliot and Sebastian the Dark King would resolve itself.

 Speaking of…

 Pieces of a Puzzle: Using Plot Threads that Work Well in Season Five

 While a lot of the seasonal plot arc had to do with the gang dealing with apocalypses, there was also the arc having to do with the Dark King who usurped Margo’s rule of Fillory. Fans got to meet him in a clever introduction during Alice’s and Eliot’s quest to give closure to Quentin. Thus, the tension between Sebastian the Dark King and Eliot began.

 In another blog I did ( https://someplace-that-is-else.tumblr.com/post/183733192088/well-fuck-how-i-fell-into-syfys-the ), I mentioned that protagonists were only as good as their antagonists. The more complex the antagonist, the better. And if the Dark King was to be the main villain this season, the writers did him right. On one hand, there was the burgeoning relationship between him and Eliot and the fact that Fillory worshipped him for his ability to push back the invading Takers. On the other hand, it was revealed HE was behind the Takers being in Fillory in the first place and was immortal to being killed. Add on to that the reveal in Episode 9:  Sebastian was one of the Chatwin siblings, brother to the Beast…

...still the best villain in this series. His goal:  to resurrect his lost love. Given the gang was dealing with the aftermath of Quentin’s death, how could they not relate? How could we? Things were more murky.

 Meanwhile, there was the mystery of the signal. As mentioned earlier, the increase in magic meant there were a lot of new traveler magicians coming into their abilities with no one to guide/teach them. Enter Penny the only Traveler alive to tell the tale. At first Penny was reluctant, but he attempted to. That was how he met Plum, one of his students who was hearing the mysterious signal. In the process of hearing the signal, Penny lost his abilities. And to add on to the mystery…Plum...

... was ALSO a Chatwin. Whom daughter…Jane, the Beast aka Martin or Sebastian…remained to be seem.

 And then there were two.

 Finally, there was the world seed. I had greatly enjoyed seeing Alice morph back into her brainy persona that I remembered from the first two seasons. At the same time, she had started a bantering friendship with another magician who was some expert in possibilities. And from some notes left around by Quentin, Alice and this student had been creating a world seed. The belief…that it could create a whole new world. Leave it to Quentin to be gone, but NOT forgotten.

 How that would come into play with Plum, the Dark King’s plans, and the Fillory apocalypse was too early to know. It was recently announced by the SyFy Channel that they had cancelled The Magicians. Insert eyeroll here given my colorful history with SyFy. However, the producers of The Magicians have always mentioned that they wanted to adapted the last book in the series The Magicians’s Land for one of their seasons. And all signs of what I knew to happen in the book revealed this current season was loosely based on that book (in the book Quentin was still alive for example). So it would be interesting to see how it all ended for everyone.

 With a bang…or a whimper?

  #themagicians #syfychannel #syfy #whoorderedanapocalypse #buffythevampireslayer #buffyreference #glory #seasonfive #taylorswift #quentincoldwater #shakeitoff #aha #takeonme #apocalypse #supergirl #raisingthestakes #plotthreads #characterdevelopment #grief #queliot #writing #narnia #darkking #magic #buryyourgays #powerofthree #puzzlepieces #signal #seed #withabang #withawhimper

[fauxkaren]

Buffy Rewatch 2x01 “When She Was Bad”

Buffy put on a brave face at the end of season 1, but imo it was pretty clear that she was still struggling to deal with the fact that SHE DIED. Everyone else was like “well, apocalypse averted. let’s go to the Bronze” and Buffy was like “uh huh, yeah, sure.” But I think it was obvious that she was still feeling disturbed by everything she’d been through. This episode digs into that, and it’s rough.

Buffy’s back from a summer in LA with her dad and her hair is cute af. She’s shaken by what happened to her, being weirdly intense in training with Giles, having creepy dreams where Giles attacks her and then turns out to the the Master. It’s not great!

Oh boy. Willow trying to recreate the cute ice cream/near kiss moment from the beginning of the episode with Xander at the Bronze is SO SAD. WILLOW. GIRL. NO. Also happening at the Bronze, Buffy is acting out her issues/also trying to hurt Angel right now by sexy dancing with Xander and it’s WEIRD AND BAD. Especially because she’s HURTING WILLOW TOO. She KNOWS how much Willow likes Xander. And she’s still doing this. BUFFY!!!!! It’s unfair to Xander because she knows Xander has a crush on her and she doesn’t return those feelings. And then Buffy just like... leaves? She blows up everything and hurts everyone and then peaces out.

Luckily Cordelia “tact is just not saying true stuff” Chase is here to call Buffy out. “You’re really campaigning for Bitch of the Year, aren’t you?” And she’s here to tell Buffy that she needs to deal with her feelings and get over it. Or else she won’t even have the ‘loser friends’ she has now. Love you, Cordy! But no good deed goes unpunished so she gets kidnapped by vamps after delivering her advice to Buffy in the alley. Ms Calender’s already been taken.

Anyway, the Annoying One and his goons have dug up the Master’s bones and Buffy is low key terrified that they’re going to bring him back. She determined to deal with it by herself and shuts the Scoobies out. She goes off to fight the vamps alone and ooooops in doing so she left her friends vulnerable and Willow and Giles are taken. Now the Annoying One has all the people who were by the Master when he died and can sacrifice them to resurrect him. But Buffy arrives just in time to go HAM on all the vampires and destroy the Master’s bones, working out her issues in the process. And by the time she’s done, she’s finally able to cry (in Angel’s arms) and let herself feel all the feelings she’d been bottling up since the prom.

Buffy is back. :)

[salvatoreschool]

‘Legacies’ season 2, episode 9 review: ‘I’m THEE…Ted. I’m Ted. Sigh.’

I am so glad that Legacies season 2, episode 9 has brought our Salvatore School crew back. And now that we’ve met the Alyssa Chang, I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Before we took a break for the holidays, we saw Hope return to everyone’s memory, Landon choose to get back together with her, leaving Josie alone, and none other than THE NECROMANCER! was unveiled as the creature beneath the red cloak wreaking havoc in Mystic Falls. For a full refresher on Legacies season 2, episode 8, check out our review.

But now, it’s time to dig into all things Legacies season 2, episode 9, “I Couldn’t Have Done This Without You.”

From ‘Master of Death’ to ice cream scooper

I really didn’t know what I wanted after learning that THE NECROMANCER! was back at the end of the Legacies season 2 midseason finale. I never expected to get an entire episode of Ben Guerens as a completely human, suddenly powerless version of our hell-raiser. This was absolutely freaking delightful, and while I don’t know how long he will continue to be hanging around causing all sorts of trouble, I can’t help but be delighted to have his enthusiasm back.

Watching him take his journey from powerless mortal back to the necromancer he’s always been was interesting, and now I can’t help but wonder what role Chad will be playing as the season rolls forward.

Introducing Alyssa Chang

Is there anyone who wasn’t excited to see Olivia Liang portray Alyssa Chang? We’ve been hearing about her since the pilot, so I was more than excited to finally meet the witchy powerhouse.

I don’t know if I expected to love or hate her, but I find I’m pretty much neither. I’m intrigued by Alyssa Chang. While I wasn’t too happy about her treatment of Hope in regards to the whole roomie thing, I did love how loyal she felt toward M.G. Our favorite, comic-loving vamp needs more people in his corner, especially when the Saltzman twins keep running hot and cold on him all the time. It’s nice to know there’s someone else around to have his back when Kaleb is MIA.

I’m not sure if I love how she set Sebastian up to fail his test, or if I resent her for casting judgement on him before giving him a chance, but, I’m willing to give her loyalty to Lizzie and M.G. the edge here. Maybe it’s the Damon fan in me, but I keep seeing how similar Sebastian’s vibe is to TVD season 1 Damon. He’s just been resurrected after a VERY long dessication, and he’s not the good, kind-hearted vamp at heart. If he sticks around on Legacies, I can see a long and winding road to redemption for him, much like we watched Damon Salvatore tread.

Break-up and make-up awkwardness

It was inevitable that this episode was going to be full of awkwardness, with Josie and Landon still getting past all their break-up awkward, Hope and Josie trying to navigate a world where they both love Landon, and Hope and Landon trying to find their way back to some semblance of the normal they felt in Legacies season 1.

My greatest sympathies lie with Josie, even if I do think that Handon is my couple of the moment. While Hope and Landon are good together, I really do want to see Josie happy, so imagine the size of my grin at the end of this episode where all three parties find ways to bond in their new awkward and put the hard stuff behind them. I was basically brimming with glee whenever they were on screen.

“This is a seminal work of fiction, not something to run your horny clock out.”

I’m glad that M.G. is keeping Lizzie in her place a little. I thought it was cute that she wanted to bond with M.G. over his comics, but when we learned that it was just an effort to distract herself from Sebastian, I quickly turned on her. Not cool, Lizzie. Not cool. (Even if the tie in to the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event was super fun to see.)

But, seriously, though. Good on M.G. for standing up for himself and his interests and not allowing her to use him to distract herself. He deserves better, and I’m glad he recognizes that.

Is Landon really powerless?

There was a lot of heavy-handed talk about Landon’s lack of power in Legacies season 2, episode 9. No matter how long Sebastian and him spent together, the ancient vamp could not stop trying to emasculate Landon for being less powerful than Hope.

While I’m really happy that Landon isn’t afraid to be less powerful than his tribrid lady, I can’t help but wonder if we’re being set up for another huge reveal in the second half of season 2. Legacies season 1, episode 13, “The Boy Who Still Has a Lot of Good to Do” was the episode we learned Landon was a phoenix, so could Legacies season 2, episode 13 be when we learn the extent of a phoenix’s powers?

Because there’s got to be more to being a phoenix than just coming back to life. Having a power like that at your fingertips has to mean there’s more he can do. It’s just going to take the perfect set of circumstances to bring forward any other powers he might have boiling under the surface. I’m wondering if there isn’t some healing, superspeed, or SOMETHING else waiting for him to discover.

Is Chad going to be this season’s true hero?

I mean, his introduction, death, and resurrection in this episode has me wondering what role he might play as season 2 goes on. Will he be THE NECROMANCER!’s undoing? Or just a simple, loyal acolyte to the king of the undead? Only time will tell, but I won’t be forgetting him anytime soon, that’s for sure.

Josie’s little premonition

There are exactly three visuals that we see when Josie starts magically messing with the mora miserium. They are: someone smashing the mora miserium in front of a large fireplace, an image of the entire Salvatore School engulfed in flames, and an image of Josie who had clearly gone full Dark Willow. (Like, seriously, the look of it is SO reminiscent of what Willow looked like when she went dark on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

I’m curious if this was just the mora miserium trying to convince her to let it out, or whether this was a true sort of premonition of a future that could be if they don’t find a way to get rid of the mora miserium safely.

Friendship restored!

That three-way hug!! I’m really glad that Hope, Josie, and Landon have been able to individually work on their relationships. We saw Hope helping Josie, Josie helping Landon, and Landon leaning on Hope. Everyone is doing the work to get back to the friends they were before all the Malivore-memory-related shenanigans.

I really need Hope and Josie to keep bonding, because I love them having each other to lean on. With all the craziness going on for both of them, it’s really important to me that they have each other to go to in times of trouble, stress, or emotional upheaval.

KYM IS BACK!! Now where’s Kaleb?

Okay, so I didn’t think twice when Dorian kept mentioning his intern, but OMG! It’s Kym! Talk about ecstatic. I don’t know where Kaleb was supposed to have been for the entirety of this episode, but knowing that soon we will have Kaleb, M.G., and Kym all together again is giving me life. I loved their dynamic earlier this season when they were investigating the Croatoan, so there is bound to be some great stuff for them coming down the pike.

Bye Sebastian… the pirate vampire?

So, Sebastian is most definitely in TVD season 1 Damon mode. He’s purposely pushing Alaric’s buttons, he’s head-over-heels for Lizzie, and he’s unable to control his need for chaos. The only question remaining is: Will he end up down a Damon-like path of redemption, or will his story meet a swift and bloody end? Or did it already?

Also, there were a couple of references to Sebastian having a pirate past in this episode that had me wondering where they are taking our new vamp troublemaker. Alaric’s book, Alyssa’s reference to a boat, and when you think back to the Croatoan and the whole Roanoke situation, it would make sense that a pirate could have ended up on the island for all that craziness.

And that original outfit we saw him in. I definitely think it had a pirate-like quality.

I’m definitely eager to see how his pirate-hood may play into later storylines, especially since Alaric did something with him for the time being. Is Sebastian back in his coffin? Is he dead? Did the vamp really choose to leave? I’m sure we’ll find out in Legacies season 2, episode 10, “This Is Why We Don’t Entrust Plans To Muppet Babies.”

Altogether, I think was a great midseason return. We got to see how THE NECROMANCER! came to be back in Mystic Falls, we watched as Sebastian proved himself incapable of following the Salvatore School rules, and we saw Josie, Landon, and Hope well on their way to healing all the ills the first half of the season brought.

I’m anxious to see where the rest of this season takes us after Legacies season 2, episode 9. Have we seen the last of Vardemus? Could we meet the real Vardemus at some point? Is Clark really dead? Is Hope still friends with Maya and Ethan? The questions floating around in my head could go on and on and on and on. But for now, I’ll just trust that there’s a great storyline ahead, and we only have to wait a single week til it arrives this time.

What did you love most about ‘Legacies’ season 2, episode 9?

[nellie-elizabeth]

Supernatural: Byzantium (14x08)

Oh boy. Cas... you're such a Winchester, man.

Cons:

There were some moments, especially early on in the episode, where the pacing and the framing of events felt off. It's a bit hard to describe, but the best example I have is when Sam leaves the bunker, and Dean and Cas rush after him and find him sitting on the ground, leaning against the impala. Dean rushes out and demands to know if Sam made a deal, but Sam says no, he was just trying to build a pyre. These few minutes of screen-time hit a bunch of emotional beats right in a row, and it's pretty confusing. Sam leaves the bunker looking determined and distraught. Dean is frantic with worry that Sam may have made a deal. Sam is crushed that he couldn't even build a pyre for Jack. But why? We see him struggling to fell a tree, and then he just gives up? The whole sequence of shots gave me whiplash, and it felt like a poor way of setting up a really important fact, that being that Sam and Dean are not willing to repeat old mistakes to save Jack, no matter how much they might miss him.

Is Heaven really just people being stuck in old happy memories, a timeless loop where they don't even realize they're dead? I know we've seen and heard versions of this before, but it doesn't feel like an appropriate reward for our heroes. If Sam and Dean die at the end of this show, and go to Heaven, that will feel very strange to me, given the setup we've seen.

Dean calls Mary and leaves a voicemail to tell her the bad news that Jack has died, and apparently this is the first time any of them tried to call her and let her know what was going on. I get that everything happened quickly, but shouldn't someone have at least called Mary while they were waiting by Jack's deathbed? They didn't know how long he had. They might have given Mary a chance to rush back and say goodbye. And what about all the hunters from Apocalypse World? I thought they were all one big happy family, Jack included. Where were they for this episode? This was the first time all season that I felt their absence from the story proper was not adequately explained.

Pros:

Everyone's reactions to Jack dying were so heartbreaking. We get so many moments affirming how much Team Free Will care for Jack. They all affirm that he is their son, which warms my heart. Dean is angry and yet after Jack is gone, he's practical. Cas is trying to be emotionally supportive while drowning in his own sorrows, and Sam despairs, and then goes into denial, trying to find a way to fix things. Even though I thought the pacing was off, I did like seeing Sam break down, and then go straight into fix-it mode. That feels very true to his character.

The drinking scene between the three guys was great. We never see things like that. They get wasted, talk about Jack, laugh at good memories, toast to their fallen friend and son. We honestly need more moments like this in the show, where we see these people just spending time with each other, existing in each other's lives. Cas really feels like he belongs in the bunker, with his family. We get a scene at the end, when Jack has been resurrected, where the four of them have dinner and toast to Jack's health. It's a nice parallel, showing the family, now whole once more, when before they were missing their newest member.

I'll admit I didn't remember Lily Sunder at first, but ultimately I think it was a really cool idea to bring her back. She just wants to be reunited with her daughter in Heaven, but after all the harm she's done, the balance of her deeds is not in her favor. In the end, though, she does something incredibly selfless to help Jack, and this pushes her over the edge. What a nice resolution to her character. It was fun to bring someone back and give them a proper redemption like this.

Speaking of parents reuniting with their children, how sweet was it to see Kelly and Jack get to spend time together at last? I loved all the love and hugs going around. Jack and Kelly embrace, and when Cas shows up, he embraces them both, so thrilled to see them. It was enormously sweet. Kelly is such a kind, good soul, and it's nice to know that she's been at peace.

I like the idea that the Empty and Heaven would both feel they had a claim on Jack. He's half human, half angel, after all. The Empty is an interesting concept that has actually held up pretty well since it was first introduced. The idea of nothingness isn't really frightening if you're asleep for eternity, but we know from Cas, and now Lucifer, that things don't always go as planned.

Oh, Cas. I know I'm not the only one to think immediately about Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I heard the Empty's threat to Cas. Cas agrees to give himself up to the Empty if Jack is free to return to life. The Empty says that they won't take Cas right away - they will wait until he lets himself be perfectly happy, and then swoop in and take him away. This is just like Angel losing his soul if he experiences true happiness! Like, this is what that is! Totally! I've long since stopped pretending, even to myself, that Destiel is going to happen for real, but this scenario is just ripe for the fandom's taking. If Cas is truly happy, he instantly dies? Please. The angst is unreal. Even more interesting, Jack knows what Cas did for him, but Sam and Dean don't. Jack will agree to keep that promise, but I'm betting things are going to get pretty intense once the truth comes out. I am emotional.

Next week is the mid-season finale, which usually means something very intense. In this case, Michael's return. I love that Cas is still around in the story. I don't know if he's in more episodes this season overall, but he's been in six of the first eight, and his presence has definitely been felt more. I'm scared for Dean of course, and I hope they get closer to their goal of stopping Michael!

8/10

[parallel5ths]

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.

[laufire]

Name a ship that most represents your type of ship.

Isabelle and Raphael from Shadowhunters, hands down. (Beware: this turned into a long post that talks at once about all my current -and some not-so-current- otps).

-LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. “Why are you helping me?” “I don’t know.” – Shadowhunters

Half my dash must be tiring of hearing this, but I adore this trope. I love how it moves things along: the character is already in love -automatically, the relationship goes into Intense™ territory, you get swept into its groove, whether you like it or not (another reason why these ships, when they raise hate, the RAISE hate xD). Emori and John in The 100, Matt ~sensing Elektra across the room in Daredevil, Wes seeing Rebecca for the first time in HTGAWM, Derek and Jesse in TSCC (I want to start re-watching that show soon so I have that ship very present *sniffs*), Bruce and Selina in Gotham (and IIRC, every BatCat adaptation worth something has this in some form -it is a MUST).

With Rizzy, like with other ships (Caroline and Klaus in TVD, Bellamy and Raven in The 100), it might not be literally at first sight, but the result is the same: they might know of each other, but it is the first time that they really MEET, that something HUGE happens (Raphael feeding on Isabelle, Klaus offering Caroline his blood, Bellamy and Raven’s first time), when you can feel it. I love these cases too, because it offers the possibility of including a messy history/start/etc. (something that you can see at various points of this list lol), while simultaneously giving me the opportunity of experiencing the LAFS moment on present time, instead of in flashbacks (Elektra and Matt) or references (Harvey and Scottie in Suits).

-UNPLANNED, UNFORESEEN, UNWITTING. “But it doesn’t make any sense, it came out of nowhere!!” – the fandom lol

This is somewhat related to the LAFS point, and a criticism I’ve seen time and again about more than one of those ships, but in this case is multiplied by a hundred xD 

And I wanted to make a separate point for this because, lbr -you rarely see this complaint (or at least not as generalized) when a PILOT ShowTP goes for LAFS. But that is something I love about these ships: it wasn’t in the original plan, there was no “build-up” that could have pointed at it, and it’s likely that the writing team behind it never had an inkling of the effects the ship could have on the writing. Some of my favourite cases are Bellamy and Raven, Caroline and Klaus, Bonnie and Kai, Emori and Murphy… these ships irremediably alter the foundations of their ‘verse, they re-shape the story. I love that something that came “out of nowhere” can have that effect. I love it. 

This meta by @candyumbrella does a great job explaining this (far better than I could, and besides, this post is already getting longer than I expected ^^), and it even does it through Isabelle and Raphael. Her Ted and Tobin’s posts in general have been illuminating wrt how tv writers work, and in relation to this post, I’m more aware now of what makes me ship certain things, why something that on paper should be appealing to me falls flat, etc. I’d recommend them all, but beware because they will take hours of your life XD

-STAR-CROSSED LOVERS. “If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it.” – Hamilton

Was there anyone who did not FREAK THE FUCK OUT with the “at the brink of war” line? Because I don’t believe them.

Look, it’s obvious. It’s cliché. I don’t care. I live for this trope. Allison and Scott from Teen Wolf was one my favourite instances of this trope (my bbys ;_;); it was one of the things that interested me of Allison/Derek too, as a crack ship; it was the whole premise of Still Star-Crossed and I’m not even gonna pretend I didn’t shamelessly enjoy every second. It was what instantly made Rosita/Waverly my OTP in Wynonna Earp, aka the most impossible out of all my rareships xD. Priya/Sierra and Tony/Victor in Dollhouse (I never know wtf to call the people on this show istg) had this element too, even if it was in a “us vs the world” sense, more than “we’re on different sides of a conflict way bigger than us and everything is stacked against us fuck” lol. Cassian and Jyn could go there too.

And obviously, Isabelle and Raphael as a ship have this written on its DNA, given how the ‘verse positions Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Outside the 219 scene (*_*), I think 213’s meeting in the alley managed to showcase it really well.

-EX-SOMETHING, EX-MAYBE, EX-ALMOST. “Well never be done with each other.” – Shadowhunters 

I loooooove exes. Actual exes, proto exes, centuries-old exes. Something I love even more is “bitter exes that still have a special connection no one else gets or beats” (Camille and Magnus, Carlos and Kisa on FDTD, Elektra and Matt, Harvey and Scottie -and on the bitterest, most fucked up side, with ships like Katherine and Stefan on TVD or Derek and Kate on Teen Wolf. I even consider Rosita and Waverly could belong here, idc if it was one simple kiss okay xD). Obviously Isabelle and Raphael aren’t bitter, but they might get there, if I’m lucky! A girl can dream! (weird thing to say about an otp? I don’t care xD)

And one thing that is significant of these types of ships, and obviously of Raphabelle, is that, whether they’re together or not (hell, Izzy and Raphael have never really “dated”), narratively speaking, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference. They’re still connected, one simple scene where they merely look at each other across a crowded room can resurrect the ship after years not even speaking to each other. Hell, with Caroline and Klaus it only took one phone call xD 

-CAN’T QUIT EACH OTHER. “I’m just asking for a little taste.” – Shadowhunters

I guess this relates somewhat to the previous point, but I wanted to reference the addiction plot because for me it isn’t a bug, it’s a feature xD I’ve seen people say things like “I know they started out as problematic™ with the addiction, but now that they’re over that, they could be a gr10 ship!!”, and fuck that¸ tbh xD They’re a great ship because of the addiction storyline. It adds this messed up layer of wonder, of doubt, over the ship that I love. And obviously, there’s the appeal of “we’re bad for each other but we can’t stay apart!!” angst. My lizard brain likey. And it’s definitely a huge part of the appeal of Matt and Elektra, BatCat in general…

-SHARING SECRETS. “Nobody knows. Except for you.” – Shadowhunters

Things like Isabelle admitting she doesn’t feel strong, Raphael revealing the story about her sister, Bellamy telling Raven about how he felt about his mother’s death, Harvey confessing about Mike’s fraud to Scottie even if he knows it won’t make any difference, or only being capable of admitting to her voluntarily that he’s seeing a therapist… That kind of thing gives me so much joy :D

And lbr, the “except for YOU” part? HUGE draw, yup. 

-CHARGED INTIMACY. “#they might as well have been alone #were there other people in the scene? who cares. they were all irrelevant. – @magalimoons lol

Any shipper would know what I’m talking about. That moment where Isabelle leaves mid-conversation with Alec and Meliorn in 214 to go to Raphael, or when they talk at the end of 210, or when they talk in 219. Bellamy and Raven in 413, when he’s telling her how much they need her and everyone and everything else disappears of the room (that’s the scene referenced above lol), or when A.L.I.E. posses Raven, and despite everyone else being one room away without even a door separating them, this feeling of intimacy falls over the scene. Caroline and Klaus looking at each other when he appears during the graduation event in 423, Root and Shaw in PoI. Literally everything about Rizzy in 209. 

*Swoons*

–BLOODSHARING. “they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing.” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This has been one of my favourite tropes for-fucking-ever, guys. I think my first experience with it was Blade? Or Angel and Buffy? I’d say Blade. In any case: it changed my fucking life. The fact that Rizzy includes it is the cherry on top of this beautiful ship-cake.

On another note: blood transfusions totally count xD Furiosa and Max come to mind, for example.

There are other things that add to the ship for me: Raphael’s aceness (I project a lot onto him even without it so), the weird catholic/heretic themes xD, how beautiful they look together (I once was accused of “only” liking them because they looked hot together, which. LOL at the only, given this post and every other I’ve written about them, but also. OFC I like that they look hot together. That’s not only a good thing, it’s an IMPORTANT thing, among other reasons, because if the writers like your ship, they will look hot together xD).

And it’s not that if it doesn’t have any of those I won’t like a ship XD; in fact, some of my biggest OTPs lack some or even most of these traits (Gabrielle and Xena, Brigan and Fire in the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, Clark and Lois in some versions), or that there aren’t other romantic tropes I love that don’t fit Rizzy (the Unholy Matrimony trope is one of my favourites, for example), but well. I know what I’m about xD

[youremyonlyhope]

Exit Wounds

AKA ...Nah, that’s the best title for it. Some characters make an exit, and I am forever wounded.

I have the urge to watch this episode, and I know that if I don’t watch it now I’ll put it off for another year. And I don’t want to do that since I would rather watch it this week.

LOL and remember how when I started this Torchwood rewatch in August 2015 I said “Torchwood takes literally no time to get through.” but then I ended up stretching out 2 seasons to nearly 3 years? And I still have to get through Children of Earth again at some point in my life.

Ok actually as I think about this episode and what happens I really don’t want to watch it. Why am I doing this to myself? I want to rewatch it before Blind Wave posts their reaction on Thursday so that’s why I’m doing it now. But pressing play is really really really really really hard.

Major spoilers. Though if you’re reading this you know that.

I’m holding my Adipose that I crocheted and named after Owen. Here we go. I hate everything.

OH my god I’m dead, Amazon’s description of the episode starts with “Captain John Hart (James Marsters - Buffy) returns” that kills me.

OH NO I CAN’T REMEMBER IF CHILDREN OF EARTH HAS THE SAME OPENING SINCE I ONLY EVER WATCHED THAT SEASON ONE TIME. IS THIS THE LAST TIME WE EVER SEE THE ORIGINAL OPENING? WHY DID THEY KILL OFF OWEN AND TOSH WHO’S BRIGHT IDEA WAS THAT CHRIS CHIBNALL I HATE YOU. My sweet Torchwood babies walking towards the camera looking all dramatic. I love them so much. I miss them so much. Owen helping Tosh walk. Just kill me. Oh poor Rhys is still a little out of the loop. Oh I love Captain John Hart so much. My chaotic baby. He didn’t make the explosives efficient on purpose. And he asks if they were ok. He cares. Jack. Notice that he genuinely cares. He’s not messing with you. Is it bad that I always laugh when Captain John shoots Jack a billion times? Seeing Burn and Naoko’s names on the opening credits for the last time... I’m in pain.

Rhys: I’m keeping more secrets than you’d ever believe. Andy: Oh yeah, like what? Rhys: Like a Time Agency based in Cardiff. Gwen: It’s not based in Cardiff.

I love that so much. Tosh is walking through the shelves of this building the same way she did in Fragments looking for the blueprints. Cinematic parallels. Making me more emotional... Are there other parallels that I just never noticed? Now I gotta keep an eye out for them. I love that they just shoot them down and Tosh goes “Sorted.” My girl. I love her so much. A Hoix? Did that alien have a name in Doctor Who Love and Monsters? Cool to know its name now. I just wish that they didn’t have to send the man who can’t heal to go deal with an alien threat on his own though. The way he said “Wish me luck” my baby I love him. And the way he raised his eyebrows after sedating it. I love Owen. See I can’t tell if John is serious about his “You have all of time but you don’t spend any with me” speech or if it’s just what Gray wants him to say. Probably a bit of both, he probably does feel that way on some level. I bet everyone Jack ever fell in love with has. I love that when rewatching, you can tell John’s regret bleeds through a bit. Night fell in 20 minutes... is Cardiff at the latitude where night starts to fall quickly? I just realized that while Tosh is talking on the comms about rift activity, for a second her voiceover overlaps a shot of her and Ianto, and you can see she’s not talking. Telephone and radio down again. Just like in Sleeper. Captain John trying to spare him the pain of seeing Gray. Rhys’ proud smile at Gwen leading. Awwwww. Been thinking it for years... but Gray’s actor... is not the best... I think it’s his voice, it’s all one tone, not much emotion in the voice. Really the only weakness in this episode. God my poor baby Jack. Prior to Heaven Sent, this was the worst thing I ever had to watch one of my babies go through. 2000 years of dying by suffocation over and over again. But then the Doctor did it for 4 billion years but whatever. At least the Doctor didn’t remember doing it each time while he was doing it, he only remembered afterwards. Jack was awake for all 2000 years of dying and remembers it all. Ugh John tearing off the vortex manipulator along with skin. Oh god not the Weevils. “Ianto. Leave it to me” AND NOW OWEN GOES TO HIS DEATH. I HATE EVERYTHING. SO MUCH. OWEN, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE KING OF THE WEEVILS!? I was just thinking “John should really wrap up that wound...” so I’m glad he actually did. I love that John calling the Weevils pests isn’t even a joke. Weevils are literally the pests of Cardiff. And now Tosh is standing in the location of the cause of her death too. Great. This is all so great. Fantastic. Amazing. I’m not crying you’re crying. This episode is so fun. This lady at the nuclear plant is amazing. Amazon doesn’t credit her in the X-Ray thing though. Shame on you, Amazon. My baby spewing off nuclear science. I love Owen. Owen giving her the mace and telling her to go. I love him. I love him so much. My love. My heart. My baby. “Right. Can you fix it?” “Of course I can, I’m brilliant.” YES YOU ARE GIRL. YES. YOU. ARE. That confidence. That character development. Going from “Knowing I’m special. Waiting for someone to see it.” pre-Torchwood to “Of course I can, I’m brilliant.” at the end. MY. GIRL. Full circle. Wow I want to die. She’s been shot. I hate Gray with every molecule of my being. “Tosh talk to me, I need your help here, babe.” Wow I’m in pain. He called her babe. I wonder how long he’d been doing that. She’s rolling down the steps. Leaving a trail of blood. I hate this show.

Ok. Wait. In 100 years did no one really ever wonder what was in body vault #3? It has no label. I’m sure someone at some point had to have opened it up, seen Jack, been like “...but Jack’s out on a mission... how is he... NOPE I don’t want to know.” and closed it up again. Or maybe there are instructions to never disturb vault #3, that it’s a dangerous alien or something. Or maybe there’s information in a file like Tommy’s saying “This person is frozen until 2008. Just let it be. Don’t worry.” What is the story there? I need to rewatch episodes and see if vault #3 has a label.

Amazon’s X-Ray feature tells me this former Torchwood member’s name is Charles Glaskell. A black man in Torchwood in 1901? I want to know HIS story. Yeah, Jack, you may forgive him, and that forgiveness comes from hundreds (now thousands) of years of guilt over letting go of his hand, but I don’t. I don’t forgive him. I never will. Did Jack have to say to Torchwood “Yeah so set the alarm for this day at this time. Oh also, give me a napkin with chloroform on it. Just cuz.” And did he guess the time? Because he could have woken up like 30 minutes earlier and saved everyone. I know Jack does stuff for the drama, but I’m assuming this time it wasn’t to be dramatic. I really hope he didn’t go “Let me just... tell them a half hour later... so I can be fashionably late to saving the world.” He probably just got the time slight wrong. Owen immediately asking if she’s ok. Because he knows the only thing to keep her from helping him would be if something happened to her. And Tosh lying about it. I am in pain. This is the beginning of the most painful 10 minutes I’ve had to live through in a show. She takes a moment to make a slight joke “Obviously, remember to get out.” whether to make light of the situation or convince him everything’s ok. I’m in so much pain. “And Tosh, thank you.” Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow. God if only Owen hadn’t taken the couple seconds to look at all the screens and dials and stuff and just ran once she said “Owen, get out of there.” “Because you’re breaking my heart.” Knowing that Naoko filmed the entirety of this scene in one take... and that it was the last thing filmed for season 2... makes everything hurt so much more. “I’m sorry.” coming from Mr. “I Don’t Do Apologies” means so much wow this show is painful. Tosh, you’ve been shot, you have a broken arm, and you are alone. You couldn’t have stopped it. I hate that she blames herself. Stupid Space Pig. The date. The stupid date. The date that didn’t happen and tears my heart out when I think about it. Stupid Owen being oblivious. Stupid Tosh being shy. Stupid what-his-face (5 years later I refuse to give him the respect of learning his name) shooting Owen barely hours after he says yes to the date. Stupid Owen’s post-resurrection-depression getting in the way. Stupid Gray. Stupid weevils. Stupid nuclear plant. STUPID EVERYTHING. IT’S NOT ALRIGHT. OWEN IT’S NOT ALRIGHT. And now she’s delirious. Lost the will to live. Lost the will to keep fighting. She was fighting for Owen, and couldn’t save him because of Gray. She’s smiling. She still blames herself. She’s dying and she’s blaming herself for what happened to Owen. She smiled at Jack. Jack saved her. Her 5 years were either already up or almost up. She either was about to be free of their deal, or was free and chose to stay with Jack anyway. She loved Jack so much, and he loved her so much. Wow I am in so much pain. I’m holding Owen the Adipose. This hurts. “Maybe killing him would be the release he needs.” Listen to John. “There has been enough death.” Ok Jack I’ll let you have that. So then what happened to Gray when the Hub exploded in Children of Earth? If he died I don’t care. I’m more concerned about the whereabouts of Myfanwy and Janet post-Hub-explosion than Gray. Is John not from Earth? Maybe he was born on a human colony on another planet... Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid Owen’s Theme is playing and Ianto’s logging him out and that stupid picture taken during They Keep Killing Suzie is on the screen and my baby is gone and I hate everything. 1980. Baby was barely 28. He should be 38 right now. But he’s not. I’m not crying. But I’m making various groaning sounds at each thing Ianto types or clicks and at Jack holding the stethoscope and hugging the lab coat. The stupid lab coat. With his stupid buttons. Jack’s crying. I’m squeezing Owen the Adipose probably too hard. Gwen’s cleaning off Tosh’s desk and crying. Ianto’s logging Tosh out. Everything is hurting. Wait. It says Tosh was born in 1981. But Mary said some time in the 70s. Torchwood. Get your act together. Uggggghhhhhhhhhh her glasses she wasn’t wearing them when she died her purple glasses why. “I hope I did good.” Tosh. Tosh, you did the most good. You did more good than anyone else in this stupid team. Even when you did the wrong things, you still did good things with them (Mary’s stupid pendant). Tosh. Tosh Tosh Tosh Tosh Tosh. Oh my girl Tosh. Oh Tosh.

We all agree that Torchwood is the worst show every created right? I mean, it tore out our hearts. So we hate it. We love it. But we hate it. Torchwood literally ruined my life.

So. Exit Wounds. Wow. I am hurting. I didn’t cry. I don’t think I’ve cried over this episode since the first time I watched it. And even then I only shed 2 tears: 1 when Tosh died, and the other when Tosh’s goodbye video came up.

Of course Tosh would make a goodbye video. She thinks of everything. She is my girl. She is incredible. She is brilliant. She is better than all of us. And she loves them all so much that she wanted to make sure they knew it. In case she didn’t get the chance to tell them one last time. She was so good. She was beyond good. She was the best. She deserved the entire world. She deserved everything and more.

Owen. Oh my Owen. Owen did not deserve this. Owen going out like that is the worst thing. He deserved as long of a half-life as that stupid Duroc energy would have allowed him. He might still be in that stupid nuclear plant as sentient atoms. We don’t know. He deserved to scream and rage his way into oblivion. But he stopped because he didn’t want to hurt Tosh. He didn’t even know she was dying! And he still wanted to comfort her through his death because he knew how much it would hurt her. That she loved him, and he loved her, and even if they couldn’t be romantic they were still close friends. And he apologized. At least 3 times. He never apologizes. And he did it. Over and over again. He confessed that he wished they had gotten that date, that he was too stupid to realize until it was too late. That she deserved better than having to constantly look out for him from literally day one. Better than him being rude to her all the time. And he accepted his death. Said it was alright. It was not alright. It was no where near alright. Owen is my favorite character of all time. I was so devastated over his death that I named the Adipose I had been crocheting at the time after him. Because I needed comfort.

Chibnall. If you can tear my heart out like this in Torchwood, I am hoping you can do the same in Doctor Who. Don’t let me down. I trust you.

When Gwen says “I don’t know if I can. Not after this.” I always think “Same.” Because once again, I nearly didn’t press play on Season 3. I didn’t want to go on. But I did. It just took a lot. I’m glad I watched Children of Earth since it introduced me to Peter Capaldi. And he gives an amazing performance. So when 3 months later his name was thrown out in speculation for being the 12th Doctor, I said “Yes. I want him. He’d be a good Doctor.” and he was. So I’m glad I kept watching Season 3. If only for Capaldi.

Welp. Nearly 3 years later I’ve finally reached Exit Wounds. I feel dead inside and exhausted. I might go to bed. Wasn’t planning on going to bed right away, but when I’m sad I get sleeping. Sadness exhausts me (see: my post for To the Last Man when my grandma called towards the end and screamed at me for yawning and not getting enough sleep [even though that’s true] when I was actually yawning because the episode was so sad that it was exhausting me). This episode is great. But it ruined me. It still ruins me. I’ve never recovered. 5 years. Still haven’t recovered. I say I never stopped crying over this episode, I just stopped shedding tears; I’m still crying over it on the inside. Exit Wounds is the perfect title.

I can’t wait for Blind Wave to post their reaction to this episode on Thursday. They adore Tosh as much as I do. It’s going to break them. The thought of getting to see them become as broken from this episode as am I was what kept me going during the sad parts of this episode. I know it’s horrible, but I love seeing people be ruined by this episode. Because I get it. I’m ruined too.

Torchwood ruined me.

Bonus! Here’s a picture of Owen the Adipose in all his adorable, chubby, cuddly glory:

Literally the only thing keeping me sane. Being able to squeeze him during this.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #205 - Hocus Pocus

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: More or less.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) Let’s start off this post with a little blasphemy: I actually don’t have a ton of nostalgia for this movie. I watched it like maybe three times growing up. I’d always catch bits and pieces on Disney Channel or ABC Family Freeform, but I just never got into it like so many other people did. And (prepare to be outright offended now) the last time I watched it all the way through (I couldn’t have been older than 13) I thought it was kinda boring. BUT I was going through a bit of a “too cool for this shit” phase then. Spoiler alert: I enjoyed it A LOT more this time around and do understand the hype now.

2) Fun fact: Human Thackery Binx is played by Sean Murray but is dubbed over by the actor who performs him (Jason Marsden) for consistency.

3) Despite being largely a comedy, there is a wonderful sense of creepiness to this film which I think helps to give it its unique flavor. I mean, this is a Disney movie which starts with a child being killed so witches can drain off its life force. Then these same witches - who explicitly say they’re loyal to satan and have been to hell - get hanged. There’s this sense of edge (or the Disney version of edge) which helps elevate it above a lot of Halloween family fare. I think it’s what makes the film so endearing.

4) Ah, our first encounter with Winifred Sanderson.

5) The Sanderson Sisters

So the way I’m going to structure this note is each sister will be like 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3. That’s how long the note is. The Sanderson Sisters ARE the movie. They’re the reason it holds up so well, they’re the reason people keep coming back to it, is because this trio is so absolutely wonderful. Each sister is written and performed in a way where you get a clear sense of who they are as individuals (instead of just being clones of each other), yet they chemistry between the actresses works so wonderfully that the trio is strong as well. They are the heart and fun of the film, with each actress being brilliantly comedic but also able to turn on a villainous dime when necessary. They’re just incredible.

5.1) Bette Midler as Winifred Sanderson.

The leader of the group in both writing and performance, Midler commands the sisters in a natural way. The actress is the most unrecognizable in the part, so much so it took me YEARS to even realize this was Bette Midler. By putting aside any and all ego, Midler gives a performance which embraces its cartoonish fun to totally wrap you in. She pulls focus, commanding every scene she’s in to the point where you can’t/don’t want to take her eyes off of her. She’s just incredible. According to IMDb, this is Midler’s favorite performance of her own. That fun just shows through.

5.2) Kathy Najimy as Mary Sanderson.

Najimy is an absolutely amazing character actress who totally blends into every role she’s given. Mary is no different. Much like Midler, she is able to work with the cartoonish silliness of the part (with a character who is maybe more so that than her sisters) to just make you laugh. There are so many great moments Najimy has, often times while other things are going on, that you have to watch multiple times if you even hope to catch them all. She’s just really great.

5.3) Sarah Jessica Parker as Sarah Sanderson.

The youngest (I believe youngest) Sanderson sister proves that there is no weak link in this chain. Much like Middler, this role is so different from anything else Parker is known for doing (“Sexy in the City”) that I have to remind myself it’s here. She is able to be charmingly dimwitted and absent minded in a way which is absolutely gut busting. There is this wonderful physical and almost airy quality she brings to the part which pulls you in, the way she moves and plays with her beloved boys. But Parker - like the other Sandersons - can turn on a dime to an intimidating baddie. She’s - like the others - is incredible.

6) Max Dennison.

This may be blasphemous (I don’t know all the things people love about Hocus Pocus), but does anyone REALLY watch this movie for Max Dennison as a protagonist? I will admit the place where the character ends is something I appreciate a lot (more on that later), but for most of the film? He starts off as kind of a douche bag who acts all macho, thinks he’s too cool for his new town, and is mean to his sister. Almost every other character in the movie is a more interesting potential protagonist than Max to me, which I will say is not the fault of Omri Katz. He actually does the best he can to make Max seem interesting, because I’m aware that he could’ve been a much bigger pain the butt during the movie. But the writing is just not there as we get to know him, even if he does develop nicely by the film’s end.

7) It was at this moment I realized Alison was a much more interesting protagonist than Max.

Max: “But everyone here knows that Halloween was invented by the candy companies it's a conspiracy!”

Allison: It just so happens that Halloween is based on the ancient feast called All Hallows Eve.”

Allison is actually a bit of a missed opportunity, development wise. She has a good understanding of not only the tradition of Halloween but also the Sanderson Sisters, showing a creepy side to a character who does not appear as a stereotypical goth. She’s rich, doesn’t seem to really care for her parent’s fancy Halloween ball, is kind, brave, but we never really explore her that much. I’d love to get to know a bit more about Allison.

8) The inclusion of buttheads Jay and Ice add a nice bit of humor to the film. Yeah they’re jerks, but their idiocy is definitely funny to watch. Don’t take them seriously as bullies or threats and you’ll enjoy their presence.

8.1) So I was looking up the actors who played Jay and Ice and…AH! ICE IS THE SAME ACTOR AS LARRY FROM “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”!

9) According to IMDb:

Charles Rocket [Max and Dani’s dad] acquired a certain notoriety for swearing on live television during the final moments of the 21 February 1981 episode of Saturday Night Live (1975). There's an in-joke in connection to this, where he says to Max, "Watch your language!".

10) Thora Birch as Dani.

Can I just say, Dani is so much more interesting to me than Max. I kinda wish we saw this movie through her eyes. She just brings a smile to my face whenever she’s on screen. Birch plays Dani with such honest enthusiasm and intelligence (not every kid in movies is played as smart, sadly) that it’s intoxicating. She stands up to the bullies and later her first instinct upon the Sanderson Sister’s resurrection is to LIE HER BUTT OFF in an attempt to make them think she’s a witch! HER FIRST INSTINCT! And then later when she finds out this freaky zombie is nice she’s immediately like, “Hi Billy!” so sweetly. I dig that.

11) Ah great, toxic masculinity infecting an eight year old girl.

Dani [after Max says fighting the bullies would’ve gotten him killed]: “At least you would’ve died like a man.”

Sorry, that’s just a personal thing.

12) Um, maybe some fans of the movie know this, but why exactly the Dennison family move to Salem? I don’t remember it ever being mentioned. I’m assuming job opportunity but what job takes you from LA to Salem?

13) Um Max, you’ve know Allison for like a week (maybe a week and a half). Isn’t this a little much?

Max [about Allison]: “Dani, this is the girl of my dreams.”

14) The Sanderson house has this wickedly creepy sense of place to it. You know these guys aren’t supposed to be there, you know that this is a place of evil, so when things start getting weird it’s not much of a stretch to see it happening.

15)

16) So at one point in the movie Allison hits Mary with a frying pan and all I can think of is this:

17) The most fun this movie has is watching the Sanderson Sisters adapt to 1993. Reacting to things like the, “burning rain of death,” (sprinkler system) the, “black river,” (a pavement road) and even the way they run from approaching firetrucks because of the sirens is all a hoot. Like I said, each actress is amazing and they play it so well. It’s a wonderful source of comedy.

18) Thackery Binx.

Jason Marsden is an excellent voice over actor (perhaps best known as Max in A Goofy Movie and Impulse in “Young Justice”) who helps give Thackery a lot of life. This immortal black cat is wonderfully charming, with a compelling wit and sarcastic sense of humor which helps flesh him out as a character. But he also has a lot of tragedy in his life, a real loneliness. Thackery is a unique and fun addition to the film which just works really well.

19) That’s Doug Jones as Billy Butcherson.

Jones is currently one of the most well regarded character/makeup actors in showbiz, with such famous roles under his belt as both Fauno and The Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, Abe Sapein in the Hellboy films, and the creature in the upcoming The Shape of Water. Just thought I’d share.

20) I gotta say, the Sanderson Sisters are a lot more funny to me in my 20s than my teens. The whole bit with the calming circle specifically had me in stitches.

Also this is great.

Girl Dressed as Angel: “Bless you.”

Sanderson Sisters: [Freak out.]

21) This whole bit with the fake cop is kinda clever, but this bugs me.

Cop [after Dani tells him Max is a virgin] Are you a virgin?

Max: Yeah.

Cop: Really?

22) Garry Marshall’s devilish cameo.

While largely (if not exclusively) serving as a distraction from the plot, it just continues the fun of the Sanderson Sisters adjusting to the new world. Garry Marshall’s presence in any film is a welcome treat, especially when he brings along sister Penny. There’s just a great sense of fun here born from the audience being in on a joke the witches are clearly unaware of.

23) Okay, this always bugged me: couldn’t the kids get A LOT of people to believe them if the talking cat explained what was going on?

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

24) “I Put A Spell On You”

This may be the most iconic moment from the film, working primarily because it’s just so freaking fun! The tune is infectious, it carries a delightful Halloween sense to it, and Midler’s vocals are top notch. It’s just FUN and that’s what works.

25)

Winnie [upon seeing a high school]: “It is a prison for children.”

Well she’s not wrong.

26) As a fan of old school Universal Monster movies, I dig this line.

Max [over the high school PA]: “I’m your host, Boris Karloff Jr.”

27) Honestly I think this film’s biggest issue is a structural one. Some gags, while fun, don’t add much to the overall plot. Also the moment of quiet/peace after the heroes think the Sanderson Sisters are dead just messes with the overall flow. The tension never got high enough for it to be effective or earned. It just throws off the momentum I think.

28) Winifred’s Book.

It’s not often that I discuss prop pieces in these posts but Winnie’s book is in a lot of ways a character unto itself. The art design on the piece is absolutely wonderful and just really interesting. You understand it’s not a possession but (largely because of that eye) something a little more intelligent than that. A little more alive than that.

29) As soon as Allison opens the book this is all I can think of.

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know]

30) Sarah’s song to lure the children (written by James Horner, not composer John Debny) is wonderfully creepy while also being sweet. It makes sense that it would draw in a bunch of kids but as the audience we can hear the sense of doom it has.

31) So this is a classic case of Villain Stupidity™. Winnie HAS her victory! All she needs to do is give her death potion to one of the countless kids which just appeared on her front lawn but she needs to have her revenge so risks it all (needlessly) to go after Dani.

32) Okay, how does Winnie know enough about modern life to make this joke?

Winnie [pulling up next to Max’s car on her broom]: “Pull over! Let me see your driver's permit!”

33) The film’s climax actually is pretty well done. There is a nice sense of stakes and tension to it. THIS is earned, unlike the school scene. And Max’s decision to drink the potion so he can save Dani is a great character choice, showing how strong his relationship with his sister is and what he’ll do to ensure her safety.

34) Okay, when the sun rises at the end all I can think of is…

35) It may be a little cheesy, but I do really like that this film ends with Thackery being reunited with his lost sister Emily after 300 years. Also his goodbye to Dani is really nice.

Hocus Pocus has become a cult classic for a reason. With three absolutely phenomenal actresses acting as the heart of the film, it has a wonderfully wicked sense of fun to it that works at Halloween. But either you’ll like it or you won’t. There are some problems with structure, focus, and some character development. But honestly I don’t care about those so much because it’s just so freaking fun. It more than makes up for its flaws with a sense of humor and cartoonish mayhem which carries the 90 minute run time well. It’s just a fun Halloween movie which everyone should watch once just to see if they like.

[ladyeternal178]

There is no Song In My Heart

Dear Adam & Eddie:

If you’re going to try and rip off Joss Whedon this blatantly, you need to not be so phenomenally bad at it.

Seriously:  the infant son of a hero and a villain is kidnapped away from someone that was taking him to be hidden from one of his parents for his own safety.  He is taken to a demon dimension by his kidnapper, where they raise him like their own child and train him to serve their agenda. When he gets back to his parents’ dimension, barely any time has passed for them but he’s a fully-grown adult because time flows differently where he was raised, and he starts going after the good guys and his family because of the machinations of the bad guy that raised them.

Am I talking about Gideon from Once, or Connor from Angel?  The only way to tell them apart is the fact that Connor actually managed to beat Angel a couple of times, whereas Gideon has never gotten the better of Rumple.  Even when Gideon was using the Dark One dagger, Rumple outmaneuvered Gideon at every turn.  Somehow, A&E managed to make the son of the Dark One, a character that could’ve been a huge wild card that completely realigned the balance of power in Storybrooke, totally fucking useless and only slightly less relevant to the story than the dwarves are.

But now they’ve also completely wasted the potential of a musical episode at the same time they were trying desperately to pull it off by using a similar set-up to BtVS’ Once More With Feeling.

See:  Once More With Feeling used magic to make everyone burst into song, too.  And it played with the idea that music, when combined with magic, can be used as a weapon.  But where The Song In Your Heart utterly and completely failed to live up to its spiritual predecessor is that, rather than having the musical curse woven into the modern setting and illuminating something about the characters’ current emotional states, or revealing something critical that had been kept hidden from the others before now, they decided to cram yet another flashback confrontation between Snowing and the Evil Queen into an already overfull backstory.

All in the name of giving Emma’s massive inferiority and martyr complexes an opportunity to rear their ugly heads again and then allowing for a deus ex machina, a/k/a Henry, to come in and rescue her from them.

It makes no sense that Fiona and/or Rumple didn’t go after Henry when they were rounding up everyone in Emma’s immediate family to use as hostages.  Henry might not be able to use his author powers to affect the Final Battle, but he’s still the Truest Believer.  He above anyone would be the person most likely to keep Emma from being mired in self-doubt, since he has absolute faith.  And maybe Fiona doesn’t know about that part, but Rumple does, having been privy to the events in Neverland and therefore knowing the reason why his father wanted Henry’s heart.

Not to mention that Henry is Emma’s son.  You’re trying to tell me that the woman who turned herself into a fairy and very nearly used the Dark Curse’s precursor to banish all children in the Enchanted Forest to another realm in order to protect her own son didn’t think that holding the Savior’s son as a hostage wouldn’t get Emma to do anything she wanted?  I doubt it, considering she didn’t even have compunctions about harming children to achieve her own ends before she became a fairy.  And it’s not like his adoptive mother/step-great-grandmother, step-great-great-aunt, grandparents or step-father-to-be were in any position to stop her from hurting Henry, considering they were all her hostages, too.  So why have she and Rumple leave Henry out there free to act instead of using him to leverage Emma?

Answer:  A&E decided that the plot device they wanted to use was cool enough that the audience would ignore the plot hole and forgive the deus ex machina needed to pull it off.  And they were wrong on all three counts.

The hard-won admission by Buffy to most of her loved ones that she’d been in Heaven when the Scoobies had resurrected her at the climax of Once More With Feeling was a cathartic paradigm shift for the characters and a gut-wrenching emotional pay-off for the viewer at the same time.  We’d been hanging on the edges of our seats waiting for that reveal to happen, and the way we got it was pitched perfectly.  Emma’s emotional epiphany in The Song In Your Heart didn’t have the same impact because we’ve been here before.  We’ve been watching Emma re-learning this lesson in various ways since the Neverland arc in Season 3, and A&E are clearly running out of ways to keep convincingly putting her through this particular emotional journey.

But I think perhaps the biggest sin this episode commits is the aforementioned shoe-horning in of the musical confrontation between the Charmings and Regina.  The Song In Your Heart isn’t even the first episode this season to be guilty of throwing something into the characters’ pre-Curse lives to set up a Chekov’s gun that will be used in the very same episode.  But even with the pre-first-Curse timeline being a bit murky, A&E are running the raggedy edge of feasible when it comes to how much they’re trying to claim happened between the Charmings’ wedding and Regina’s first casting of the Dark Curse.

Magical settings don’t give you carte blanche when it comes to how much can reasonably fit into your backstory or timeline, and the advent of online fandoms with on demand access to re-watch, scrutinize, analyze and categorize every event in every episode has largely eliminated showrunners’ ability to rely on Bellisario’s Maxim when it comes to them prioritizing the cool factor of a plot device, twist or arc over the cohesiveness of their world-building.  Flashbacks to the time before the first Curse are this show’s stock-in-trade, but even in the context of a musical episode, this vehicle could’ve been used in far better ways than it was here.

For example:  in the modern Storybrooke era, the Black Fairy has cast a spell compelling the characters to sing what’s in their hearts because there’s something she needs to know from one of them that will give her an advantage in the final battle.  They’re singing because truth potions/spells don’t necessarily get people to speak the truth of their hearts, but music always gets at the emotions we think we’re keeping hidden even from ourselves.

You could’ve had Snow & Charming waxing rhapsodic about their own wedding which dovetailed into a flashback about the ramp-up to the ceremony we saw in the pilot.  You could’ve had Regina singing about how her mother’s pursuit of revenge, and her own, have robbed her of getting to have a wedding day like Emma’s, paired with a flashback of the Evil Queen observing the preparations for the royal wedding and finally snapping over Snow getting to have the happy wedding that she and Daniel nwere permanently denied.  You could’ve had Zelena singing about how everyone’s making such a huge deal out of the wedding and it’s not as important as they’re all building it up to be before slowly revealing that, unlike Emma, she has no one that cares enough about her to want to give her a special wedding day and she is still mourning the one person that would’ve possibly ever wanted to marry her to begin with.

And then at long last, you have Emma singing about how she’s happier than she’s ever been and looking forward to marrying Hook, but the part she's not letting anyone see is that she’s frightened of losing the family that it’s taken so long for her to find and build and accept:  if not to the Final Battle then to some other evil because there will always be darkness for the Savior to fight.  That she knows they’ll carry on if she dies because that’s what they do, but she doesn’t know how she’ll go back to being alone again if something happens to them because she needs them to remind her that she’s no longer a lonely, unwanted orphan girl.

Cue the Black Fairy now knowing what she needs to know and cursing the town so that when Emma wakes up the morning after her wedding, she’s alone, isolated from everyone she loves, and she has to face the Final Battle without the support system she’s come to rely on to remind her of her own self-worth.

Was this episode fun for the OUaT cast & crew to make?  Probably.  The actors certainly seemed to be having a ball with the musical numbers, and some of the vocal performances were unexpectedly good.  But it didn’t really serve the overall narrative, it didn’t give us any insight into the characters that we didn’t have already, and the emotional pay-off didn’t have anything to do with the musical device.  The emotional pay-off was the wedding, and while I’m glad they didn’t fuck around with the actual ceremony (ruined weddings are one of my top five most-hated plot devices ever), there was no dramatic tension at all in the 50 minutes leading up to that moment and no interesting character development to make the time feel like it was spent wisely.

A&E should’ve called Papa Joss to consult.  We would’ve gotten an episode with some heart for the songs to be in.

[ex-vengeancedemon]

Averting Disasters and Other Ways to Avoid Your Problems

Chapter 4

Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mentions of things that occurred in Angel: The Series season 5.

Main Pairing: Buffy x Spike

Characters: Buffy, Spike, Giles, Willow, Xander, Andrew, Faith, Dawn

Summary: Set in 2008, five years after Spike’s resurrection at Wolfram & Hart. Buffy is living in Cleveland guarding the hellmouth. Spike has left Angel and company and is hiding out in Chicago. The Scoobies are scattered. When something starts going wrong with the slayers around the world, it’s time to get the gang back together.

Masterlist & Chapter 1

"Well it's not like I'm thrilled to see you either!" Spike retorted. "Always buggerin' up the works! What are you gonna do? Whine the slayer's sane?"

"How? What? How?" Xander stammered, blinking rapidly.

Xander seemingly hadn't changed much in the past 5 years. He was still as incompetent and irritating as ever. Although - Spike would admit - both he and Willow did look a bit older. Some might even say a bit haggard, like they hadn't slept right in a year or two. One thing was certain, the ponce's wardrobe hadn't improved a lick. Even Andrew had him beat there. Sad really.

"I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for interrogate the Spike later," Spike replied, waving a hand at him. "Maybe when we're not, say, dealing with a wave of off their nut slayers?"

"You were dead," Xander continued, pointing a finger at him.

"Yeah. And now I'm not. Of all people, you lot really shouldn't be so surprised. It's bloody impossible to stay dead around here."

The shock factor had yet to wear off. A more generous part of Spike's mind knew he couldn't really blame him. The only other person to come back from the grave was, well, Buffy. And people had wanted her back.

"Xander, later," Willow told him. "We need all the help we can get. Especially since we can't ask any of the slayers. It's just us on this one."

"And the librarian," Spike drawled.

"Where is Giles?" Xander asked, finally composing himself a bit.

"On his way." Willow stood up and dropped a book in his hands. Xander coughed as a plume of dust puffed up in his face. "Well?" Willow pressed. "What are you waiting for? Research won't do itself."

Xander took a seat at the table next to Andrew, noticeably at the furthest point away from Spike. Unsurprising really. Git had always had a chip on his shoulder. But, if they had to make due with non-slayers, he supposed Xander might not be... the worst. Although his arrival did beg the question of the one missing party.

"So where's everyone's favorite little ex-demon, eh?" Spike asked. "Anya retire from the Scoobies? She always was the smart one."

The table froze, the rustling of pages coming to an abrupt halt. No one made as if to answer and a grim silence descended over the room. Spike no longer needed their answer. It was clear from their faces. Anya was dead. Gone. Six feet under or what all.

Spike's sardonic demeanor vanished.

"How'd it happen?" he asked quietly.

Andrew sniffled a bit, wiping at his eyes. "She um... she saved me. She died during the attack. You know, at Sunnydale. Same as you."

Xander and Willow remained dry-eyed. Willow's eyes were downcast and she carefully avoided looking at anyone or anything in particular. Xander's face was hard, an uncommon sobriety plaguing his normally lighthearted countenance.

Xander scoffed and shook his head, the frown lines deepening on his face. "In what world is it fair that you come back, and she doesn't?"

"Only the twisted kind," Spike mumbled under his breath. He didn't think Xander heard.

"Xander, that's not really fair," Willow replied softly.

"Yeah. It damn well isn't," Xander snapped back.

A tense pause persisted before Andrew's shudder broke the silence. He had his head in his hands and looked like he was still grieving her all these years later. Guilt will do that to a person.

"I'm sorry," Spike said louder. "She was... well she was one of the good ones."

"She was," Willow seconded with a terse nod.

The room fell back into that uncomfortable silence that had started when Spike mentioned Anya's name. A moment of silence for you, our dearly departed. Buried beneath the rubble of Sunnydale. Gal deserved better. Who the bloody hell didn't?

While the rest of the gang continued with the barrels of books and the magic of boredom, Spike perused the magic shop's other wares. He had no idea what half of the junk did, and he was a bit wary to find out. With his luck, he'd go poking around and wind up a toad. 

He picked up a small golden mirror and almost dropped it when he noticed his reflection staring back at him. Only it wasn't him. It was the face of a decaying corpse, rotted through almost to the bone with sickening tufts of hair jutting out at random from his skull. The reflection had no nose or eyes, just gaping holes into the abyss with tendrils of black smoke slowly curling out. He hurriedly put the mirror back face down. Windows to the soul my ass. No more magic mirrors for this vampire.

Spike shook off the disturbing image and made his way over to the cash register in search of a quick distraction. Sitting neatly next to the register was a leather-bound book labeled "Bills of Sale". Had to be a ledger of sorts. Spike flipped through it and spotted Willow's name pop up more than a few times. She'd been quite the little Wicca since he'd been away. Giles' name cropped up a couple times as well. 'Course it did. And then his finger stopped on Buffy. It seemed she had ordered a few things from the mystical multi-dimensional magic shop from hell. 

It listed her address. Right there in Cleveland. It couldn't even be that far. Maybe ten kilometers.  

Spike glanced up at the gang. They seemed engrossed with their books and chatted sporadically amongst themselves. Part catch-up, part theory, part shared anxiety.

Andrew got up to pull another book from the shelf and Spike slipped out from behind the counter. He made as if to casually pass by the table - as he had done multiple times before already - just as Andrew turned back from the shelf. Spike rammed into Andrew's shoulder, causing him to drop his book.

"Watch it Watcher!" Spike snapped. "You'd think a Watcher would be better at watching where the hell they're going."

Spike continued to mutter under his breath as he walked away from Andrew's somewhat confused apologies. Spike smiled as he gripped the keys in his pocket. A lifetime of delinquency came in handy every now and again. Who was he kidding? It came in handy all the damn time.

***

Spike parked Andrew's car on the curb just outside of Buffy's house. At least, it was the house the address at the magic shop had listed. Dusk was just falling and Spike was sure the Scoobies had noticed his absence by now. He had only circled the block six times. Just to be sure. Hard to tell sometimes with... addresses. With specific house numbers. Maybe that six should really be a nine. Who knows? Could happen.

The house was small. Spike supposed it didn't need to be big if it was just Buffy living there. Seemed odd. Buffy living alone. In a city with none of her old mates. A lot had changed since he died. He wondered if anything had stayed the same.

Lawn looked like it could use a mow. It was a bit unkempt and probably angered some suburban Homeowners Council or what all. But the rest of the house looked nice. All cookie-cutter with that early 90s retro-chic vibe. Bloody hell. Now he was just stalling, examining the bloody architecture.

Spike took a breath and opened the door of the car. The neighborhood wasn't busy and the streetlights had just come on. He made his way up the concrete walk to the front door. Moment of truth. 

He rapped on the door and waited for what felt like an eternity. Maybe she wasn't home. Then he heard a shuffling from behind the door. Finally, the door opened, and there she stood. Radiant.

"Buffy," Spike said, barely managing to get the name out.

Seeing her again, alive and standing in front of him, was so much better than revisiting the memories. It struck him that her face had started to fade from his memory the way a worn picture does when you carry it around in a wallet for years. And a picture is nothing compared to the real thing. A shadow of a person. Less than a flat, lifeless imitation.

She gave him a puzzled look, her brows furrowing together in a familiar way. "Spike. What the hell is going on?"

He finally noticed the blood that soaked the front of her shirt and the disarray of her hair. Mud coated her bare feet and a deep gash ran up her calf. Spike could smell the blood. It seemed old. Something was very wrong here.

"Come in," Buffy said, stepping aside to let him pass.

Spike hesitantly stepped across threshold. She pulled him the rest of the way inside and slammed the door shut behind him, immediately jumping over to the window and peaking out behind the curtains at the street as if she thought he might have been tailed. It wasn't exactly the reception he had been expecting.

"Spike, what's going on?" Buffy asked, whirling on him. "Where am I? How'd I get here?"

Spike glanced around, looking for any clues as to what might be causing this bout of frenzied panic. To no avail. The inside of the house looked just fine. Not very lived in. Bare bones. No overturned furniture, no broken glass. Some muddy footprints. But overall, fine.

"You're in Cleveland," Spike said slowly. "Remember?"

Buffy shook her head, becoming more agitated. "Why? Does this have something to do with The First? We need to get back to Sunnydale, now."

[nileqt87]

How you interpret the scene in AtS 3x19 where Angel says "Snow. Doesn't ever snow in South California" and Cordelia reminds him it did once. Obviously snow is related to a pivotal moment of his life and his relationship with Buffy. A way of saying he's lost the mission?

Nah, that’s just part of the PtB/Jasmine storyline (note that only 3 of the PtB miracles are provably not the work of Jasmine: Darla being sent to stop Connor, Cordy’s ghostly visit and the last vision of the Black Thorn).

The magic snow was a miracle that gave Angel hope that something out there cared about him and wanted him to live. The snow represented hope and his elusive light at the end of the tunnel, which is why Cordy reminded Angel that he was given such a miracle once. This miracle literally saved his life from sunrise. And of course, if ever there was a thing it doesn’t do in Southern California (unless you’re in the mountains–I live here), it’s snow.

From a writing perspective, Amends was all about setting up AtS (which was well underway), which is why that even if the First Evil did bring Angel back (it even states it doesn’t care if Angel kills himself after failing to kill Buffy), there was clearly some other force out there who wanted him alive. The Mayor also hints at this in Choices when he comments on whether or not Angel’s higher purpose and the reason he was brought back was really to just ruin Buffy’s life and future. Amends is when he thought he had no way of ever reaching redemption or being forgiven at a time when he was suicidal.

Angel, much like Liam (considered his father a religious hypocrite) and Angelus (note Angelus’ preoccupation with nuns, virginity, corrupting/targeting innocence and mocking God), was very much informed by being Catholic. Angel’s past influenced his belief in a Higher Power (God) and him being clearly bothered by damnation (which he tells Darla) and the inevitability of him going to hell. Angel even tells Marcus the pedo vampire that what he wants most is “forgiveness”. Angel is one of the most overtly religious characters in the ‘verse because of his human background, despite the mythology being inconclusive, but seemingly polytheistic despite so much Christian symbology traditional to vampire mythology. He manages to still hang onto this. An interesting scene is one in I’ve Got You Under My Skin where he is looking up at the cross in the church.

A lot of his story is him being prophecy’s bitch and manipulated by Higher Powers. So much of his story is being at the mercy of events out of his control, such as becoming a vampire, being ensouled, Whistler pulling him out of his self-imposed flagellation, having no idea of the loophole in his curse, Doyle being sent as his link to the PtBs, Darla’s resurrection, Connor’s impossible conception and birth, Holtz’s return, Jasmine, etc… At times, he loses his faith that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for him and that there’s anything out there that cares. Jasmine, in particular, removes his belief that the PtBs are in any way benevolent, which means he may never be forgiven. Jasmine even tells him that the other PtBs don’t like to get involved and she was the only one who likes getting her hands dirty. Likewise, Sahjhan’s ability to fake a prophecy (despite it ironically coming true in a way) also broke Angel’s trust in such things.

One thing Buffy did teach him was that prophecy can be thwarted, starting with her death at the hands of the Master. Like Angel, Buffy is the victim of a higher purpose she didn’t choose or want, but still wanted to do the right thing and help because she could. Given that his teacher and sire was Darla, the Master’s favorite pet and a member of the Order of Aurelius, he parroted words about fearing Slayers even as Angelus that sound an awful lot like her and the Master’s over-reliance on tradition and the inevitability of prophecy, then he very nearly gave up on coming after Buffy because he believed that there was no way out until Xander still wanted to try. This is an important part of his development.

This is the importance of his epiphany that, rather than do something for a reward or even just to beat the other guy, he should help people because he wants them to not suffer so much and it’s the right thing to do. And even if they make the wrong choices, such as Wolfram & Hart nudging flawed humanity towards its own downfall, they still have the right to do it instead of becoming Jasmine’s happy, brainwashed meatpuppets with no free will, even if more would indeed be saved at the cost of only a few instead of millions with “world peace”. World peace is indeed a concept that can only exist if everyone thinks the same way and there are no dissenters, which must always be eliminated (check out the bloody history of Communism with that very philosophy).

And despite being at the mercy of the meddling of Higher Powers, gypsies and prophecy, his story is all about the things he chooses with his human free will, such as falling in love with Buffy (which wasn’t foreseen), choosing to leave her because he wants her to have the future he can never give her and never have for himself (note how many of his list of items he tells her are things he wants more than her–his preoccupation with wanting a family is evident as early as Bad Eggs, The Prom and War Zone), turning himself into a superhero in her image and putting being a champion of humanity before his own chance at forgiveness, redemption or humanity (something he gives up twice). He’s giving up his chance at no longer being damned as a demon destined to go to hell.

He loves humanity more than himself, which is something often seen from him, such as when he wanted to sacrifice himself, someone who could save so many, to save even a 400-year-old syphilitic, ex-vampire prostitute who could barely save herself. Angel has a huge problem with his own self-worth.