#while buffy recognizes for the first time that there’s light and love in the world and she wants to see it. jesus CHRIST

[nicollekidman]

“i don’t want to protect you from the world i want to show it to you” as buffy’s season six realization while spike is off seeking his soul…. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah x100

[jennycalendar]

ok you know what i think it’s actually really vital that i talk a little bit about tea time. buckle up kiddos.

first off, a brief and relatively spoiler-free summary: the premise of the issue is very simple. the kiddos (aged up, if willow’s mention of being engaged is any indication) are hanging out in the library to help giles with research, swapping stories about what it would be like were giles a vampire. each of them, save giles, gets a chance to tell a detailed story -- xander tells two! -- and each story plays out in a way that says a lot about the scooby that’s telling it AND the way they view giles.

obviously this is a VERY character-driven issue, and it’s a really really interesting look at giles and how he is perceived as well! shit like that is my bread and butter, so this has honestly become one of my favorite things that boom has put out -- possibly my ACTUAL top favorite issue if we’re being real here. 

below the cut is a spoilery dissection of every story told -- a literal summary of Every Single Thing that happens in this issue, as well as what it has to say about the scoobies and their perception of giles, so definitely keep that in mind.

as can be seen in the preview, xander’s first story is about giles rising from the grave as an ineffectual british caricature, who is easily defeated by smoldering, sexy xander harris (and xander in turn walks off with buffy and willow draped all over him, cooing about how amazing he is). it’s more of an intro to the premise than anything, but it still sets the tone pretty clearly wrt how xander handles this situation: there’s some laughter and levity, and he’s center stage. obviously a lot can be said about xander’s self-esteem issues and how he overcompensates by casting himself as the main protagonist both in canon and here. however, i wanna save my more in-depth xander analysis for his second, longer, story, so i’ll stop myself there.

willow immediately responds with skepticism: she’s of the mind that giles would be an incredibly serious big-bad level threat. the tale she spins involves giles as a dangerous vampire cleric with access to a cryptic altar, killing xander almost immediately and slaughtering buffy as a sacrifice to create eternal night. her view of giles is more clinical than anything -- and, i would argue, the most perceptive and realistic from a threat standpoint. the guy knows a fuckton of magic and he is incredibly well-read and powerful. he’d have some kind of terrifying master plan. where xander goes for comedy, willow goes straight for logistics, already looking at the battle like it’s a battle rather than laughs aplenty. 

xander and buffy have a bone to pick with willow’s story (xander is indignant that he’s immediately and brutally killed, buffy is of the mind that she would easily defeat giles in hand-to-hand combat even if he IS a vampire), so (after one more teasing story where buffy lives and xander dies) willow gracefully alters her narrative to reflect her friends’ objections: after a dramatic tussle, xander helps willow and buffy unceremoniously stakes giles in the heart. still pretty straightforward and plausible. willow sees vamp giles primarily as a threat -- one not easily neutralized. one who could easily wipe them out.

buffy, about to tell her story, is interrupted by xander, who “had an even better idea!” the web he weaves is this time purported as realistic and entertaining: while partying at the bronze, buffy and co. are interrupted by a bunch of balding, greying vampires in curlers and bathrobes, led, of course, by giles -- who is wearing a hair bonnet and disapprovingly informing the bouncers how late it is at eight PM. a knockdown brawl breaks out at the bronze -- old people feeding on and decimating the young -- and culminates in giles and the geezers taking over the band to sing “some terrible song” that’s “probably something really old and bad!” the rest of the story descends into b-movie chaos, with buffy throwing a broken guitar neck up at the stage lights to send the whole thing crashing down onto vampire giles and his vampire old person band. it’s categorically absurd.

the thing that really sticks with me about this story is how dumb it is. xander’s take on giles is not even slightly serious and wholly underestimates him. fandom at large talks a lot about how giles dropped the ball with xander, but i think tea time explores an easily overlooked factor: xander constantly, consistently underestimates giles. in canon, xander’s view of giles is not often challenged: to him, giles is a bumbling, british librarian who regularly gets his ass handed to him by vamps and demons and the like. certainly part of his story’s intent is about laughingly entertaining his gal pals, but there’s a very real and consistent thread involving giles being hilariously nonthreatening. 

giles, taking umbrage at this particular tale, calls out both xander and willow: xander’s story, in giles’s opinion, emasculates vamp giles and turns him into a ridiculous caricature -- and willow’s story, though much more flattering, lacks the kind of imagination that vamp giles would clearly have. he then offers a suggestion of his own. it’s worth mentioning here that both xander’s and willow’s stories get gorgeous multiple-page spreads depicting the vampy action, but giles’s is a simple and chilling little thing: this is his vampire story. this meeting, called to ostensibly “research” a vampire altar, is really an excuse to get the scoobies to do his dirty work and find the thing for him. they’re tired and silly because the tea and donuts he’s given them are drugged, and their library location is to keep them out of daylight. he laughs it off when he sees they’re bothered, and the meeting is then adjourned when willow finally finds what they’re all looking for. 

buffy’s left her phone in the library, so she doubles back, and accidentally wakes up a dozing giles. just as she’s about to leave, he inquires, casually, “...you never did tell your version of the story.”

and good god here is where it gets interesting.

see, buffy’s take is simple: she’s fighting giles in a cemetery, she’s given the chance to kill him, and she is entirely unable to do it. they share a tearful embrace as she sobs about the unfairness of it all -- “you’re giles! and you’ll always be! ...how will i do this without you? without your guidance?” and as the sun is rising, giles turns her into a vampire, with no resistance whatsoever from buffy. the next handful of pages depict bloody, indulgent violence on the parts of giles and buffy, the two of them cuddled up together as they watch the world burn. 

buffy’s tale is the most emotive, the most loving, which makes me so damn soft! i love this girl so much! she is unable to even joke about giles as a foe to be taken down -- he is her watcher. he is her friend. she loves him endlessly and that does not change when he’s a vampire. vamp giles as she portrays him is gentle and understanding, holding her as she cries, because he knows that they’re connected. it’s easily my favorite part of this whole issue.

notably, there is a definite buffy/giles bend that the comic itself tries to contradict. the art is sensual in nature -- vamp buffy all dolled up in a way somewhat evocative of drusilla, giles tenderly caressing her face as he waits for her to wake up. “watcher and slayer connected forever” being the quote chosen to describe the situation. i think it’s kind of what naturally happens in a vamp giles sitch, especially if he turns buffy -- the childe/sire bond is incredibly sexual in nature, especially in canon, and a lot of frustrating human sentiment gets translated into something sexual as well. sex is a big BIG part of the relationships between vampires we see in canon; it would make a lot of sense for that to hold true for buffy and giles.

the comic is reticent about Going There, which i can understand -- though buffy is decisively aged up in this issue (willow mentions being engaged to a woman, later revealed to be tara), the buffy/giles bond is always seen through a father/daughter lens in canon. i do think it’s also important to always recognize how desperately giles wishes to escape the label of father in reference to buffy, pretty much entirely because there is no way to parent a child soldier who you’re also training, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. point is, buffy very pointedly refers to vamp giles as her father not once, but twice -- once as a human, once as a vampire herself. it’s a very clear attempt, imo, to un-sexualize the vampy experience. the reason it doesn’t totally work, at least for me, is the fact that -- like i said -- the childe/sire bond is VERY sexual (spike and dru, angel and darla, angel and dru) and it seems just totally implausible that vamp buffy/vamp giles (two people who, as human were both VERY repressed) would chastely remain within the socially acceptable version of their relationship.

i can definitely understand why they did their best to blur that line, though. the idea of buffy and giles being romantically involved as vampires is 1) Kind Of A Lot and 2) not exactly the target demographic that i think this comic is going for. but the subtext is there, to the point where the issue itself has to actively obfuscate it, which i think is .... so interesting? especially as a counterpoint to the way i often see buffy/giles in fandom, wherein the father/daughter subtext in canon is at times actively obfuscated in fic in an attempt to push a preferred reading. 

the ending i particularly enjoyed: after buffy leaves, it is lightly and ambiguously implied that giles might really be a vampire. works GREAT as a standalone, imo, and the end is like the cherry on top. it’s a really REALLY interesting issue and i highly recommend it for any giles fan. 

[heathenarmyimagines]

Title: Find Us

Summary: (Y/N) has done her job, now Ivar must do his.

Pairing: Ivar x Reader

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten

Taglist: @ubbesgirl, @shewolf2000, @tis-itheapplepie, @atequila, @demoncrypt1066, @greennightspider, @badbitsh13, @fireismysaftey, @minarawr, @laketaj24, @hvitserksgirl, @blahblahcookiesdoma, @fabulous-peasent, @sforsammmmmi, @minmiin1d, @courtrae89, @letsloveimagines, @tomarisela, @titty-teetee, @beyond-the-ashes@elenawrit, @mblaqgi, @whenimaunicorn, @chuflisworld, @mystruggledlife, @moose-squirrel-asstiel, @syreni-dea, @trashqueenbitch, @alykatv, @mbaku-babygirl, @perfectus-in-morte, @beyond-the-ashes, @neeadinghugs, @readsalot73, @triumphantreturnofpies, @anarchy-is-coming, @tephi101, @alicedopey, @ivarslittlebadgirl, @jtrstp, @nejijjeoroo, @charlylama, @ivartheblessed, @captstefanbrandt, @fabulouschrissi, @ivarsrideordie, @3x5gurl, @the-writer-appreciation-blog, @lolabee9, @captainfoxy22, @young-ugly-god, @im5ftbutmythroat66, @bribyyy, @irishhiggins, @cadetomlinson, @keclleon101, @slutforragnarssons, @ltkeke, @meeeeeeeeeps, @lille-kanin, @opalscarab, @ssraven7, @ivarandersen, @concretewaywardangel, @funmadnessandbadassvikings, @sharon-is-tired, @cadetomlinson, @mystruggledlife, @chuflisworld, @justmarissa97, @lol-haha-joke, @weirdly-randomly-awesome, @inlovewithmakeupcomicsanim, @idonthavehusbandsihavelovers, @alexa040004, @buckythetinman , @burntmythroatskullingmytea,@jorunnravenslayer, @two-unbeatable-beaters, @buffy-the-vampire-blogger, @arses21434, @ltkeke, @captainfoxy22, @chinduda @letsshamelessqueen-m @my-soul-is-the-moon @we-are-transcendent

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six,Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten

The sleep came easily enough, even easier considering that you had gone all day with no rest and unbeknownst to you it was the most rest you would receive in months.

In the land of the living it had been three days and you hadn’t had a clue, for you it was just like any other dream. Time was irrelevant and nothing important to worry about as you walked around the abandoned market. With the information you now had you came to the conclusion that this was a Viking age settlement.

And just knowing that much made you eager to look around and see everything. How many people could say they had seen something like this? It would be an opportunity lost if she didn’t explore.

You were still in your hospital gown and had been barefoot before you found some shoes that were too big but they stayed on.

Viking mud is still mud after all.

There was so much to see, there were stands that had vegetables and fruits and less attractive ones that had dead animals hug up on display. Further into the market area you found jewelry and long stretches of fabric. Most were brown or white but others were absolutely gorgeous colors like red, blue and gold.

It was while you were touching a blue silk fabric that you heard something behind you.

Muddy footsteps.

It made a wet squishing noise; squish squish squish, getting closer but not at a rushed speed. 

Whoever was behind you felt no need to rush.

You turned around; fully expecting to see the man with no eyes to be standing there with a new riddle for you to solve, but that wasn’t who it was.

It was you.

The woman standing before you had your face, she was older maybe in her twenties or early thirties, her hair was longer than you could imagine growing yours and it was in a braid that rested plainly over her shoulder. She was wearing a brown dress and leather shoes.

Despite how much you had looked into mirrors you had never seen yourself like this.

‘Y-you.’ you managed to say when you found the will to speak.

‘You.’ the woman smiled.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked as she stepped closer to you.

Instinctively you stepped back.

‘Your name is Wilda, you are a Saxxon woman.’ you replied.

‘I am, or maybe I was. It is hard to understand even for me, I have been dead for so long and yet here I stand speaking with you.’ she mused.

She walked over to the fabric you were just holding and rubbed it curiously.

‘I had been wanting this fabric when I died, the woman who made this was the best seamstress in all of Kattegat.’

‘Kattegat? Is that the name of this place?’ 

‘Yes, this is where it all began. This is where it all happened, where your fate was sealed with the Boneless One. I must apologize, for I am also responsible for involving you in all this, but please know I didn’t wish for any of it.’ she said sadly.

It was weird seeing yourself like this, it was like watching yourself in a movie but you had no memory of acting in it. Either way this woman...this you, was talking and it was understandable.

‘Can you tell me what happened, why am I involved and what will happen after Ivar accepts his past life?’ you asked.

‘I do not know it all, but I will tell you what I know, come walk with me, I want you to see something.’ she said as she began to walk away from the fabric stand.

You walked beside her, still keeping a bit of distance.

‘I was a child of the church, in York. When I was a small child the city was raided by the Sons of Ragnar and their Heathen Army. I barely survived but after they took over Ivar took me in as a slave.’

‘Why?’

‘I was often the apprentice to the healers after men would come from battle. I would take care of his legs with salves and oils. He hated me, it was simply a fact but he valued my care through the years.’

‘Why did you marry him?’

‘Years had passed and I’d seen him do...horrific things, he’d won great victories and suffered massive losses then all at once he was just losing. Battle after battle his plans failed him, he was losing his fame, becoming a joke among warlords.’

As the two of you walked past the last stand of the market she led you through a trail in the woods.

‘At his wits end he called on the seer.’

‘Seer? The man with no eyes?’ you asked. 

She nodded.

‘He sees peoples’ fates and speaks with the Pagan Gods. He told Ivar that the Gods had abandoned him; that they had favored his father Ragnar despite the disrespectful way he viewed them, and they would not show Ivar the same mercy if he followed his father’s footsteps.’

‘Ragnar? I thought he was a myth.’

‘People spoke of him as if he were, but he was a real man with real feelings. Ivar loved him despite the strain his broken legs put on their relationship, and like his father he began to place too much pride in his own importance.’ 

‘Broken legs...he really couldn’t walk could he.’ you said in amazement.

‘Not on his own he made braces to keep himself upright, really they were amazing to see. Even I, who despised him, felt a small amount of admiration for his resilience.’

‘I grew up in his care, he never hurt me but he was cruel. When he came to me demanding my hand in marriage I didn’t understand. He told me it was life or death, he said he would have the church in York reduced to ashes if I refused.’

‘How romantic.’ you said sarcastically.

‘I thought so as well. From what was told to me Ivar had gotten everyone close to him cursed, exiled from all their nine worlds, left to wait for the reincarnations of both Ivar the Boneless and a Christian Girl to to reunite and his guilt alongside her love and forgiveness would be the light that lead them to Valhalla.’

‘My love?’ you asked in embarrassed shock.

‘Yes, you love him and I know it.’

‘How can you know something like that? Do you feel my emotions or something, because I’m not sure if it is more than a crush.’ you said in your defense.

Wilda laughed and was odd to hear it, you recognized it as your own laughter but you never heard from someone else.

‘My sweet girl, you are not the first reincarnation, and your Ivar isn’t the first either, if God wills it you will be the last.’

‘I’m not the first? How many have there been and what happened to them?’

‘They all end up here eventually.’ Wilda answered as at last the two of you had arrived at your destination.

You were in a large clearing. There was nothing else there to take your eyes away from what was in the center.

Two graves, both empty and two piles of dirt waiting to fill them in once there was a body inside.

Your heart was lead.

‘It is never painful, for any of them, you’ll just go to sleep.’

‘But I- I’m sleeping now...am I am I d-‘

‘No, you are alive outside I promise. All you have to do is wait, wait for Ivar to accept his faults and remorse.’

‘And if he doesn’t then what? You’re saying I can’t do anything for myself? What kind of misogynistic bullshit is this? I thought Viking women had rights of their own.’ you ranted angrily as you paced, looking away from the graves.

‘Unfortunately, I wasn’t Viking, even if I did follow their beliefs I was a thrall. I had no rights before my marriage and even with that title I was still Christian.’

‘So what? Just sit here with you and wait?’ 

‘Yes, do you have faith that your Ivar will save you?’

‘Of course!’ you shouted so suddenly that it surprised you.

All at once it hit you how much faith you had in Ivar, the one thing you had no doubt about was that he would do anything for you.

He cared for you, even if not romantically, he cared about you; and no matter what he had to do he would save you.

Or he would die trying.

‘Then wait.’ Wilda said sweetly.

Ivar’s POV

The last three days had brought about a lot of chaos.

(Y/N)’s family was devastated by the news, her siblings were scared and her mother was in complete shambles. Miss (Y/L/N) had called your father who flew out with his wife and other kids and had arrived on the second night. 

His own family had been affected as well, he had been too shaken up and crushed by guilt that he couldn’t drive so he just sat in his car feeling sorry for himself and crying harder than he had since he was a child. His brothers ended up tracking his phone and once he had calmed down he explained what had happened.

No one in the Ragnarson family could ever remember seeing Ivar this distraught before, even his parents sat aside their marital issues enough to sit in the waiting room with Ivar and (Y/N)’s family.

It was strange to see for Ivar.

His family loved each other in their own odd constipated way, but they rarely got together like this. Even Bjorn and Lagertha showed up once, apparently they all wanted to be there for him but he suspected they just couldn't get over the fact that he had a friend.

Every day there were at least four people in the waiting room for (Y/N) and one of the most constant residents was Ivar.

He hadn’t even gone to school, all he could do was sit and watch...and think about things. Think about what he had to do, because no matter what logic told him he just knew this was his fault. She was a human vegetable and was because of him.

That thought alone made his head hurt, he was constantly taking pain killers that did little to ease his headaches.

He was on his phone watching the same video he had seen a thousand times it felt like.

The footage from (Y/N)’s sleep study. 

Her mother had demanded the footage, in hopes to find some kind of clue about what led to (Y/N)’s sudden seizure. She expected to see an administration of medicine or maybe even a nurse sneaking in, anything to explain it.

Unfortunately there was nothing on the film that the doctors hadn’t already explained. For about an hour she was sleeping peacefully, a bit of uncomfortable tossing and then, like a firecracker had startled her, she shot up.

Her body convulsing as she thrashed around so violently that she fell out of the bed and if the visual wasn’t upsetting enough the scream she let out after she landed on the floor was absolutely blood churning.

She was screaming loud and shrill at the top of her lungs, all the while her body never stopped shaking, her limbs were endlessly flailing. The nurses and doctors had rushed in to restrain after only forty seconds or so but it felt so much longer to Ivar.

He watched how carefully Herald administered the sedative and the way (Y/N)’s body went immediately limp. Ivar closed the video once the doctors started hurriedly checking her vitals.

Ivar sighed and stood up to stretch, the joints of his shoulder blades cracking in protest as he did so.

‘Going home for the night Ivar?’ Miss (Y/L/N) asked as she yawned in her own chair.

‘No, just going to the restroom, might get a coffee.’ he assured.

‘Grab me one please.’

‘Of course.’ Ivar said happily.

He didn’t really need to use the toilet, just needed to move around. His legs were getting sore and he needed to take his pills and he preferred to do that in private.

‘I would have killed for a treatment like that in my life.’

The color drained from his face as he looked in the mirror and saw a most unwelcomed sight.

‘I get the feeling you don’t like me much...understandable I suppose.’ the old man said from behind him.

His heart suddenly swelled with anger as he turned and swung, ready to feel his fist connect with the bearded face of this bastard, but it didn’t.

All that happened was his fist went right through him, as if he were air, with nothing solid to connect to he stumbled to regain balance.

‘I’m sure had I been alive that would have been a solid attack, were you done or do you want to waste more time? Because your Christian doesn’t have much to waste.’ the old man said tiredly.

Ivar turned around and glared, but it softened a bit when he saw something he hadn’t noticed before in his anger.

The old man was standing.

There were unpainted metal braces on the viking’s legs that seemed to be the only thing keeping him up, along with the cane he was using.

‘Why are you here?  Are you going to kill her now, brain dead not enough for you? She has nothing to do with this, whatever bullshit this all is, leave her out of it!’ Ivar shouted, not caring if someone heard him yelling to himself.

‘My Christian had nothing to do with my problems either, and had she been as selfish as I was she would have refused to take part. Then I would be cursed with no hope of redemption, and both of our Christians would have had longer and probably happier lives without us.’ he said tiredly.

‘But she was soft, she felt it was her stupid Christian duty to help others over herself. Despite her resentment for me, and mine of her, she agreed to help my family and for that I want to repay my debt to her. In order to do that I need you to see me.’

‘I do see you.’ Ivar argued.

‘No. You see an old man in strange clothes but you don’t see yourself in me at all do you? It's frustrating because you are the last and most important piece to this complicated puzzle. The Christian, her job was to find us, you and me, now you have to see us. Really look at me and see yourself...she will die if you don’t and the loss of her will drive you mad.’ 

He felt like ripping out his hair in frustration, Ivar had never been this angry. In his youth anger was the backbone of his personality, he was angry because his legs hurt, he was angry he couldn’t talk to anyone other than his brother because he didn’t have any friends, he was always angry. But this was pure rage; red hot and scalding, he was angry because he was terrified.

‘What do you mean she will die?’ 

‘Her body is here where you can see it, but her essence is in the void between the nine worlds and a living person can only stay there a short while before their body lets them go completely. Please if not for me and my family or yourself do it for her.’

For her, all at once his anger left him.

‘J-just look at you?’ he repeated.

‘See me...and look into you.’

Ivar felt like fire ants were covering his entire body, his stomach felt ready to rid itself of the crappy hospital lunch he’d had earlier, his heart felt like it was frozen in ice; and all that paled in comparison to his headache.

He had only met the eyes of the old man for a few seconds and already he wanted nothing more than to look away.

For her.

Ivar dug his nails deeply into the palms of his hand as he held the man’s gaze.

‘There you go, see me...see all we have done.’

Then as if zoomed in like a scene from a movie he could see images in the blue pupils, and what he saw made him want to look away even more.

He saw...a boy with a dirty face it looked like he was trying to pull something, suddenly he felt like there was something leather in his hand and he pulled it back he felt the boy in the eye pull it back and suddenly he struck his hand out with all his might and watched as the boy in the eye was hit in the head by the blade of an axe.

‘No!’ he gasped in horror.

‘Don’t look away, no matter how terrible or how ashamed. Do not look away.’ the viking said, but his voice was different now. It wasn’t as hoarse as before it appeared to be...younger in a way.

The boy faded away and he saw something worse than the boy.

‘Sigurd?’

In the eye there was his brother, his hair long, his clothes strange and he was talking and Ivar wished more than anything that he couldn’t hear what his own brother was saying, but he did, clear as a bell in his mind was his older brother’s voice.

‘It must be hard for you now that your mummy’s dead. Knowing she was the only one who ever really loved you.’ Sigurd said in a strange dialect as he sipped something from a chalice.

Hurt and anger swelled and he felt something wet and thick touch his lip and distantly his mind realized his nose was bleeding heavily, again his arm jerked forward and watched an axe fly and plant itself in his brother's ribs.

‘Sigurd…’ he whimpered as his eyes began to overflow with tears.

If anyone came into this restroom they would see him standing still as a statue, staring into space as his nose bled like a red river and his eyes leaked like faucets.

‘Don’t look away, don’t run from what you have already done.’ 

‘Sigurd...Siggy I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-’ he choked on the lump in his throat, the blood from his nose leaked into his mouth as he spoke and the taste was horrid but it felt nostalgic in a horribly gruesome way.

Again the image in the eyes changed and this one was more than the image it practically sucked him in like a portal.

No longer was he in a hospital restroom; he was in a stone building and there was so much noise, loudest of all was a baby crying. He could recall this, the dream, the one he remembered in the truck that night with (Y/N) the one that made his nose bleed.

This time it was so much more, it felt like his brain was exploding in his skull, he felt an aching throb in his ears but it didn’t compare to the horror he was seeing and hearing.

He could smell burning flesh, feel the heat and as the melted gold poured into the crying man’s mouth; the screams would haunt him until his last breath.

In horror he felt his chest shake in laughter.

Just when Ivar thought he would pass out from the pain in his head he felt something he hadn’t felt in years. His legs were breaking under his weight, but that wasn’t possible, he had titanium bones, they could never break but still he felt it. Even worse so he heard that familiar cracking noise as he fell to the floor.

‘Hold strong, we both know you can take more than this, and there is so much more to see.’ now Ivar was certain the voice he heard wasn’t the voice of an old man.

That was his own voice, and he suddenly processed that he wasn’t being sucked into the eye, but the eye was moving closer to him.

No longer was the phantom standing on crude braces as an old and ragged man. Now he was crawling, using his strong arms to pull himself along, his legs dragging behind him like a useless tail.

More than anything Ivar wanted to look away and see what the face of this man looked like now but he couldn’t.

For her… for (Y/N).

He stilled himself and tried to brace himself for more pain he was sure would come.

He had been right, more pain came and no amount of preparation would have made him ready for it.

A thousand or a million images flashed in the eye going so fast it shouldn’t have been possible to follow each one, but he could. Not only did he see and comprehend each image he felt them.

He saw the light go out in a fat man’s eyes as someone was chopping into his back with an ax, he felt the muscles in his arms ache with the effort it took to stab through the muscle and bones of a man in the heat of battle.

That was when he realized that these images, these senses were all things he’d seen and experienced before.

These were his dreams.

 ‘Yes, you are remembering. That is good, almost done now; look at me.’

At last that horrible eye closed, and Ivar nearly collapsed in relief, but he kept just enough energy to look up at the face that carried the eye.

There was no longer a beard to hide anything from view he could see the face in front of him with complete clarity.

This truly was his face, it was like looking into a mirror but this mirror showed what he looked like before.

‘Finally...you see me.’ He smiled.

[pocketfulofrecs]

It's Friday and we're here with another Author Spotlight!

It’s impossible for you to be in this corner of fandom and never have heard of Vir_Abelasan. She has written some of the most interesting Wangxian fics we have read, a shade darker than usual, but so engrossing. When we want to read something a little savory, we go back to this author.

She has written 49k words in 5 fics, and we can’t wait to see what else she will come up with.

Her fics:

It’s we that you are for - [explicit | 2.5k | LWJ/WWX/LXC pwp]

to be wielded by your hands (our post) - [mature | 3k | competence kink]

Visitations - [mature | 18k | wip | modern au - corporate espionage]

Like stones on an unseen board - [not rated | 11k | dark lan wangji]

Symmetry (our post) - [mature | 13k | dark sizhui]

Dee’s favourite: I love Symmetry but my favorite happens to be Like stones on an unseen board. I have a special fondness for dark LWJ who is just as devoted to WWX as canon LWJ is. This fic has the potential age difference and teacher-student relationship but they don’t really get together in it. I like that, I like how LWJ recognizes how Jiangs are dimming WWX’s light and does things to get WWX away from them, even if it involves manipulation and subtly widening the divide between the Jiangs and WWX. Dark in a way that eventually benefits WWX.

Ju’s favourite: Ohhh I loved Symmetry. I loved to see JC getting his just deserves by Sizhui. The fic is very dark, and in many moments I was completely blown away and so angry. I love when reading makes me feel things, and I felt a lot of things reading this one. But as dark as it gets in some points, it makes sense in the story. And then we get a happy ending that is so good and perfect. Made me cry.

The Interview:

Q. When did you start writing fics? Did you have fandoms before this one?

A. Somewhere around the early 2000s with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom, and BtVS was very prolific with crossover, which just led to more fandoms, mostly Western TV series. I wrote a lot of the Dragon Age trilogy afterwards, and a lot of Pacific Rim before finding MDZS.

Q. What made you start writing for MDZS?

A. Honestly at first I was here for the porn, because the Wangxian porn is bountiful and tender and exquisite. But then I read the novel and was enamored with how much more nuanced everything was, especially the many recurring themes and motifs related to social classes and personal vs familial/communal responsibilities, which as an Asian person you don't often get to dig into in the oftentimes Western-leaning fandom spheres.

Q. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

A. In the MDZS fandom it's Symmetry, because it's literally the fic I wanted to read upon completing MDZS but was not able to find. One of the saddest thing in canon for me is the lack of consequences for any of the gentry cultivators' actions in the past, and while it's realistic to the world building, I just really want an alternative where someone could go around an inherently broken system and make it so perpetrators actually pay for their crimes and less people in general becomes collateral.

Q. What’s your favourite type of fics to read?

A. Smut, because I'm just really bad at writing it. And oh, how the MDZS fandom delivers - Pure smut, sad smut, painstakingly tender smut, existential smut, it has everything! But Wangxian smut in particular is almost always a treat because there's just always that undercurrent of trust and having a person who's just for you in every sense of the word despite everything else happening. It's such a good, affirming feeling.

Q. What’s your favourite comment? Or type of comment?

A. Any comment is always a delight! From just incoherent screaming to details of which lines spoke to them the most, every comment is a reaction and stories are out there to create conversation in the first place.

Q. What motivates you to write?

A. Writing has always felt like problem solving to me, and fanfics in general has always been really interesting to write because there's the inherent conflict and problems written into canon, but also the matter of the fandom's perception of the source material to play with and solve.

Q. Who’s your favorite author?

A. There's so many fanfic authors throughout the years who are just amazing and hit a lot of very profound places a lot of published works didn't go to, so it's really hard to choose just a few. But thank you, every single fan author out there, you've really made a lot of people's days (and lives) better with your writing.

Q. What is your favorite trope to read and/or write?

A. I'm particularly fond of the trope of characters who are normally amicable or accommodating just going apeshit, both literally or figuratively. Because both in fandom and in real life, kindness and compromise in someone are often mistaken as a free pass for others around them to be terrible.

Q. Do you have any advice for new authors?

A. Write what you feel strongly about, I guess? And it's sometimes helpful to have an objective to the whole thing, for the times when it seems the story is going nowhere or you get stuck in a particular aspect of it. Sort of like a thesis statement, so whenever you fumble you have something to refocus on.

Q. What do you think is the most important element in writing? Plot, characterization, relationship?

A. Characterization carries you a long way since they're the vehicle to bringing the readers to where you intend them to be, but I also feel like structure helps a lot with stories too. Just the way you scaffold a narrative, like laying down the kind of path you want your readers to follow and experience along the way to the end.

~

Check out their stories on ao3 and remember…

Comments and kudos feed the author’s soul.

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself

I was living in a city all alone and these two characters showed me that it was ok for two women to love each other.

In order to understand the following story, there’s something you need to know about me. I have always loved fiction. From the age of about 5 to 11, I loved books more than I loved people. I was a shy child who found it easier to emotionally engage with fictional worlds than the real one around me.

See, fictional worlds are created for your brain’s enjoyment. Their rules make sense. Events happen for a reason. The narrator tells you why characters behave the way they do, allowing you to empathize with them on a deep emotional level. Easy to understand, easy to identify with, easy to love.

But real people are complicated. The real world is complicated. And things are seldom laid out nicely in a coherent narrative format for you. Real things are much harder to love.

This emotional disengagement continued from the age of 11 onwards, although it was no longer as pronounced. My habit of retreating into fiction would fade during good times and come back in force during difficult or stressful periods. During the stressful periods of college, the rise of Netflix allowed me to become certifiably obsessed with my favorite TV shows. And naturally, I joined Tumblr in order to more easily fangirl with people who shared my interests.

Only for some peculiar reason that I didn’t care to examine, my interests were slowly gravitating towards girl-girl couples. Soon I was shipping, reblogging, and reading fanfiction almost exclusively about female couples. But I, who had always considered myself straight despite lacking interest in the boys around me, didn’t think this meant that I was gay. I probably just found female couples more emotionally satisfying. I was friends with mostly women, I was a woman myself, so it was natural that I just understood them better. Yeah, that was probably it.

Fast-forward to nine months ago. I was living in Boston and incredibly depressed about it. My job and my boss were making my life miserable and I had very few people to socialize with. I was making the rough transition from the constant socialization of college to the isolating pressure of a city where I had few connections. My days and nights were some of the loneliest I had ever experienced. I looked for something, anything, to lift the heart-crushing emotional silence.

My solution was the same one I always chose when I was dissatisfied with the real world; obsession with a new TV show. And thanks to my femslash-focused tumblr community, I knew just what my next feel-good show was going to be.

My tumblr friends had told me this: Xena: Warrior Princess is an action-fantasy show that enjoys a cult status, much like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (which I watched and loved). The two shows were made in the same mid-to-late 90's era, with similar bad special effects and endearing campiness. But XWP is much… MUCH… more gay.

That was about all I knew about the show going in. And amazingly, that was all I needed to know to be excited about watching it. You’d think that fact would have told me something about myself, but no. The mental walls of denial were years in the building and needed more force than that to be shattered.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show’s premise, Xena: Warrior Princess is about the title character and her quest for redemption. You see, Xena did some bad things in her previous life on another show (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). In her storied career as a warlord, she committed such petty crimes as genocide, the slaughter of innocents, that kind of thing. But now she has seen the light and wants to atone for her crimes. Except she can never undo the terrible things she did. All Xena can do now is help people on a day-to-day basis and hope that it’s enough for someone to show her mercy.

Which is already fantastic from a character standpoint. But there is a secret mirror to Xena’s journey that is not reflected in the show’s title, and that is Gabrielle and her character arc.

Oh! Gabrielle! When I met her in the very first episode, I loved her straightaway. She is a feisty, naive, talkative small-town girl who accompanies Xena on all her adventures. Her character quickly assumes paramount importance in the narrative. Gabrielle is Xena’s only friend. She comes to know her better than anyone else and love her for who she is, all the while believing Xena can reach redemption. Yet Gabrielle is not just a support system for Xena; she goes on her own heroic journey. The two character arcs intertwine and co-develop in a way I have never seen in any show before or since.

As each episode rolled by and their relationship grew in complexity, I found myself more and more engrossed. And I came to realize: this was something I wanted. The day I accepted my own desire was the day I accepted myself. What could be more strangling than denying the existence of your own feelings? Yet I had been doing this to myself for years — cutting off the possibility of being attracted to other women — without even realizing.

Before beginning the show, I thought the fandom had read in between the lines to construct a romantic relationship between the two characters, the same way as femslash shippers do in all other TV shows. Except not this time. This one is mind-blowingly different.

Not only does the narrative place utmost importance on the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, but the actresses bring such multi-dimensional love to their parts. When I saw Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O’Connor (Gabrielle) interact, I could so easily believe that these two women loved each other beyond friendship. Xena and Gabrielle display every kind of love you can think of. They protect and sacrifice for each other. They tease and flirt. They cuddle and console. They have inside jokes with each other. They dance sexily. They play pranks and drive each other crazy. They sweetly kiss. They come back from the dead together. They bathe together. They raise each other’s children. They meet in alternate timelines and fall in love all over again.

I could have left my mental walls of denial in place. I could have said to myself “oh yes, I want this. But with a guy.” But no. Lawless and O’Connor’s incredibly attractive faces and bodies broke down the door of my mental closet. Precisely because they were fictional, I felt safe to admit my attraction to them. One of the key mental blocks I had always had towards accepting any attraction towards other women was the thought that I was being creepy. That since they could not possibly feel the same way about me, it was wrong to feel the way I did. But in my mind, that barrier didn’t exist with fictional characters. They couldn’t feel anything for me. Therefore, it was fine to feel whatever I want about them.

The walls cracked. The water came rushing in. Oh my god. I am attracted to other women. Like, every day of my life. Those flickers in my stomach when I talk to an attractive female coworker suddenly make a whole lot of sense now. I now saw my historical awkwardness when talking to beautiful girls, which I always dismissed as “me being weird”, for what it was. All those short-term girl crushes on older girls throughout high school. How was I so sure they were platonic? That heart-aching infatuation I had with my best friend that lasted for years? Yeah, add that to the ‘definitely gay’ list.

Since then I’ve realized that my feelings are valid regardless of what others feel for me. Just because feelings are unrequited doesn’t mean they aren’t real. That’s what Xena and Gabrielle taught me. Their fictional example was the final blow to my rapidly-crumbling resistance to the idea of homosexuality.

In our culture today, so many forms of media reinforce heteronormativity. How many commercials have you seen that assume attraction between a man and a woman? How many billboards tell women that they need to look sexy for the men in their lives? How many times has a movie ended with the guy getting the girl? It’s the combined action of a thousand small rocks shifting to make a cultural avalanche. You can’t move against it. All you can do is stand still and try to maintain your footing against the current, to maintain your identity in the face of a world where you and people like you are often swept away by the mainstream.

Xena: Warrior Princess is one of those rare stories that dares to go against the grain. It celebrates a romantic relationship between two women as the most natural thing in the world. And in doing so, it provides a mirror for me and people like me to recognize themselves in. There we are. Look at us fly.

This story isn’t over yet. I still have a lot of work to do to accept myself, but thanks to Xena and Gabrielle I’ve taken one huge step towards living the open life I want to live. I moved on from that horrible job and lonely city, but in the end I’m grateful. Grateful that circumstances pushed me to the depths of loneliness necessary to bring down the prison I had built in my own mind.

- How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself by Lyra Hall

[comradesummers]

I think there’s a lot to be said about the comparison between how She-Ra subverts the chosen one narrative and how Buffy does it.

Like, on the surface, the stories are pretty much identical. Both Buffy and Adora find out that they’re the chosen one of their respective worlds when they’re teenagers (I mean, I think? I’m not sure how old Adora actually is). So they proceed to fight some bad guys and endure a neverending slew of trauma for however many seasons, and then eventually they discover that their chosen one powers (as they know them) only exist because a group of malicious assholes did something shitty. And this leads both of them to find an alternate method for utilizing their power while separating it from its exploitative origins. And while they’re at it, they also manage to free themselves from the ridiculous burden that comes with being the chosen one.

And yet, despite the rather specific parallels of these two stories, I actually think that they’re very different in terms of theme. Because I think each show has a completely different approach to why the chosen one narrative needs to be subverted.

Like, in She-Ra, the problem with this narrative is that being chosen is something that defines your value to the world. Adora’s story is all about discovering her own self-worth after a lifetime of being told she was nothing but a weapon. Long before she finds the sword, she’s already thouroughly convinced that she’s only worth something if she’s useful to others, and then the chosen one narrative comes in to convince her of that even further. So being chosen in this case is a metaphor for this damaging mindset Adora has, and this becomes even more evident when it turns out that Light Hope has been planning to use her body as a vessel for a weapon of mass destruction. And then Adora breaks the sword, and her arc in season 5 is pretty much all about her finding a way to summon She-Ra (i.e. her self-worth) in a way that isn’t self-destructive. And it turns out that the way to do that is for her to value her own needs. And it’s only when she goes after what she wants - which it turns out is a hot catgirl gf - that she finally manages to free herself from that mindset.

Whereas with Buffy, what’s wrong with the chosen one narrative isn’t really that it denies her personhood. I mean that certainly is a problem that does come up, especially whenever the Watcher’s Council shows up and refers to Buffy as “the instrument with which we fight” or something equally gross. But it’s not a huge issue for Buffy, because unlike Adora, she was never subjected to Shadow Weaver’s A+ parenting. Buffy, at least at first, very clearly demonstrates that she recognizes the value of her life and desires outside of being the Slayer. LIke, the first three seasons are basically just Buffy going, “man, it sure is fucked up that I have to give up everything I want for this dumbass destiny I didn’t ask for.” But as much as Buffy is aware that she’s been roped into a super fucked up system, that awareness isn’t what eventually prompts her to change things. What does prompt her to change things is her sense of isolation.

The problem with the chosen one narrative in Buffy is the isolating nature of being the chosen one. Both Buffy and She-Ra are shows about community and found-family, but while Adora’s discovery of She-Ra allows her to leave her abusive environment in favor of a healthy one, Buffy’s role as the slayer constantly isolates her from the people she loves. Because she has to carry her burden alone, Buffy feels as though her friends are incapable of understanding her, and that her experiences are so unique that no one could possibly understand her. Therefore, she is alone. She also believes that this burden she has means that she has to be strong all the time, that she can’t exhibit weakness to the people she loves, because she’s supposed to be the leader who has her shit together. So this leads her to repress her feelings, pretend she’s okay all the time, and self-destruct a whole lot. And, yeah, that’s pretty similar to Adora, but it comes from a different (though equally damaging mindset). So that’s why, when Buffy does change things, she turns her solitary role into a communal one. She re-distributes the means of production power (I will never not make this dumb joke) and in so doing she creates a community of people like her and frees herself from loneliness. Basically, the message is that we should choose community over isolation and share power instead of hoarding it.

Anyway, this turned out way too long, but I just think it’s interesting that these are two very similar stories that criticize the same concept but come at it from completely different but equally interesting angles.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

So, Podcast Now made a video about whether or not Sora’s character needs fixed. And I haven’t watched it yet (I will. And I’m looking forward to it), but I bet I know what it’s going to say: that Sora needs to go down a dark road, to really develop and not be stagnant. That’s what a lot of people say, who don’t think Sora’s had character development in a long time or at all. 

But I personally don’t think that’s necessary. Rather, I think he should be treated like Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where there were definitely moments that you saw the toll that was being taken on this poor girl and how close she got to quitting and stuff... but she never did. And her strength, and her always doing the right thing, made her admirable. And not in a Mary-Sue way, either, because we saw her struggles through and through.

Like, one thing with Buffy that made her and her struggles so interesting, was that it was usually someone she loved who she ended up having to fight as the seasons’ big bads. 

In season two, it was the love of her life Angel: a vampire who had turned evil again, who she had to kill in order to save the world. 

In season three, she had to nearly kill her former friend Faith (and there may have been feelings here on both sides, too), who had gone crazy and essentially become a serial killer. 

Season four pit Buffy against her new boyfriend, Riley, some, as he was very much a military/ask no questions kind of person, and Buffy is the opposite of that. 

In season five, Buffy was faced with the possibility that her sister may have to die, to stop the world from being dragged into Hell (and this is Buffy’s darkest moment, where she nearly did quit. She starts talking about how she killed Angel in season two. “I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much, but I knew [that I had to kill him. That that was the right thing.] I don’t have that anymore. I don’t know how to live in this world, if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away, I don’t see the point ...If Dawn dies, I’m done. I’m quitting.” Give Sora something like that. Even if it’s just for a moment, and something miraculous happens so he doesn’t have to quit, of course.) And she then has this epiphany that she could die to save the world instead, and does (and is brought back in season six by her witch friend, Willow... though Buffy’s actually not happy about that, as the poor thing was torn out of Heaven). 

Season six, Buffy had to fight best friend Willow (and before that, she was even getting teed up to go against friend Anya. But thankfully, that one didn’t pan out)... after Willow’s true love Tara was murdered, and in her grief Willow wanted to end everything. 

And what happened in season seven? Buffy fights the First ever evil. And this evil has the power to turn into anyone. And it does turn into Buffy a few times, so you can almost say she’s fighting herself. Like, there’s this line, where the First is “Buffy” while talking to her. “’To every generation, a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world. She alone will have the strength and skill to-’ There’s that word again. What you are. How you’ll die. ‘Alone.’” Buffy eventually tells the First to “get out of her face”, and she rises again.

Just- Buffy’s such a tragic character. And she is the Slayer. And there’s definitely a part of her that recognizes it--and is proud of it--and eventually would/could never want to be anything else... but it’s also brought her so much pain. And she never wanted to be the Slayer because of it.

Like, in the season five finale when Buffy’s friends are trying to decide if they should let Dawn die or not, it starts in a simple way: Buffy just saving an innocent bystander from a vampire again. And he says, “How did you do that?” She answers, “It’s what I do.” And the guy is baffled. “But you’re just a girl.” And Buffy sadly replies, “That’s what I keep saying.”:(

And in the series finale, Spike gives Buffy this heartfelt speech about how he loves her and “she’s the one”. And her response is, “I don’t want to be the one.” Because I think she always just takes the term “one” in connection with her, to being about how she’s the chosen one, and the only person in the world who can and does make all of these hard choices. And is surely why she finally gets to be happy in the series finale, when there are more Slayers and she doesn’t have to be the only one anymore.

I think if the series really hit on how much it hurts to be Sora, I don’t think there’d be all these arguments that he should go dark. Rather, I think everyone would be amazed by him that he remains light (as they should be).

Another thing Sora and Buffy have in common, is they both can be angsty and hurt when the situation calls for it, but also silly and happy when the reverse is needed.

Just moreso make Sora Buffy, Kingdom Hearts. He already is in a lot of ways, but do it more. Draw attention to how much he’s suffered.

Also... I’m not necessarily saying here that all of Sora’s friends should turn evil, and he needs to fight them. But rather... to show how hard he has it. And that with Buffy, was one way that that show did that.

...I should also mention the amazing thing that season one of Buffy did with its finale, where Buffy was prophesied to die when she fought that Big Bad... and she so did not want to die. And she quite being the Slayer in that moment... but she of course ended up doing the right thing in the end, because that’s who she is (she did die. She drowned. But her friend Xander was able to bring her back through mouth-to-mouth).

And I just think keeping Sora light--but with things like this to keep it interesting--would do well to separate him from characters like Riku... and show why he’s the hero of the franchise, of course, and make him even moreso Foils to characters like Xehanort, The Master of Masters, and possibly Yozora partly.

Edit: There’s also this great speech that Buffy gives when her mom finds out she’s the Slayer and hates the idea. She tells Buffy, “Well, it stops now!” And Buffy passionately answers, “It doesn’t stop! It never stops! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you know how lonely it is? How dangerous? I would love to be up in my room, watching TV--or gossiping about boys--or God, even studying! But I have to save the world. Again.”

[soft-hard-peaches]

Reaction: Mornings with BTS

~fluff~

Kim Seokjin

Seven o'clock light is always the brightest. The warm morning rays peak through the window blinds onto your eyes, slowly but surely waking you from your well rested slumber. Trying to fight that urge, you turn away and pull the blanket over your face. Closing your eyes, you try your best to catch some more z's and you do for a while until you smell something savory. Pulling the blanket from your face, you spring right up from the thought of breakfast from your boyfriend Jin.

"Jin..babe", you call out to him with a hoarse morning voice in hopes that he can hear you with out yelling. He did not. You roll off your bed and put on your cozy RJ slippers then begin to walk to the kitchen. The closer you get, the more you smell his perfectly cooked bacon. You are happy that your bf loves to cook for you. God knows you're not much of a morning bird.

"Morning Angel", he says with a smile to your groggy just-woke-up face, "pancakes or eggs?"

"Eggs pleeease" you say lazily as you walk behind him and wrap your arms around him.

He smiles shyly when he heard your low hum.

Min Yoongi

Unlike Jin, mornings were difficult for Yoongi. With long nights at the studio, this man truely treasures his slumber. I mean he treasures sleep 2nd. You are his greatest treasure. One of the best things to happen in his life. You're perfect for him too. You both live for music, you're more lively than him, so you show him a new perspective, you match in your down to earth nature, and you enjoy the simple things in life.

One of his favorite things in the world is waking up to you. No matter what negative feelings you have about yourself, he sees you for what you truely are. You are a beautiful human being. He sees you as his blessing. Even when he shushes you for sleep mumbling, that's one more thing to love about you. And when the sun rises and his eyes open, he gets to bask in your beauty.

He curls up to spoon you. Taking in the smell of your conditioner.

"Mhm. Are you up Yoong?" You're both groggy.

"...no...", he responds in an unsually throaty voice. You try to get but he holds you tight.

"Y/n.. let's stay in a bit longer... please." After that request as slide back in your bed. Comfy and together.

Jung Hoseok

Mornings with Hoseok is usually mellow. Although he is bubbly and outgoing for most of the day, he's not awake enough for the first few hours. Your mornings mostly consist of both of you lazing around together on the bed. While you check and respond to your emails, he checks for memos and respond to messages. Once business is over you both end up on social media eventually. You both enjoy each other's quality time. Even if no one is talking. From time to time you show each other something funny or interesting.

"Hobi, Hobi, look at this boy! He's a new meme."

He looks at your scene wondering why you're smiling so hard, "...why..?"

You laugh goofily at the seemingly normal photo, "idk but I love him."

Hoseok laughs with you but only cause he's tired and confused.

Kim Namjoon

Namjoon is a heavy sleeper so you let him be and sleep. For a while, you lay on his chest to start off your day on a warm beat. Your head on his chest, rising and falling, matching you breath is the opitome of relaxation and once you hit full Zen is when your day starts.Once you're finally up you find one of his hoodies to put on and head to the kitchen.

Though he's not good at cooking, he tries and you love that about him. Dinner was *wince* sub par but you admire his effort, now you want to return the favor. You decide to make him blueberry waffles with a side of fruit salad. You turn on some music to match the bright morning mood but you get lost in the task and don't notice Joon entering the kitchen.

"Need any help there?" His voice sneaks up at you but his lips on you cheek calms you down. After you ask him to bring you the milk and a couple of glasses, you ask him to sit down. He complies with out incident. He watches you set the table with a smile. This is one of his favorite parts of your relationship. He loves the dependable role but he also likes being taken care of.

"I made us breakfast as a thanks for dinner", you then kiss his lips and he kisses back.

"Anytime, love", he responds.

"Anytime."

Park Jimin

Jimin and you are up early to run errands today. Buffy and barefaced, the two of you put on whatever is available and look over the to-do list. Once you both decide on what's of importance, you head off to start your day in hopes that it will be quick so you can hurry up back into you pjs. Since Jimin just got his licence you toss him the keys. To be honest, you hated driving so Jimin's licence is a God's send.

As he drives through the town, you two perk up more. Enough to sing along to the radio. Jimin's voice is professional and beautiful but you know how to hold your own with a melody. "Wow y/n, you can hold a note almost as good as Jin hyung!" You both laugh. The more you two sing, the more awake you become. By time you make it to the store, you two are fully up. He splits the list so you can cut the time and you both separate for the time being. And it was successful because you both leave in record time. Once you get to the car you're both just happy to go home and end the day together.

Kim Taehyung

ft. Jungkook

Mornings with Taehyung was always the best. Well besides nights with him. After long days you both love to come home to one another. Catch up on the day, hangout out, and embrace each other. So much so that you often wake up still in a embrace caused by your cuddly boyfriend but you didn't mind the skinship. Honestly, you craved his touch when he's not around. Last night, Taehyung had one of his bestfriends, Jungkook, over to play Death Stranding all night. You were fine with it so you went to bed without him that night. But morning came and you don't feel him on you.

You rub the sleep from your eyes to find your robe. Once you open your bedroom door you hear soft snoring coming from the living room. But Tae doesn't snore. You peak pass the wall to see two sets of bodies on each couch. You recognize the sandy blonde hair to be your boyfriend and the dark brown too be Jungkook.

Still too tired to deal with them, you head to the fridge to get some water. Turning on the water sprout on the fridge caused a soft hum but not soft enough. Suddenly you hear the boys clear their voices and yawning.

"Morning baby", you here from your hazy boyfriend and his best friend right after, "Are you making us breakfast?" You walk pass Jungkook saying no and a quick hair ruffle.

Walking pass Taehyung, you gesture him to the room, "I'm going back to bed, Tae." Before you can fully lie down, you see Taehyung climbing to be with you. Leaving his friend.

"Morning baby."

Jeon Jungkook

"How should we split the chores?"

This is the last thing you two need to figure out now that you're living together. You've spent a night or two at each other's residents but now that your relationship has bloomed more and more, you two took a huge step forward. This is your first official week of being a live in couple and now realized that mornings are best for you too. You're both usually out in the afternoon and tired at night, so mornings practically are sacred.

"How about I do laundry and you dust the living room and hallway?", Jungkook proposes while scrolling social media.

"Can't dust, Kook. I have bad allergies." You look at the ceiling thinking, "I'll do the laundry and clean the kitchen."

"But you're terrible at laundry", he laughs, "You don't even know when to change the water tempature." You nod in agreement because there's no fighting the truth. You crawl to him to cuddle from behind, wrapping your legs around him, "let's figure this out later." The final solution is the best one cuz he puts his phone down and rubs your arms that are clasped arm him.

[vanchlo]

The Firsts / #3 “The First Time Together Together”

*not my gif*

---> NEXT BLURB: November 2nd, hopefully.

---> READ BLURB #2

READ THE ASSISTANT, AKA WHAT CAME FIRST

SERIES MASTERLIST          

READ ON WATTPAD

-> SHOULD I CREATE A TAGLIST FOR THIS SERIES? IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE ADDED, LET ME KNOW! :)

LEGEND:

+ : a break in the story; a time jump.

bold: Harry’s texts

italics: Becky’s texts

WARNINGS: None really

WORD COUNT: 4.6k words

SONG: Our House by Crosby, Nash, Stills, and Young (CLICK TO LISTEN)

                          * SNEAK PEEK, DUH BC ALWAYS *

“Y’know what, Becks?”

“Hmm, Harry?” I hum in reply, moving my head a few inches this way, and another few inches that way until I hear the boom-boom of his heart under my ear.

“Wish I could fall asleep next t’ you ev’ry night, even if . . ya nag at me,” he mumbles, the words becoming slower and softer with every breath of his.

I wish I could fall asleep smiling next to you, and with your heartbeat under my ear too, Harry.

Me too.

“I am, you know.”

“What?”

“Yours.”

- Tara and Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

*

“I’ve seen you dress up before and you looked nice, but God, you look nice nice today.” 

“How many drinks have ya already t’night?” he chuckles, quirking an eyebrow whilst sipping from his whiskey glass. His long, bubblegum lips spread into a proud smile, wet from the brown liquid that swims around the ice cubes in his glass. 

“None!” I insist and he chuckles again, the sound muffled by the rim of his glass that returns to his lips. 

“Sure, babe,” Harry titters, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat lit by the sun. “‘s okay if ya have. I dunno how I coulda gotten thru’ all that shit in this heat without a few.” 

I almost shrug my shoulders, unsure of what to say to that, but I don’t get the chance to think on it before he takes my hand to lead us away from the gift table. 

“C’mon, I dunno how many mo’ people I can talk t’ and introduce who I bloody am befo’ I go mad,” he wheezes with a shake of his head, downing the rest of his drink. “Beats me how they can’t know who tha best man ‘s, seein’ ‘ve known tha groom most o’ me life and his.” 

“Oh no, is Harry’s big head shrinking now?” I joke, my lips growing to kiss my cheeks when he turns to dramatically roll his eyes at me. 

“Hush, you. Ya want sumthin’ t’ drink? ‘s a free bar, but y’know, only tha basic stuff.” 

“I want my boyfriend back, is what,” I whine, grabbing hold of the front of his blazer and into my arms. A dimple falls into his cheek, and then into his other as he smiles at me. 

“Ya do have me back, babe. What’re you talkin’ ‘bout? Tha ceremony ‘s over, and now ‘s time fer all tha fun.” 

“But you don’t get to sit with me at dinner,” I whimper, my face falling into a smushed assortment of lines. He sighs above me and shakes his head of curls at me, his haircut the other day leaving them how he likes them, short. 

“Oh, stop it. We’ve gone over this, Becks, you’ll be sittin’ with Rose. My’ and Jeanie put you there fer a reason, since I know yer not familiar with many others here. Jus’ be happy me mum and sista couldn’t make it,” he teases against my cheek, the smell of the honey whiskey ghosting over my lips. 

“Don’t say it like I don’t like them, you know I do.” 

“I know, ‘m kiddin’ ‘round,” he titters, sponging a kiss to my temple before he pulls away. I almost get lost in those bright greens, but I’m roused when he brushes his thumb across my cheek. “‘ll be right back. Don’t get all sad now that ‘m leavin’ you fer a sec, my li’l lost puppy.” 

“Shut up, would you?” I mutter with creased cheeks, watching him walk up to the bar in his black suit. His voice floats over to me as the image of his brown curls shrinks from view, replaced by the fairy lights sparkling around us. Pulling at the scoop neck of my scarlet dress, I scan the covered space and the bodies meandering around it, talking. 

“Here’s a White Zinfandel, I dunno what else d’ya want,” a voice says from behind me. I don’t need to look to see who it is, but I do by habit and am met with a tan hand full of rings holding out a glass of pink wine to me. 

“Oh, thanks.” 

“Welcome,” Harry returns, tapping a finger against his once again full whiskey glass, making a clinking noise. “Aw, fook. They’re startin’ speeches already, I betta go. ‘ll see you soon, love. Wish me luck,” he rushes, surprising me with a kiss to the lips and a pat to my back. 

“Luck!” I call after him, laughing when he looks back at me with a comically confused look whilst taking a glug from his glass for good measure. 

“Well, shit, what d’ya even say at these things?” he blubbers from the stage a few moments later, cheeks red and dimpled. With aching cheeks from smiling, I sip at my glass of wine while watching him stumble to find his speech in a pocket of his onyx black suit. 

“Oh, here tha bloody thing ‘s,” Harry chuckles, and the crowd echoes him. “Myles, Myles, Myles. Where do I even start with you, ya git? Known ya too bloody long, I reckon. Fookin’ hell, known ya fer fifteen years too long, ‘d say,” he begins, and the guests hang onto his every word as do I. “We’ve sure been thru’ loads o’ shit t’getha, and here ya are, married. God, ya always hafta do ev’rything befo’ me, dontch’u?” 

The sweet wine lingers on my lips as my laugh blends into the rest of those around me while Harry shakes his head, taking a drink break to sip from his glass. 

“We went t’ school t’getha, law school t’getha, and started a bloody lawfirm t’getha t’ top it all off. Somehow, ‘s still standin’ and we’re doin’ great. I know it wouldn’t be if it weren’t fer you . . Reckon neitha would I, hope y’know,” he continues, and my eyes follow his to where Myles stands at the front of the crowd with his new wife on his arm. An emphasis sits in his eyes that goes unmatched until I find Harry’s again and the few tears that sit in them, drowning in the gratefulness and emotion that I recognize bittersweetly. “Ya’ve go’mme thru’ mo’ shit than I could ever thank you fer, and you’ve been me rock when mine was missin.’” 

The wine sits on my tongue sourly when I hear that and see his sad smile, and then his two second glance to me that’s gone when I blink. The rest of his best man’s speech goes on without a hitch, and the crowd loves him. But, God, they don’t as much as I do, I think whilst admiring my favorite person in the entire world, and just how fucking fine he looks in a tux. Harry leads a cheers with his whiskey glass raised to the ceiling, and I join him as my eyes stay glued to the man whose bowtie sits unraveled at his neck. The man whose cheeks shine with a summer glow and absence of facial hair, and his trademark curls combed into a quiff that this summer day couldn’t even bother. 

Six months in, and the butterflies still return when he steps off the stage, and his alcohol-reddened cheeks dimple with the smile that he sends to me. 

“Can I have this dance, miss?” he asks, setting down his whiskey next to my wine. 

“Of course. I could never turn down a dance from the best man, I’m sure every other lady here would die for one.”

“Yer so cheesy, Becks, even mo’ so than me sumtimes,” Harry remarks, taking my hand in his and leading me to the dance floor in the middle of the outdoor space. “I love ya fer it, y’know.” 

“Good, you better,” I almost laugh, letting him guide my hands to his shoulders as he places his on my waist. 

“Maybe it’ll be us havin’ tha first dance at one o’ these sumday soon, Becks. Have ya thought ‘bout me question yet, hmm?”

“I dunno,” I giggle against the warmth of his neck after nuzzling close to him. His sigh tickles my temple that he soothes with the gentlest of pecks. 

“I know my answer.” 

“And what’s that?” I wonder aloud, swaying to the song with him, ever so effortlessly. Somehow, anything with him feels that way. 

“Wouldn’t you like t’ know.” 

“Harry!” I exclaim, leaving the safety of his neck to find his giggling lips. 

“What? That’s whatcha get when ya won’t answer me question.” 

A scoff leaves my lips, and he only giggles harder until it shrinks away to be replaced by his fingers in my hair ever so softly. 

“I think Styles would sound good on you, Becks,” he hums, thumb ghosting over my birthmark as his eyes explore me. 

“How many drinks have you had today?”

“Doesn’t matta. I feel that way sober even,” he insists, those greens at last returning to me. The slightest of curls comes to his lips and something I can’t quite place blossoms in his eyes. “Rebecca Styles, it sounds perfect. Dontchu think, babe?”

“Harry, it’s only been six months-.” 

“In a week and a half, I know, Becks,” he interrupts softly, biting at his lip habitually. “Jus’ a thought. Whenever ya have that answer fo’ me, lemme know,” he whispers against my ear, sending goosebumps down my spine. 

Oh, but I think I do, Harry.

+

“Oooooookay, that’s enough for you, mister. Come on, let’s get you to bed already.

“Becks, no. ‘m fine, I promise you. I don’t wanna go t’ bed yet, babe,” he whines. The dark liquid sloshes around in the cup he holds, threatening to spill over the sides. 

“Harry, you’re going to spill. C’mon, we’re both spent. Let’s go to bed,” I insist, taking the half-full wine glass from his hand and setting it down on the wooden coffee table. 

“Fine, mum,” he mumbles, getting to his feet shakily. Tugging on his arm some more, I slowly thread him through the space between the sofa and table. 

“Come on then, son. If you’re gonna act like a child, I’ll treat you like one,” I laugh, shortly enjoying the fake laugh he gives me. The steps are slow, and so is getting him ready for bed, and into it, is even more so. 

“Why’re you laughin’ at me?” he whimpers as I pull the covers up his shoulders before sliding under them myself. 

“Because you’re kind of pathetic.” 

“Hey, be nice t’ me. I didn’t mean t’ get all buzzed t’night,” Harry complains, taking my hand and pulling me over, until my head is on his shoulder. 

“Oh, so what do you call the five glasses of wine you had at your sister’s and the other two you snuck once we got home? I thought you swore off alcohol the other day when you woke up with a hangover after the wedding.”

He only sighs and closes his eyes, his warm rings molding against the round of my shoulder. The rhythm of his breaths attempts to whisk me off into my dreams already, a pair of leggings I’d left at his and my favourite t-shirt of his swallowing my top. 

“Y’know what, Becks?”

“Hmm, Harry?” I hum in reply, moving my head a few inches this way, and another few inches that way until I hear the boom-boom of his heart under my ear. 

“Wish I could fall asleep next t’ you ev’ry night, even if . . ya nag at me,” he mumbles, the words becoming slower and softer with every breath of his. 

I wish I could fall asleep smiling next to you, and with your heartbeat under my ear too, Harry. 

Me too.

+

The chatter fills my ears in a stable hum, hitting pitch and falling low at times, only to flutter between the two again, and again. Shortly, it all falls away when the door closes to hush the room, but the volume in my heart only grows louder. The question that shouts into the void within my chest repeats itself for the next five minutes, until the frosted glass door opens and spits him out. Everybody gives him a hard time for being late, and only do I relax when he meets my eyes with a soft smile, at last. I get a wink before he sits down at the table across from me, feeling a thousand miles away from me. Within a few moments, and pressing the keys of my laptop, he isn’t, anymore. 

Late much?

it was the traffic, it was terrible

You know you use that excuse much too often, Harry, especially for your own meeting

i know, you only tell me all of the time babe ;) 

oh but hey, i gotta tell u. i’ve been listening to that one band some more that you rec’d. holy shit are they good. hippocampus was it?goofy name but they’ve got some tunes. i think im likin Bambi best rn. 

No way, that’s my favorite of theirs! Yes, I’m soooo happy you’reliking them!!!!! 

told you i’d get to them eventually babe. just wish it hadn’t takenme so long now. wow! 

I told you!!!

there ya are again lovin to tell me ya told me so haha 

Wow, it’s like I know you or something

wow its like i knew youd like vampire weekend or someting. ok stop it with the texts i really gotta concentrate here. im supposed to be your boss

Yeah, you’re doing a great job of that, sir. Showing up late to a meeting. Being  hungover at work. Shall I continue, boss?

hush, you. could easily make you me assistant again 

You wanna bet? Myles and Rose like me too much that let that happen

I do wanna bet. keep talkin babe and youre payin for lunch 2day

Rude 

i learned from the best 

Quietly scoffing, I lift my eyes to find the smirking pair waiting for me. Harry stifles a laugh with his fist against his smirking lips, dimples showing loudly. He winks quickly at me before turning his head to listen to Myles, only making me miss him all the more. A notification bubble on my screen catches my attention, and makes my smile grow all the wider. 

love you my little shit Xxxxxxxx

+

I think you’re … Oh my god, Harry. Are you falling asleep? At a meeting?!

am not

Are too!

used the wrong ‘to,’ Becks

Did not!

not fun bein corrected all the time now is it, ms. grammar police?

Rude

hell is that your response to anything that doesnt go your way, brat? 

I guess somebody doesnt get their dick sucked tonight after all

dont be fuckin rude

Not fun being called rude, now is it?

your gonna be the death of me, holte. swear it

It’s you’re, has FRIENDS taught you nothing, or have I?

nah i fuckin tune out when you start to nag you should know this by now babe

Yeah well, I think a mastered lawyer such as yourself with his own lawfirm should know when to use the different yours 

ya well, i think the girlfriend should know when to stop before she doesnt get to sleep over at the boyfriend’s tonight

You’re rude

I learned from the best

Harry Edward!

dont you push it rebecca ann 

Ugh, I want to hate you sometimes

its settled. no sexy time for you tonight

Harry! I got new lingerie! 

only kidding baby ;) bring the lingerie plz i cant wait to see you in it, my pretty girl 

Yes, sir ;) 

good girl

+

The halls are much too quiet with The Big Four in a meeting this morning, about what, I don’t recall. It still stings to pass Jennings in the hall, and things are still awkward between him and Harry I’ve noticed, but all he told me was that he had handled it. What he meant by that, I don’t know, but all I know is now, it’s The Big Three - Myles, Harry, and Rose, and no longer The Four. Rose made junior partner last month and the celebration still hadn’t ended from it, but we all could see the fake smile Jennings slapped on and continues to. Like Harry and Myles, she still takes cases and argues them, but now, she's more involved with the nitty gritty details of the firm, and seems to be loving it. Wedding planning, and all. I can only wish to be as on top of it as she is like that one day. 

My movements are slow and calculated as I close my laptop, and check my appearance in the mirror. Adjusting my cream blouse underneath the black suit, I take deep breaths, but they just don’t stick. I set my iPhone down on the desk, but not before checking my home screen. Nothing new, just as it was five minutes ago when I last checked. Okay, then, I think before stepping into the hall and closing my door behind me. 

The new, large clock in the lobby dongs softly through the halls, announcing nine o’clock. It’s time. Despite my best efforts, I glance around corners and over my shoulder, looking for him, but he’s nowhere to be found. 

Great. 

Even better. 

Knock knock!

“Oh, come in, please,” the voice behind the door says, bringing me forth. “Hey, Becky. Right on time, thanks.” 

“Welcome, Myles. Where’s that business partner of yours?” I softly laugh, hoping I can diffuse the tension, if only somehow. The question flew from my lips the moment I stepped into his office and noticed that we’re alone. 

“Hmm, not sure. I just saw him a few minutes ago after our meeting finished. It beats me. Shouldn’t the girlfriend know?” he jokes wryly, moving around items on his desk. 

“God, I wish. Sometimes, I’m no better. I haven’t spoken to him yet this morning,” I offer, smoothing down the back of my skirt and take a seat in front of his desk.

“Yeah, known him for I dunno how long, and I couldn’t tell you where he’s run off to. Oh, really? Didn’t carpool together with his early meeting today?” 

“Talkin’ ‘bout me, are you?” somebody voices. Both of our heads turn to behind me to watch Harry walk in, holding a Queen mug, and his laptop under his arm. 

“Yeah, wondering why you’re always late, mate.” 

“Line fer coffee was long in tha break room,” he shrugs, as if it’s a top tier excuse. “Hey, my love,” Harry coos with a smile to me, bending down to press his lips to mine. I almost giggle against his, but my widening eyes do all of the talking when he pulls away. 

His quirked eyebrows do his talking as his dimples glow on his face. Words almost leave his wondering lips but they’re interrupted by Myles excusing himself to take a call. 

“What’s that look fer?” Harry wheezes at last, sipping from his mug before finding a coaster to set it down on. 

“Since when do we kiss in front of people we work with?” I giggle nervously, wondering when the heat will ever leave my cheeks now. 

“‘s jus’ Myles, babe. He doesn’t give a shit. I reckon he has t’ have a bit o’ understandin’ afta how many times ‘ve griped over how much o’ a pain in tha arse it can be fer us t’ keep it professional ‘round tha firm,” he explains, swiftling undoing the one button on his pinstriped pecan colored blazer. 

“Oh,” is all I say, looking around the office absentmindedly while my mind whirs. 

“Sorry, I didn’t see yer texts ‘til now. Busy meetin’ this mornin,’ but we got loads done luckily,” he says, the sound of his velvet black boots soft on the tiling, blending into the sounds of the firm, as I call it. “Hmm, I liked tha one song ya sent me from Cage tha Elephant, so ‘ll hafta give this one a try, too. Thanks, babe.” 

“Mmmhmm,” I hum, distractedly. My chin falls into my hand and the pastel purple of my nailpolish blurs in front of me. 

“Alright there? Not still worryin’ ‘bout yer review inna few, are you, Becks? I told ya you’ll do great, y’know I have nuthin’ bad t’ say ‘bout how yer doin.’ ‘Course I hafta come up with sumthin’ t’ work on with you, but that’s jus’ ‘cause I can’t avoid it.”

“What?” I respond quickly, looking up to find his squinty eyes at me. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just nervewracking.” 

“‘s jus’ Myles, bug. There’s nuthin’ t’ worry ‘bout, I already told him how ya’ve been doin,’ and winnin’ last week’s case t’getha, t’ top it off,” he remarks with a glow in his voice. 

Nodding, the words poise to jump from my lips, but just then the door opens, “Sorry about that, let’s get started now that Harry’s made his fashionably late arrival, like always.” 

“Hey, watch it, My.’ Seems yer no betta,” Harry jests, fingers decorated with rings coursing through his short curls. 

“I actually had a good excuse, mind you,” Myles says, falling into the chair behind his desk. 

“God, it’s like my first interview all over again. Harry’s late and you’re both arguing like an old, married couple,” I joke with a small laugh, crossing my ankles and folding my hands. 

“Sure are,” Harry agrees aloud with a loud air kiss to Myles, scooching his chair towards the desk with a warm smile sent my way. 

“So, Becky,” Myles begins, pulling out a stapled document that somehow embeds fear into my bones, quickly ignoring the assurances Harry has showered me with. “Harry’s been telling me that you’re doing great, and things are going well six months in.” 

“Yes, very well, actually. Learnin’ loads,” Harry adds in, leaning back in the twin office chair while a hand gets lost in his hair, per usual. 

“So I’ve heard. How are things going in your opinion, Becky?”

“Thank you, Myles,” I say, trying not to laugh as the two men exchange annoyed looks. “I’m really happy here and like Harry said, I’m learning lots. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher than him.” 

“I dunno if I agree with that,” Myles quips and my humorous boyfriend shakes his head with a perturbed sigh. “I’m joking, Hare, and Becky, I’m very glad to hear that. We’re all very happy to have you here and part of the team. Somebody, especially.” 

“Would ya shuddup, My’?” Harry groans with a click of his tongue, but when I meet his eyes, he’s anything but annoyed with the sunshine he sends my way.

+

“Told ya yer review’d go great, babe. Ya should listen t’ me mo.’” 

“Would you hush?” I say. “Of course you’d say that.” 

“What’s that s’posed t’ mean?” Harry asks, all confused. 

“You just have a big head, that’s all,” I answer, opening the car door and stepping out into the humid garage. 

“Hey, would ya stop givin' me a hard time ‘bout havin’ a big head? It hurts me feelings.” 

“I didn’t mean it that way, but does it hurt your feelings if I mean you have a big ego, too?” I explain, toeing off my sandals in his entryway. 

“Yes,” he whines, dramatically. It pulls a laugh from my lips that sounds around the empty house, it soon coming to life as I flick on some lights. “Harper sure was adorable callin’ you Anty Becky t’night.” 

“I know, I loved it. Her birthday was fun. Thanks again.” 

“Oh, don’t thank me, love. Thank her. She was tha one who made you a handmade invitation, not moi,” he comments warmly, the jangling of his keys accompanying his words. “Thank you, I know it wasn’t ‘xactly convenient with t’day, and ev’rythin.’” 

“No, it’s okay. It was a lot of fun, you know I love your family.” 

“I know, it makes me happy. Thank you, Becks,” he says, pulling on my hand until I follow into the dining area, and then onto the sofa. 

“Welcome, Harry. Do you want to watch an episode of FRIENDS, or a few, before I go home?”

“I was thinkin’ ya could stay tha night again, if ya wanna. Figured we should do sumthin’ t’ celebrate tha big 6,” he announces, his voice teeming with excitement, guiding my eyes to his figure behind the kitchen island. I’m startled when the cork pops from the dark bottle, squealing with a hand to my mouth. “Want a glass?”

“Yes, please. And there’s chocolate cake hidden in the fridge that I saved for tonight.” 

“Jus’ look at you, spoilin’ me,” Harry says with a clicking of his tongue, soon drowned out by the opening of drawers, and clinking of silverware. 

Humming under my breath, I splay out on the sofa with the remote in hand. Pressing on the different arrows, I wait for the right screen to load while I scroll through my phone. 

“Here ya go,” he announces, setting down a plate with slices of chocolate cake, and two wine glasses half filled with a sparkling liquid. “‘s Prosecco, hope that’s okay.” 

“Yeah, I like that too. Thanks, babe.” 

“Yer welcome, love. Oh, don’t wanna f’get this, no, I don’t,” he says, and a moment later, a small wrapped box arrives on my lap. 

“Harry,” I begin in protest, but sitting down next to me, he doesn’t let me continue. 

“Don’t worry, jus’ open it.” 

“I was going to say that I didn’t get you anything for our six month today,” I tell him with emphasis in my voice. He shakes his head while taking a bite of the cake, swiping at his tongue dotted with crumbs. 

“There’s nuthin’ I want- jus’ open it, Becks. Please,” he insists, nodding at the present and looking away quickly to stab at the cake again. 

“Okay then,” I tease, sitting up and crossing my legs. “Harry Styles, this better not be a you-know-what ring.” 

“‘s not, babe. Ya still haven’t given me that answer, so ‘course not,” he explains with a mouth full of cake, and crazily, I love him all the more for it. Shaking my head at the smirk he wears, I tear at the metallic, purple wrapping paper until I arrive at a white, square box the size of my palm. “Maybe ya could gimme an answer t’ anotha question I have instead,” Harry says slowly, right as I pry the top off to find a lone, purple house key waiting for me. 

“What?” I laugh without thinking a thought about why, or how, and every other thing in between. Looking up and away, I find his dimpled cheeks the near color of roses. A laugh wheezes from his lips as he sets down the plate on the table, but I find it hard to focus on as my heart begins a race inside my ribs. 

“I meant it when I said tha other night that I wanna fall asleep next t’ ya ev’ry night, babe. So, what d’ya say t’ sleep overs with me ev’ry night, hmm? Will ya move in with me, Becks?” and just like that, it all clicks inside of my head, even though I had put a few of them together just a moment ago. 

Plucking the key from the box, I rub it between my fingers, and then my eyes return to him, like everything always does. His bottom lip is riddled with indents from his chattering teeth, as if his eyes like a meadow weren’t boring into me already. 

“Becks, love?” he murmurs softly, anxiously. A curve arrives on my lips, mere moments before I cross the sofa and jump onto his lap. His peppery, vanilla scent swims around me while his ever contagious laugh does the same, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Bloody hell, woman, can I get that answer from ya already or not?” 

Giggling, I at last pull away from hugging him and come to feel the days of stubble littering his cheeks, just how I like it. The flecks of gold and ivory in his eyes catch the light as they dance over my face, and I wonder what he sees in mine as his fingers get lost in my hair. I wonder if he sees the answer before I say it, because what else would it be but, “Of course, Harry. There’s nothing I’d want more.” 

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

"The Hardest Thing in this World is to Live in It."

I wish I could be your good news

[Originally posted June 25, 2020]

Hi friends,

It's been a long time since I've written here, though with all that's going on in the world I was genuinely unsure if had been months, weeks, or days. Time dilates each day while the days somehow pile up into months. It's actually been about 6 weeks, during which time I had more scans that showed that my primary tumor is still growing.

It's really a stubborn bastard, isn't it? As before, the treatment I've been on has been relatively successful on the metastatic sites (no new locations, some regression in size overall), but the breast tumor itself just keeps getting improbably larger like...well, like a cancer.

On June 1st, the day after I got my most recent news, I posted on Twitter and Facebook to say this:

"Thank you to all of you for liking this and sending your messages of support, both privately and in public. It's hard sometimes to remember in the dual isolation of quarantine and illness that there are so many kind people in the world wishing me well: a bright light in dark times.

I'll post more about it when I'm able, but I am ok given the situation. My latest scans showed that my cancer is still growing-my 3rd failed line of treatment in 15 months. Good things: metastatic sites stable, no new ones, still approaches to try. But optimism is hard right now.

In my cancer group, we talk about "toxic positivity," the pressure to present news w/the best possible spin and be a model patient who determinedly soldiers on. I tend only to post when I can do that. Right now, going on feels impossible. I am so lonely and so tired.

It's not just cancer, though it's quite a burden to carry. Things are bad in the world. Worse than I'd ever imagined. And I am tired of having cancer. But I will never be done while I'm alive. There are burdens we can't put down. It's ok not to bear them cheerfully, for you too.

Addendum: I also feel (absurdly) like I let people down personally when I don't improve (a thing over which I have zero control). In addition to wanting to be better, I want to be your good news, to give us all something to celebrate. I know it's untrue, but it's compelling anyway."

So that's how I've been feeling. I've been wishing, over and over, that I could be your good news, could give you something positive in the midst of all this horror. The fact that I can't turns me quiet and exhausts me in a far more profound way than the ongoing side effects of chemo. I just had my 8th chemo treatment - my first was on January 30th - so that's been 6 months of chemo while working full-time. I didn't realize how burned out I truly was until I used some vacation days (which I had been rationing for hospital days and side effects) for an actual vacation.

It's all more than enough, in combination with all the events going on in the world, to weigh me down. Not only because I do feel, quite literally, weighed down by a tumor that is 8cm x 6.5cm (think of it as a large orange or small grapefruit), but because the heaviness of just continuing to live each day as the pandemic worsens across most of the U.S. and the prospect of ever resuming the still-good life that I was able to manage with cancer--full of things like travel, going to my job, seeing groups of friends, dating, and bars and restaurants--dwindles to almost nothing.

A year in quarantine is a terrible prospect for us all, but a year is longer in my foreshortened life than it is in most of yours. I've become unsure how to continue to live with that, to confront it every day and feel angry that nothing is seemingly ever getting better. I'm actually a fundamental optimist, despite it all, but sometimes enduring, surviving, and keeping on is overwhelming. I just want to be better. I just want not to be alone. I just want to go back to normal. I just want some good news. Preferably, I would like to be that good news.

The quotation in the title of this blog post is, as I know many of you will have recognized, a quotation from "Buffy." (Sidebar: I almost never used the long title when referring to the show, leading one of my UCLA undergrads to inquire once in class, "do you mean the Vampire Slayer?" and yes, UCLA student, yes I do.) I've begun rewatching (or re-re-re-watching? I don't even know at this point) my favorite season of the show, the sixth, which is many people's least favorite.

**SPOILERS** for a show that began airing in 1997 and a season that ran 19 years ago.

It's my favorite because it is an entire season about loss, deprivation, grief, and trauma. The quotation is the last thing that Buffy says to her sister before she takes the swan dive that leads to her death at the end of Season 5. Her death is meaningful, saving the world and preventing the apocalypse. Yet, at the start of Season 6, Buffy is brought back to life (and to a different network) by friends who claim it's because they believe she is in Hell but whose secondary motivations (their own inability to survive without her) are revealed over time. We soon learn that she was not in Hell (how could she be?) but Heaven (or a "heavenly dimension"). And like Milton's Satan and Marlowe's Mephistopheles, the deprivation that she knows, having been at peace, makes living each day painful.

As Buffy herself says in 6x03 "After Life" (to Spike, the only one she is able to go to for solace): "Everything here is bright and hard and violent...Everything I feel, everything I touch...this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that...knowing what I've lost ...They can never know. Never." Buffy becomes not the hero she has been for five seasons, but the anti-hero who is no longer able to be what her friends (and the viewers) demand of her: the same. She is profoundly changed, alienated from nearly everyone by the fundamentally incommunicable nature of her pain.

I have never identified with a character more than when, a few episodes later in the beloved musical episode "Once More, With Feeling," she pummels the villains of the day while spouting cliches: "Where there's life--" PUNCH "--there's hope! Every day's--" KICK "--a gift! Wishes can--" JAB "come true! Whistle while--" PUNCH "you work...so hard..all day..to be like other girls. To fit in this glittering world." It's a perfect literalization of the metaphor for fighting depression. (Literalizing metaphors is something the show always did especially well from its very first episode: high school is hell.)

I feel like this now. Kicking and throwing punches and struggling to make it look effortless, which it most certainly is not, fighting to remain here because the other choices are not really choices. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it." The line is thrown back at Buffy by her sister at the conclusion of this show-stopping number, only it is now invested with new meaning. We now have more of a sense of how profoundly difficult that can be. How much we must struggle. And Buffy does struggle and she does fail. And that's why many fans dislike the season.

But I see in her struggles and failures the resilience of someone who continues to fight to stay in the world not because it is good, but because it is enough. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

So what will I do now? It's looking very much like I will be having surgery, possibly as soon as within a few weeks. The sheer size of this tumor and its resistance to other treatments make removing it a better option than it has been in the past. There are more details, of course, but I will share them later when I'm not exhausted from chemo. In the meantime, I am going to watch more "Buffy," and so should you.

Be well and be kind.

Love, Bex

[camryndaytona]

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is one of the most popular and successful young adult authors of today, however, a huge percentage of her fans have no idea of her past where she was know more for her bullying than her writing. I started this as a post on my “You Should Know” instagram, but eventually it got way too big and I had to create a post for it as well.

Terms to Know

Big Name Fan

Or “BNF” is an old term mostly used during the early 2000s, before ff.net or AO3.

They were the biggest names in fandom, producing the most popular art or fanfics.

Getting on the wrong side of a BNF could lock you out from the entire fandom, as you would be blocked from any forum they (or they friends) moderated.

The Inner Circle

In the early 2000s the Harry Potter fandom was essentially ruled by the Inner Circle. 

Although most of the Inner Circle changed constantly due to fandom drama and scandals, one member stayed for almost it’s entire duration: Cassie Claire

ff.net

Fanfiction.net

One of the early and most popular sites for hosting fanfiction.

The Draco Trilogy

Draco Dormiens

Author’s Summary: When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore.

Draco Sinister

Author’s Summary: When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don’t.

It is notable for being the source of the Draco in Leather Pants trope as well as the catalyst for the Cassandra Claire plagiarism wank.

Draco Veritas

Author’s Summary: The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy.

Why was the Trilogy so popular?

As most people in fandom probably know, there’s usually two subsets of shippers: gay and straight (please note that, back in the early 2000s, there was still a lot of homophobia, and the heterosexual ships were undeniably more popular for that reason).

Since The Draco Trilogy had both Draco/Hermione and a lot of Harry/Draco subtext, fans of both ships flocked to the fic.

The Plagiarism 

Although she’d done it all along, it wasn’t until the second fanfic, Draco Sinister, that fans began to catch on. What was “it?”

Cassie including a lot of quotations from other work. And I mean a LOT. She lifted entire conversations and paragraphs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Terry Pratchett. At first she didn’t even mention this “inspiration,” so everyone assumed that this wit was all hers.

Once she was called out, she put a standard disclaimer at the top of her work, which was worded to imply that she might have borrowed a few, small quotes here and there, not that she was taking paragraphs and scenes. When she was called out for her continued plagiarism she switched to claiming that she “forgot” what her sources were.

Finally a former fan called Avocado got tired of it and reported her to ff.net. Within a day her works were taken down.

Predictably the fandom melted down over this and accusations began to fly. Cassie used her status as a BNF to ban anyone mildly critical of her from any message board or mailing list. A friend of Cassie’s claimed to be a real life lawyer and harrassed young fans with seemingly legal threats. There are even threats of people calling the police in an early form of “swatting.” Cassie tried to get a “hater” kicked out of university for “hacking” her and a REAL lawyer had to be involved before Cassie admitting to making it all up.

After all that began to die down, as she was working on the third installment of the trilogy, Cassie began accusing her friend and fellow BNF, Aja, of plagiarizing her. When that failed to incite the anger she wanted against Aja, Cassie began to claim that Aja was posting leaked spoilers for the Draco Trilogy. This infighting between the two lead to the collapse of The Inner Circle.

Laptop Gate

Although the third part of the Trilogy wasn’t as popular as the first two, due to the plagiarism scandal, it still racked up a ton of views when she began posting it. So when there was a potential threat to the continuation of the saga, readers were horrified.

This potential threat was a break in and the loss of Cassie’s computer.

Almost immediately after the robbery was announced Cassie’s lawyer friend (who was also her roommate) popped up again. This time, they were raising money to replace the laptops of Cassie and her roommates that had been stolen in the break in. Any extra money from the fundraiser would go to some vaguely mentioned charity.

Divisive comments poured in.

Some people expressed frustration that more “meaningful” fundraisers (like someone who had lost everything in a fire) didn’t get anywhere near as much attention and support.

Fans were even less happy when no proof was provided of either the break in or the charitable donation of excess funds (which was reported to be over $10,000).

When called out they changed the subject and posted links to another fan that was also fundraising (although they never posted any charity before or after, even when asked to do so the lawyer friend claimed to be “too busy” to share a link).

Published Works

After enjoying her celebrity as the Queen of Fanfiction, it’s no surprise that Cassie decided to venture into actual, original published works.

Except they weren’t that original, because it’s Cassie and she really, really seems to like “borrowing” from herself and others.

Let’s start with some name changes

Cassie

Cassandra Claire (with an i) is her fanfiction name

Cassandra Clare (without an i) is her published name

You may be surprised by how well this name change suited her. For a long time, before exposes began to be posted, you could google her published name without finding out about her history in fandom. Additionally, some of her victims from her fanfic days read her published books without realizing who the author actually was (until they started to recognize the quotes and paragraphs that she’d lifted straight from her fanfiction)

Her Writing

“Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s Ginny/Ron incest romance fanfiction.

“The Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s published work, about two fake siblings who fall in love with each other.

Similarities to Harry Potter

Now I haven’t read Mortal Instruments or The Mortal Instruments so I’ll let someone who has read them both do some explaining:

When I opened the book, I knew that Clary was Ginny. Alec was Harry. Isabelle was Clare’s version of Blaise (who back then was not officially male or female, and could therefore be interpreted by fandom either way). Valentine was a strange mixture of Lucius and Voldemort. And Jace, of course, was undeniably Draco.

Jace is so Draco, in fact, that it’s impossible to see him as his own character. The way Clare characterizes Jace is the exact same way she characterized her Draco. They share lines (the ones she didn’t steal from Buffy, of course), they share nervous tics, they share appearances, and they even share memories. The second I read the scene in which Jace tells Clary the story about the boy and the falcon, I felt an unpleasant jolt of recognition: that story is one Draco tells in one of the Draco Trilogy installments. I couldn’t remember which one. I couldn’t even remember who Draco told it to (Harry? Ginny? Hermione?). But I knew it was if not word for word taken from her fanfiction, it was very, very close.

Yikes. That’s a lot of similarities.

The same person I quoted about went on to say that the fanfiction was still much better than her published work, and that she’d rather re-read the fanfic than the non-fanfic.

Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dark Hunters

Almost immediately after The Mortal Instruments (the non-fanfic one) became popular, Sherrilyn Kenyon slapped it with a lawsuit for copying her urban fantasy series, Dark Hunters.

Kenyon fans attacked Claire fans, Cassie’s history was brought to light, and Cassie got to pull out her favorite argument “you hate me because I’m Jewish.” Which is interesting, because I’ve been working on this for two weeks, and I only just learned that she’s Jewish when I read about her accusing others of anti-Semitism.

Now as Cassie apologists will tell you, Kenyon did ultimately lose that suit, but it’s really, really starting to get repetitive over here.

I’ll borrow a quote from Ryan Givens, “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” Or in this case, maybe you’re the plagiarist.

Common Questions

Has Cassie apologized for this?

She did occasionally

Has Cassie changed?

My opinion is no. She’s not.

Let’s see, as the “Queen of YA Literature” she has:

used Copy Right strikes to prevent people from calling out problematic passages in her books

sent her fans after critics

posted a hilariously ironic blog about cyber bullying

attacked her OWN FANS because they didn’t like the ending of a book

currently complains about people posting her real name (which is Judith Rumelt, in case you wanted to know) despite her own history of publishing people’s actual phone numbers online

Calls critics anti-Semetic while having this quote in her book

Claims that she was threatened when someone called her friend an “ignorant duck” 

Loves Token Minorities

Wrote a questionable almost rape

My Thoughts

I don’t like Cassie.

I really don’t.

And look, I’m not saying that Cassie is a narcissist, but here’s a fun little saying called The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did… You deserved it.

Does any of that sound familiar, because it should. It’s basically Cassie’s text book responce of “avoid admitting fault until there’s too much proof, say I didn’t do it on purpose, blame someone else, claim to be the victim, find another person to accuse of drama.”

Now I’m going to again quote from ProblematicYA because I absolutely love their writing. In this quote, they’re talking about how all of Cassie’s books, even those set in different times or cities, follow the same pattern. Non-Shadowhunter meets Shadowhunter (who is basically Draco).

So what’s really my problem? My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is a marginally talented writer who has one story and one cast of characters up her sleeve, and yet somehow she’s sold millions and millions of books based on this. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series was partially copied from her fanfiction trilogy, which copied a plethora of other authors, not even including J.K. Rowling, who provided her with the characters, premise, and setting for her beloved trilogy. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is in the authorly equivalent of a time loop, and has come full circle. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is, in essence, writing fanfiction of her own work, and it is getting published and she is getting paid bank for it, when other far more original and talented authors are getting absolutely nothing for their hard work. I may despise Stephenie Meyer and the world she’s created, but at least Twilight and its accompanying works are her own original product; at least she deserves to reap the benefits of the crazy fandom she’s inspired.

Look. I don’t believe in dredging up ancient history just to hurt people. Shit we did when we were teens shouldn’t be held against us as adults. People grow and change a lot from what they were as teens.

But bitch, you actually have to GROW AND CHANGE. And Cassie hasn’t.

Also, try actually apologizing for what you’ve done instead of silencing critics.

Sources and More Information

As always, I love, love, love fanlore and I linked to many of their articles throughout this post.

A user on the HobbyDrama subreddit made a great write up called The Cassandra Cla(i)re Saga.

ProblematicYA wrote several amazing articles on the subject:

Why I Have A Problem With Cassandra Clare and Why You Should Too

anti-bullying ya queen cassandra clare is a massive bully. water also wet.

They also have an entire tag dedicated to Cassie

Alli6 wrote Things you should Know

Cassandra Clare, Rape Culture, and the Oft-Forgotten Metaphor by The Book Lantern.

SnarkTheater also has pages of things tagged as Cassie Claire, including chapter by chapter break downs of the books.

source http://camryndaytona.com/2020/06/cassandra-clare?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cassandra-clare

[buffyversefanfiction]

Twisted Tristan

Chapter 5 - The Twisted Beginning

Warnings: I do not own or claim to own the original content to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, the comics or any of the original characters from the “Buffyverse” all rights belong to Joss Whedon.

15 plus, displays of Violence, Gore, Torture, M/M, F/M, F/F.

Tristan Summers wasn’t always the twisted long raven-haired man that Faith and Willow had come to know in fact when he went under the name of Tristan Black, he lived a very different life indeed and a very different hairstyle to match that life.

Tristan Black was the ideal student back in his day sporting a short bleach blonde hair style and eagerness to be the best of the best of everything that he put his hands to and had quite the opposite crowd to what he would later have when becoming Tristan Summers.

Tristan lived at home with his adoptive parents Mr and Mrs Black in a small American town called Riverborn located just hours away from the city his older self would later call home. Tristan had no idea when growing up he was adopted and until his teenage years had the picture-perfect life.

His best friend Mandi Jenkins was a brunette beauty with a short bob hairstyle who was equally as overachieving as her friend except instead of school studies she was obsessed with some very different learning books that of witchcraft.

His secret high school sweetheart Lucas Brown was tall, dark, handsome and incredibly sweet and in love with Tristan.

Tristan Black had the best parents, the best parent, the best boyfriend and the best life until he turned 18 and everything changed for ever as this one short bleach blonde innocent beauty became the twisted Tristan Summers.

Tristan got up early that morning and walked to Riverborn High School with his best friend Mandi like he did every school morning as the two friends traded secrets of their own as well as others.

“I’m telling Tristan Black you are going out of your way to be this school’s claim to academic fame you’re like a total nerd’s dream overload.” Mandi told him as they walked into the corridors of their high school. “Luckily for me I love the fact that my best friend is a complete and utter nerd and I’m here to stop you becoming a total bore.”

“You’re clearly buttering me up for something the question is what?” Tristan laughed.

“Come out tonight and hit up this party with me please.” She asked him. “Blow off you family games night thing for just one time and come and have some actual fun with me I promise the only games you will be playing are those of the drinking and maybe even stripping variety.”

“Mandi Jenkins, you have met my parents there is no freaking way they would let me go to a party and besides I love family games night.” Tristan explained to her. “You enjoy them too god knows you’ve been to enough of them.”

“I’m not saying I’m not a fan of games night or your parents you know I love them both but we deserved to behave like stupid teenagers every one in a while besides I have it on good word that Lucas Brown is in attendance.” Mandi replied while trying to persuade her best friend to misbehave with her.

“Why would I care about Lucas Brown?” Tristan asked trying to deflect clearly blushing at the mere mention of his secret high school boyfriend.

“Feel free to play all innocent with me Tristan but I know something is going on between the two of you,” She said to him as they walked over to their high school lockers. “I won’t say anything more on it if you promise to come to the party.”

“Fine,” Tristan relented as Mandi began to open her locker. “I’m sure missing one games night won’t be the end of the world.”

Mandi found herself mesmerized upon opening her locker door finding an ancient looking book inside which she instantly recognized as a grimoire.

“I’m sure everything will be perfect.” She replied while her eyes remained transfixed on the grimoire that somebody or something had placed inside her locker.

Tristan just stood there in the Riverborn woods drinking beer from a plastic cup while watching as his best friend Mandi danced against a girl and a boy in the woods while several others from their school were dancing or talking amongst themselves while drinking booze from plastic cups in typical high school fashion and amongst the crowd was Tristan’s first love Lucas.

“I’m rather surprised that Mr Perfect himself would actually attend a drunken high school party.” Lucas said as he walked over to Tristan.

“I’m far from perfect,” Tristan laughed as Lucas took his drink off him and took a sip from it.

“I quite believe you know how to be bad when you want to be.” Lucas flirted with him. “Do you want to go somewhere a bit more private so you can show me just how bad you can be?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Tristan replied with an excited smile before the two walked off deeper into the woods together away on a lover’s walk not realizing that Mandi noticed their little disappearance act.

After a late night being anything but innocent in the woods with his high school boyfriend Tristan returned to his family home only to notice upon walking through the front door that all the lights were off and instantly started switching them all on.

“Mum, Dad,” He shouted while switching on the light in the living room to see it empty before going back into the hallway and switching the light on in the dining room to find that room was also empty. “I’m sorry I’m home so late I just kind of lost track of time.

Tristan’s entire life changed within those steps from the dining room as he walked into the kitchen only to discover his mother and father’s completely lifeless bodies lying on the ground in a puddle of their own blood much to his own horror and disbelief.

“Mum, Dad,” He screamed in shock before rushing over to them both covering himself in their blood in the process as he pulled his mother into his shaking arms while he began sobbing over the grief of losing his parents. “Mum, wake up, mum please wake up.”

Tristan continued to hold his mother’s lifeless body as he cried while looking over at his father’s lifeless body completely broken by his loss as a male vampire with his vampire face on full display walked into the kitchen eager for his next feed.

“Don’t worry kid you’ll soon be joining them.” The vampire said with a sinister smirk as Tristan gently let go of his mother’s body and rose to his feet.

“You killed my parents,” Tristan said in a broken voice while still covered in his parents’ blood. “What kind of monster are you?”

“I’m a freaking vampire.” The vampire admitted with a cruel laugh before plunging towards a grieving Tristan who was more than ready for the vampire as he kicked him to the ground and made a run towards his front door before continuing to run into his garden until he found himself stopped in his tracks by Drusilla who stood on the pavement waiting for him.

“Don’t worry my darling little boy,” She said to a clearly in shock Tristan before forcing him into a hug. “I’ve got you now.”

Tristan quickly brushed off Drusilla’s hug while just standing there in shock drenched in his parents blood as Drusilla changed to her vampire face just in time for the male vampire to come running of the house as Drusilla pulled a wooden stake out of her chest and launched towards male vampire launching the stake into his chest and turning the male vampire into dust in the process.

“I’m going to take care of you now.” Drusilla promised Tristan as she turned back around to face him.

“Why is your face exactly like his was?” Tristan asked her finally breaking his silence. “What happened to him?”

“Because I’m a vampire my darling sweet boy,” Drusilla admitted to him as she turned her face back to normal. “Don’t you want to know what you really are?”

“My parents are dead.” Tristan cried as he began to realize his own devastating reality.

“Are they?” Drusilla asked with a slight smirk before returning to look sorry for Tristan as if she didn’t have a part to play in his parents’ death. “I’m so sorry I arrived to late to save them too but I’m glad I save you my sweet boy.”

“Why did you bother saving me?” He wondered while struggling to deal with his feelings.

“Because you my darling boy are about to become something particularly amazing.” Drusilla revealed as she walked towards him. “You have so much power you don’t even know about, yet which isn’t surprising considering who your biological parents are.”

“I wasn’t even strong enough to kill that bastard myself.” Tristan responded as Drusilla hugged him once again too broken to notice Drusilla’s mention of his biological parents. “I couldn’t even get revenge for my parents.”

“Don’t worry my pretty little boy I promise we will get revenge together on everyone who ever dared wrong you.” Drusilla told him while continuing to hold him in her arms.

Tristan got himself cleaned up getting rid of the clothes his blood-stained clothes in the process before meeting Lucas back at the woods where they had left each other earlier that night.

“Are you all ready for round two so soon?” Lucas asked him with an excited smile on his face. “I knew you could be really good at being bad.”

“This is going to sound crazy, but I have no choice but to leave Riverborn tonight I can’t tell you why just yet as it’s beyond crazy, but I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?” Tristan said to him frantically. “I know we’ve not been going long, and this is all meant to be on down low but I kind of want you to come with me.”

“You want me to run away with you?” Lucas laughed for a moment before realizing Tristan was serious. “Tristan we’ve only been fooling around I told you I didn’t want things to get too complicated right now the last thing I want is to run away with you.”

“I thought it would be a long shot,” Tristan replied. “It’s okay I understand.”

“You should really speak to your parents before running away I’m sure whatever is going can be fixed somehow.” Lucas advised him. “Speak to your parents.”

“I can’t,” Tristan said with a hesitant sigh before going on to reveal. “They’re dead.”

Tristan was hurt but understood why Lucas would say no to such a crazy situation and so he said goodbye to his first love but before he could leave Riverborn behind for good he had one more person to see his best friend.

“Where did you disappear to tonight?” Mandi asked him upon opening her bedroom window to Tristan after he knocked on it.

“I came home to find my parents dead,” Tristan admitted as he struggled to fight back his tears. “I know this sounds crazy, but a vampire killed them.”

“Oh my god,” replied a horrified Mandi. “That can’t be true what would vampires want with your parents other than their blood obviously.”

“Wait, you actually believe me?” Tristan said in shock by Mandi’s immediate belief over what he had just told her.

“There’s a lot of crazy shit out there Tristan,” Mandi admitted to him as she reached out and held his hands. “I’m so sorry about your parents.”

After some explaining on both sides Tristan over what happened to his parents and Mandi over her growing knowledge of the supernatural and many tears shared by both they made their way to the local cemetery as they met up with Tristan’s supposed savior Drusilla.

“I foresaw you bringing your friend with you.” Drusilla said upon meeting Tristan and Mandi.

“So, you’re the vampire who saved him from the other vampire.” Mandi replied to her. “Not suspicious of you whatsoever.”

“Yes, and you’re the little witch in training,” Drusilla admitted to her. “Don’t worry I’m sure you’ll become more powerful in time in fact I can pretty much guarantee it.”

Mandi was never going to let her best friend Tristan ditch town with some vampire all by herself but after a few years she was going to wish she stayed in Riverborn because a friendship she thought would last forever was soured and twisted until her and Tristan became bitter enemies all by Drusilla and her prodigy son Dante’s doing.

“I don’t understand why I must do this I mean I’m pretty strong without this.” A now medium length raven haired Tristan said in confusion to Drusilla as the two of them walked into a large decaying and burned down library where a fully black haired Mandi sat in the middle of a pentagram chanting away to herself while black veins showed all over her body just like Dark Willow in season six of Buffy.

“Your strong enough to take a slayer or two down my darling boy but to be even stronger than them all you must become one of them.” Drusilla explained to him.

“Last time I checked that wasn’t possible all the slayers were called I wasn’t.” Tristan replied confused once again by Drusilla’s words.

“Not all slayers have been called and not all have to be called to become a slayer.” Drusilla revealed to him while Mandi continued to chant her spell with her eyes closed. “It’s time for you to become strong enough to get revenge on your parents.”

“Buffy Summers and Angel are not my parents there are nothing more than the creation of their own destruction,” Tristan snapped at his adoptive vampire mother. “I’m going to kill them!”

“That’s my twisted Tristan,” Drusilla laughed sinisterly. “Now do you want to know how I’m going to turn you into a slayer?”

“Well go on then.” Tristan replied eager to know the answer.

“I’m going to take you back to the very beginning.” Mandi revealed as she opened her jet back eyes.

[ifeveristoday]

team Slow Burn/Burn it All Down

“Real monsters don’t announce themselves or present opportunities. Not here. They enter your head, your heart, tear at you from within.” -- Angel, Hellmouth #2

Are we talking about the demons underground or the demon walking around with Angel’s face?

Hellmouth leans heavy on foreshadowing and having unspoken/underlining meanings that differ from the actual words on the page. It continues using elements from Egyptian and Roman/Greek mythos but the main draw of this issue - and I’m assuming the rest of the series, is the reluctant partnership of Buffy and Angel. I don’t agree with the criticism that taking Buffy and Angel away from their respective apocalypses ruins the flow of the overall arcs. It’s a vast story to tell and the pace of the reboots (which is something I have criticized) makes it difficult to include in the main storylines without sacrificing important character development. There are just so many characters, especially in Sunnydale. Jordie’s writing excels at the character and emotional beats rather than plots, and while we have had some great strides in Willow, Xander and Jenny’s personal journeys, there remains some distance from the namesake characters, which I feel like it was intentional to get to the place that Hellmouth occupies. 

Love it or hate it, the Buffy and Angel relationship is a huge part of both of their stories and character developments and we’ve had inklings of how Buffy is going to change/possibly wreck Angel’s life in Angel, but he’s remained a shadowy figure in Buffy’s story. Hellmouth changes all of that while retaining some of the original canon’s flaws/trademarks but also poking gentle fun at them.

Spoilers from Hellmouth #2 below the cut.

Buffy and Angel are slightly different from their canon selves - Angel is independent of Buffy’s journey at the very beginning and already has his purpose set in Los Angeles. Buffy is a newly minted Slayer, living with her secret for a whole three weeks before wacky Slayer hijinks puts her in the path of Willow and Xander. Their initial meeting/relationship is reminiscent of the very early episodes of Season 1 Buffy - with a reasonable amount of wariness on Buffy’s part and Angel’s dry/slightly cocky attitude with a 2019 update of their anxieties. There’s also a flip in roles as Angel asks Buffy how she’s feeling and what she wants to do in the future at the start. It’s just the feeling of a connection with no romantic overtones. 

The comic recognizes the fucked-upness of Buffy being a child and fighting the forces of evil and sympathizing with her via the character of Jenny. While there is an obligatory nod to Buffy’s desire to be normal, it also makes a point of isolating her from the Scoobies and her frustration at knowing how to be the best Slayer she can be. Giles tells her that he’s to direct her, but not tell her explicitly what she has to do sounds an awful like parents preparing their children for adulthood. There is no handbook. While Buffy is welcomed into Willow and Xander’s circle (and that’s another flip - it is Willow who reaches out to Buffy first and invites her into being social), they’re very much a unit while Buffy sort of floats between their friendship. But I feel due to them being so young, it’s easy to claim best friendship, because - the intensity of feelings and hormones.

This makes Buffy’s character kind of harder to read, and less sunshiney than her OG counterpart. But it’s a shared facade - TV Buffy just hid it better underneath girliness and bouncy hair, while Boom! Buffy is focused, for better or worse to her duty. This is a Buffy that hasn’t quit Slaying before, who gets slightly conflicted guidance from her Watcher and who needs Willow and Xander more than they possibly need her to be a connection to being sixteen. Everyone has their own stuff to deal with.

Hellmouth gives Buffy the spotlight and also drops her into an immediate partnership with Angel. It very pointedly is not a romance - they both get on each others nerves actually, and it inspires A+ bantering while revealing the most of each character so far. Buffy’s venting to Angel (Buffy #8/Hellmouth #1) implies that she’s worried about her friendships and failure to connect, that she’d rather tell a complete stranger this than confide in her friends/Watcher. 

Angel listening and not judging shows an immediate empathy for her - and his actions during Hellmouth show a more vulnerable/less closed off Angel. He doesn’t occupy the same caretaker vibe he has with Fred and Gunn that he does with Buffy, namely because Buffy refuses it. She calls him out on trying to be the mysterious weight of the world Loner who takes on all of the responsibilities. 

Angel quickly realizes he just can’t be That Guy with Buffy, and it makes his character hilariously resigned/looser in response. He warns her about dangers in the Hellmouth but accepts Buffy’s way is different from his, but that doesn’t make it wrong. He’s willing to admit he might have been wrong about demons being upfront when the slithery shapeshifter demon confronts them - and Buffy’s snarky response “Cool, cool. Won’t rub that in.” lightens the tense moment. 

Notably, Angel is the one that gets injured/dragged by the demons while Buffy runs to save him. The fighting sequences are highlighted and Buffy’s scenes, in particular, are very smooth and highlights her Slayer grace. They fight beautifully together and despite their prickly banter, feel a shared responsibility to each other’s well being. Their separate confrontations with the shapeshifter shows their fears - Buffy ‘abandoning’ her family and friends and failing to protect them, Angel seeing the ghosts of the people he’s failed to save. Buffy reacts strongly to how her family and friends need her, while Angel angrily tells the shifter to stay out of his head and that it doesn’t know anything about him. Circling back to Buffy saying she doesn’t know what she wants, the Ominous voice implies Angel doesn’t really know what he’s doing and who he is.

Ah, vague accusations of something evil and upsetting, how I haven’t missed you.

After Angel demands to know who’s blood is needed for the further escalation of Evil Plan, and the Voice doesn’t reply, he immediately realizes Buffy is in danger and runs to find her.

Buffy’s still fighting the shifter and it mentions she could put an end to her family and friends’ suffering with her sacrifice - namely, that her blood will save the world.

While Buffy logically knows that the shifter isn’t her mom (because of course, the shifter would take on the form of Joyce), this emotional blackmail breaks her out of the illusion and she kicks it’s ass. Almost punching out Angel in the process. 

Angel is less emotional about his ordeal and Buffy lets him have it again, telling him that it's unfair that she’s the only one being vulnerable - “I opened up because we need to work together, and you haven’t said a thing.”

Instead of being defensive and defaulting to Sir Mopes a Lot - Angel sincerely apologizes and tells her that his fears were also centered around his friends and him not being able to save them in time.

And it’s Buffy’s turn to reassure him/pass on wisdom - she realizes that the Hellmouth wants to separate them to make them weaker and that Angel deserves a little more empathy from her.

THEY’RE COMMUNICATING THEIR FRUSTRATIONS AND CONCERNS WITH EACH OTHER, Y’ALL.

Angel does have a moment of saying, “Silent suffering is more my cup of tea,” and Buffy’s quick response of “And how’s that working for you?” showcase their differences/similarities nicely. Angel despite making friends doesn’t tell them what he’s thinking because he’s used to being alone, Buffy with her very loud opinions isolates herself (un)intentionally because she’s new to Slaying and being a teenager at the same time. They can’t talk to the people who care for them--- but they can talk to each other.

When they face hurdles, they take turns reassuring/pointing out the Obvious Evil, and then a tiny moment - Angel adds onto Buffy’s observation of not getting surrounded by the demon horde by saying, “Just like Thermopylae.”

As with each issue of the Boom!verse, when names I don’t recognize I obviously google them - and Thermopylae is a reference to both the battle of Thermopylae (think the 300 comic and uh, history) and the “Hot Gates,” and is the cavernous entrance to Hades.

Is my theory/wish that there’s going to be Persephone/Hades parallels and Eurydice/Orpheus vibes in this story going to play out? God, I hope so.

Anyway, back to the moment - when they inevitably get surrounded by the demon hordes, Buffy remarks, “Well, there goes thermometer.”

The. Classic. Buffy. Malapropism.

My heart.

Angel gets slashed in the fight, and Buffy worries about him, but there’s a bigger problem - 

narrated by the Voice - “Are you sure everything is as it seems? You’ve been wrong before.”

“Blood is spilled...vessels are filled...every pretender killed.”

Shot to Drusilla as Prometheus in chains, spouting some of the worst “Dru-esque” dialogue I’ve read. Sorry Jordie, this is up there with the clunky faux Whedonisms of the early issues.

So Dru isn’t the major Big Bad, but rather the unseen Voice, who we, of course, don’t know.

Is she ultimate sacrifice, the vessel (after all she is of Angel’s bloodline) and oh, Angel Still Hasn’t Told Buffy He’s A Vampire which...

Boo.

All of the voice overs hint that the confession when it happens is going to cause Buffy Big Mad - after all, Angel knows more about her than she does of him, AGAIN.

The art and coloring is stunning as ever in this issue - Carlini really knows how to draw action sequences, and the varying light/color schemes really make the sense of Buffy and Angel descending into the Hellmouth feel vivid and real.

tl;dr I loved this issue and each issue the stakes definitely seem higher. The bantering and a slow reveal of their personalities are also excellent. The foreshadowing/double meanings of the dialogues.

The stuff I don’t like - the Dru dialog at the end, Angel being secretive about his Vampire self.

[douxreviews]

Cloak and Dagger - ‘B-Sides’ Review

"To Tyrone. My best friend. My port in the storm. My hero."

Oh, Cloak and Dagger, I apologize for ever criticizing your love of the theatrical framing device. It paid off with interest this week.

'B-Sides' picks up a visual metaphor from a few episodes back by continuing to represent the personal experiences of our characters as sides of a record. By placing the record on a turntable, you 'experience' the relevant moments of that character's life as recorded there.

This is just a wonderful conceit, and I'm glad that it's back again this week. Clearly we're intended to wonder whose gloved hands are playing the records, but I was so entranced by the elegance of the visual device that I wasn't really that concerned about that particular question. On some level I suspect I was expecting it would turn out to be Tandy herself, ruminating over all the 'could have been' possibilities of her life.

Because, really, that's what we've been conditioned to expect from this sort of format. We spend an episode looking at one or several 'what if' situations, before returning to the status quo as it was beforehand and continuing on with whatever the season long plot is next week. It's a nice way of exploring a character, it can be useful as part of a character's story arc as it lends itself to self-revelation, and most importantly it's super popular with the cast, as it allows them to play different variations on their established characters and do things that that character would never otherwise be allowed to do. Anyone who thinks that 'Superstar' wasn't Danny Strong's favorite episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to film is kidding themselves.

Now, I've gone on record as not being a big fan of 'what if' storylines. Usually they're nothing but a huge pause button that keeps the story from progressing, and it's hard to get invested in them when you know that nothing that happens in the alternate universe can possibly have any consequences. I struggle even to get through 'The Wish,' and that gave us evil, lesbian Willow. What saves this episode from feeling like that was the way that they managed to marry in the reveal of Andre as the real villain while raising a thousand other questions about what's been happening, then somehow taking me in with the exact same last second rug pull that wasn't even particularly fresh when they did it on Angel fifteen years ago.

What I'm really saying, I suppose, is that from an objective perspective a plot summary of this episode would read, 'Tandy takes an ambulance ride to a motel.'  In reality a lot more happened than that. What really happened this week is that we found out that Andre was also caught up in same Roxxon explosion that gave Ty and Tandy their powers. While Tandy got 'hope' and Ty got 'fear,' Andre got 'despair.' When looked at in that light, what we're seeing is exactly the same sort of power usage that we've seen Tandy and Ty use to 'go into' the hope/fear of whoever they're using their power on at that moment. The one thing added is that Andre isn't just going into his victims' despair, he's actively increasing it in his victims, because he needs to feed on the despair of others in order to stop the pain of his migraines.

I should note, I'm not a migraine sufferer myself, but I have enough friends who are that I have no trouble believing that someone would readily take that deal if it made the migraines stop.

Two things worth noting at this point. Excellent job of the show in giving us a completely abhorrent, and yet understandable and sympathetic villain. Andre has clearly made peace with what he's doing, and the fact that he helps nine out of ten women that come to him for help, only eating that tenth one, seems to keep the scales nicely balanced as far as he's concerned. Also, even more excellent job by the show in remembering that Tandy was guilty of this exact same thing during her lowest points last year, and not letting her off the hook for it. I'd been a little concerned that they'd given her a free pass on that one.

So we have three despair visions for Tandy this week, each symbolized by an LP played by Andre in the dark dimension. 'Perfect Life,' 'Fractured Family,' and 'All Alone' are the listed titles of the LPs in question. I highly recommend pausing the screen on the albums to read the track lists written on them, because they're a nice piece of prop detail work and tell interesting little stories in and of themselves.

Each of the three 'elseworlds,' for lack of a better term, attempt to break Tandy down into giving into despair, first through the idea of losing her idea of perfect happiness, then when that doesn't work through forcing her to confront inevitable catastrophe, and then finally through attacking her sense of isolation and loneliness. When none of these work, Andre/Despair realizes what's been fairly obvious to the outside observer from the get go; i.e. that Tandy is never going to be taken down by attacks on her sense of self because her sense of self just doesn't rely in any way on feeling positive about herself. That's just not who she is. Once Andre gets that, he makes the obvious play of forcing her to live through the loss of Tyrone, simultaneously tricking the viewer into thinking that that's what's really happening through the tried and true 'Aha, I've escaped from your twisted dreamscape and defeated you in the real world, oh, no, never mind this is still inside the dreamscape and I've lost now' trick.

Once Andre tries this tactic Tandy gives in almost instantly, as anyone who's been watching could have told him she would. And with that her body arrives at the Viking Motel, which is apparently the final destination for the kidnapped girls. Do all the girls have to have their hope violently removed before they arrive at the Viking? We don't know. But apparently it was necessary in Tandy's case. What's going to happen to her inside? We don't know, but now that she's given into despair it can't be anything positive.  Do all of Andre's victims have to be women?  No, that's probably just implicit sexism on either the part of Andre or the show.  Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say it's Andre.

I'm a big fan of answers that just leave you with more questions. Bring on the next episode, please.

Bits and Pieces:

-- In Tandy's perfect world, she's a ballet dancer with the Met, Ty's a cop, Connors is redeemed, Billy is alive, and even Duane is living his best life. It's strongly implied that Billy and Duane are a couple now, which was a sweet touch. If all of the 'perfect world' stuff was taken from what Tandy would want, then Tandy is a much bigger romantic than we previously knew.

-- What's the relationship between Andre's record store of despair and Ty's dark dimension? Because the record store we see here was clearly in Ty's dark dimension a couple episodes ago. Are they linked somehow? Is Andre... ahem... inside Ty?

-- The use of 'Sweet by and by' as the linking song in each alternate reality was used to nice effect when they used playing it as the reveal that the scene of Ty being shot wasn't real.

-- It's always nice to see Liam again, even schlubby everyman alternate universe Liam.

-- There's a really well done moment when Tandy is in the stolen car with Ty and begins hearing the ambulance sirens bleeding through into the fantasy and she starts chanting 'it isn't real' over and over again. It's a nicely judged moment, because of course she's talking about the siren noise which is actually real while trying to stay focused in the stolen car, which isn't. It's a small detail but I like a show that rewards closer attention to the little things.

-- I can't say how happy I was that in Tandy's perfect world, Ty was still dating Evita. Perfection, to her, did not involve acquiring Ty as a romantic partner. She was perfectly happy with them being dear friends. That was refreshing.

-- The effect of the record changing every time it was flipped over was just neat.

-- I'm happier than I can say that the resurgence of vinyl as a medium means that the kids of today can recognize that static popping sound of an LP that's run to the end. It's just such a useful sound cue.

-- In the perfect world illusion, all the framed pictures in the stairwell are of a veve I didn't recognize. I thought at first it was Andre's and that he must be a Loa or an avatar of some sort, but apparently he isn't. I'm sure that they'll tell us at some point.

-- There is a recurring Marvel villain called D'Spayre, who's sort of a demon/anthropological personification of elemental forces sort of thing.  I couldn't tell you if he's ever encountered Cloak and Dagger in the comics, but Andre doesn't seem to be related to him other than the coincidence of the name. I could, as always, be wrong.

-- My one real criticism of this episode is the problem you almost always get in alternate reality stories. In order to get across what's different in the universe in as short a time as possible, the dialogue becomes ridiculously expository. 'Well, Tandy, as you know the Roxxon explosion didn't happen when we thought it was going to and therefore your father has left town to go to Silicon Valley, leaving me to open a small transient hotel and get this cybernetic leg.'  I get why they have to do it, but it takes me right out of the drama.

Quotes:

Mr. Bowen: "Okay, fine, can we hook him up with some tickets to your ballerina-ing? Ballerama? Dance Battle?"

Ty: "Evita spilled some champagne on me. Might have had a little too much." Tandy: "I knew I liked her."

Ty: "One day, long ago, I saved your life. But every day since you’ve been saving mine."

Mina: "Yeah, I’m not explaining myself to structural engineering Barbie."

Liam: "That’s OK. Birds are people too."

Tandy: "Drive!" Ty: "Uh.. no, crazy white girl."

Andre: "Not misery, Despair. There’s a subtle but distinct difference."

Tandy: "Then I was wrong. I have one person." Andre: "I came to that same conclusion."

I really loved this episode, and I can't wait to see where this is going. Three and a half out of four crappy alternate realities.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[stretchjournalemerson]

Revisiting Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Intersectional Feminism in 2019

By Allison Hoag

Over twenty years after the series first premiered, Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains not only as a popular show in the public consciousness, but also as a hotly debated text in the academic sphere. What exactly is it about this demon-fighting, vampire-slaying, teenage girl that has captivated audiences for so long, and why has Buffy spawned so much controversy both publicly and academically? Most importantly, how should Buffy and its various implications about gender, race, and “otherness” be read in 2019?

It is undeniable that Buffy is a somewhat exclusionary narrative that directs our sympathies solely towards its overwhelmingly white and privileged characters. Any feminist inclinations this series espouses are emblematic of the equally exclusionary white feminism. However, even within these constraints—focusing only on feminism impactful to socioeconomically privileged white women—Buffy scholarship continually debates the extent of feminist messaging in the series. In 2019, surface-level white feminism alone is often not seen as enough to define a text as feminist. More and more, people are embracing Kimberle Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality as a lens through which to evaluate texts. Crenshaw suggested that both feminist and anti-racist movements exclude black women, who face the most discrimination because of the intersection of their race and gender, arguing that “feminism must include an analysis of race if it hopes to express the aspirations of non-white women” (166). This term has since expanded to include class, ability, gender identity, and sexuality in feminist critiques.

Recently, the feminist debate over Buffy has been revisited after a somewhat shocking blog post by Buffy creator Joss Whedon’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, that suggested Whedon is not the “loveable geek-feminist” he presents himself as (Cole). Despite the flaws of its creator, is there still a way for Buffy to be viewed as a feminist show? Is this a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked? In light of these revelations, I intend to reexamine Buffy through Crenshaw’s intersectional lens, focusing less on surface-level feminist readings of this series, but instead shifting the focus onto specific storylines to explore how Whedon addresses topics of gender, race, love, and rape.

***

It is not without reason that critics and fans alike have showered Buffy with feminist praise since its debut in 1997. Not only does this series make Buffy the “subject of traditionally masculine storytelling tropes…, [but] she does it all as a tiny, blonde former cheerleader…the embodiment of the girl her genre usually kills first” (Grady). Buffy takes the idea of a “strong” woman quite literally and manifests a teenage girl with superhuman strength who “must stand against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness,” as the introduction to each episode reminds us (Whedon). Buffy seems to be a show rife with positive female role models for the impressionable teen and pre-teen girls that make up its audience: Buffy is selfless and strong (physically and emotionally); Willow is kind, intelligent, and stands up for what she believes is right; Cordelia is bold and unafraid to go after what she wants; Tara is loving and is constantly helping and caring for her friends.

Buffy often addresses topics that many members of this teen audience may face, largely through its (sometimes heavy handed) metaphorical use of vampires and demons, as well as online predators (“I Robot…You, Jane”), drinking at parties (“Beer Bad”), and drug addiction (“Wrecked”). Seemingly less metaphorical, however, is its feminism. Throughout the series, Buffy repeatedly defends the whole of humanity against vampires, demons, and the like, maintains positive relationships with the other women in her life, is independent, and has (mostly) healthy romantic relationships. The overt “girl-power” theme of this show is quite clear. However, in its final season, Buffy “raises the explicit feminist stakes of the series considerably” (Pender). While in previous seasons, the metaphorical misogyny of the villains Buffy faces could be debated, season seven’s “big bad” is, “of all the show’s myriad manifestations of evil, the most recognizably misogynist” (Pender). Dubbed “Reverend-I-Hate-Women” by Xander (“Touched”), Caleb can only be defeated if Buffy teams up with and shares her power with all potential Slayers across the globe, an act that takes “female empowerment” quite literally in the series finale.

But how did Buffy get to this point? Buffy wasn’t even initially intended for the pre-teen and teenage girl demographic who would become its main audience. Knowing that this show was originally aimed at a male demographic, “it seems evident that producers did not intend to market a feminist show” (Riordan 292). Not only do some of the feminist statements in Buffy feel painfully forced, but upon deeper exploration, much of this show’s “feminism” is only surface-level and disregards Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality.

Mary Magoulick, a folklorist and Professor of English, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Women’s Studies at Georgia College (“Mary Magoulick”), explores some of the downfalls of “feminist” shows that were primarily created by men for predominantly male audiences in her article, “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy.” Magoulick argues that female heroes like Buffy that are “conceived of and written mostly by men in a still male-dominated world…project the status quo more than they fulfill feminist hopes” (729). An integral part of Magoulick’s argument is the idea that “Buffy [is] less concerned with building or celebrating a world than surviving a hostile one” (745). Although Magoulick acknowledges that recognizing the hostility women face in the world is an important part of feminist conversations, Buffy is widely praised for its progressive presentation of women, not for “presenting the troubling reality women live in” (750). Buffy continually expresses her desire to escape from her responsibilities as the Slayer and lead an average life; yet, she continues fighting vampires and demons, largely due to the pressure from her Watcher, Giles. The idea that Buffy cannot escape her situation because of a social institution—the Watcher’s Council, dominated by men and put in place to control women—provides strong textual support for Magoulick’s claim that Buffy is “reflective of current social inequities and gender roles” (750).

Ultimately Buffy escapes her duties as Slayer, sacrificing herself in the season five finale, only for her friends to later resurrect her, bringing her back from what they believe to be a hell dimension. However, Buffy confesses to Spike, “I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not…this is hell” (“After Life”), making him promise to never tell her friends. After coming back to life, Buffy almost immediately returns to her predetermined social position and initially deals with being brought back into her personal version of hell alone, wanting to protect her friends from the truth. Not only does this arc present the feminist concept of emotional labor as something inherently expected of women, but it also more directly begs the question Magoulick poses regarding the entirety of the series: “Is survival in hell, albeit with occasional victories and humor, the best [women] can imagine?” (748).

***

Magoulick promotes an argument first raised by Elyce Rae Helford that “[Buffy] is laudable for allowing women unusual space to voice and act out anger” while also sending strong implications about what kind of women are allowed to express anger (733). Of the Slayers introduced throughout the series, Buffy is the only one who is allowed to act upon her anger, and most of the time this anger is expressed towards the vampires and demons she fights, not people in her personal life. However, Kendra—a Slayer who is also a woman of color—has her anger framed in a much more negative way. Despite the lack of people of color in Buffy—or possibly because of the show’s few characters played by people of color—race and racism have become prominent topics in Buffy scholarship. A closer examination of direct and indirect racist implications in Buffy reinforces the idea that any feminist tendencies in Buffy fall strictly into the category of white feminism, and the show cannot be considered an example of the intersectional feminism pushed for in 2019.

The intersectional failings of Buffy are further explored by Kent A. Ono, a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Utah who researches representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation in print, film, and television media (“Kent A. Ono”). In his article, “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and (‘Other’) Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV,” Ono argues that Buffy “conveys debilitating images of and ideas about people of color” (163), claiming that “the valorization and heroification [sic] of a white feminist protagonist is constructed through an associated villainization and demonization of people of color” (164). Here, Ono quite literally means demonization. Most of the vampires and demons that appear on this show are played by white actors, so it is not necessarily a question of casting people of color as villains, so much as it is a question of who these villains are intended to be.

As previously established, the writers of Buffy can be somewhat aggressive with their use of metaphor; therefore, it is inarguable that, on Buffy, a vampire isn’t just a vampire. Ono argues that “the marginalization of vampires on the show takes the place of racial marginalization in the world outside the show” (172). In contrast, Magoulick presents a non-racial reading of the teenage vampires as “representative of gangs” (745). Considering the show’s overarching plot, especially the first few seasons Magoulick references when Buffy is still in high school, both of these interpretations are equally valid, and both can be supported by textual evidence. Given the history of representation of people of color on television, it is particularly disturbing that two of the major metaphorical interpretations of vampires on this show are as people of color and as gang members. It is not unreasonable to believe that Whedon and his writers were familiar with racist representations on television that were prominent in the 60s and early 70s, especially because some of these representations still exist twenty years after the show was created. With this understanding, it could be argued that vampires were equally intended to represent people who were racially marginalized and gangs. Ono argues that because the villains of Buffy were the ones chosen to represent people of color, “Buffy…indirectly and directly shows violence by primarily white vigilante youths against people of color in the name of civilization” (168), evoking images of violent white supremacy that are present throughout American history and to the present day.

However, there is a reason Ono describes the “vigilante youths” as only primarily white (168). Kendra, the previously mentioned second Slayer portrayed by Bianca Lawson who is featured in three episodes over the course of Buffy’s second season, is a black woman. Although only appearing in three episodes, Kendra is credited as “offer[ing] the most complex development of a black female character in Buffy” (Edwards 95). While this is technically true, it is important to note that her arc was fairly straightforward, and any character development is as a result of a somewhat racist narrative of acceptance only after assimilation. However, because she is one of the few examples of a prominent character who is a person of color and essentially the only person of color who works with Buffy, I will be examining her in some detail.

Ono argues that because she takes the responsibility of being the Slayer far more seriously, Kendra is a threat to Buffy, causing Buffy’s own racism to emerge. Ono specifically cites “[Buffy’s] discomfort with Kendra’s language…When Buffy uses the word wiggy and Kendra asks what that means, Buffy responds with a racist comment…‘You know, no kicko, no fighto’” (174). However, Buffy’s comment is indicative of a much larger issue in the show’s production team. “By casting Bianca Lawson, a black actress, in the role of Kendra, the second Slayer, [Whedon] makes character a sign imbued with cultural meanings about gender, race, and race relations” (Edwards 87). Kendra is marked as other not only by her skin color, but also by her heavy Jamaican accent, and she is not accepted by Buffy and her friends until she begins to assimilate, sending the message that people of color are responsible for changing themselves if they want to be accepted by white America.

It is important to note that Bianca Lawson’s casting wasn’t accidental. The script specifically delineates Kendra as an “ethnic young woman” (Edwards 91). Whedon has admitted that he did not make any efforts to hire people of color behind the scenes (Busis), so there is a possibility that the overwhelmingly white writers’ room and crew did not detect the racist treatment of Kendra. However, that in itself poses a major issue, not only socially, but also with how we’re supposed to understand the treatment of the few people of color and the metaphorical “people of color”/vampires throughout the series. The absence of people of color behind the scenes could also at least partially account for the Ono’s observation that “no person of color acknowledged as such on the series has been able to remain a significant character. All characters of color…have either died or have failed to reappear” (177).

Although she was killed off after only three episodes, as a black woman, Kendra represents the black women facing discrimination based on both race and gender that Crenshaw advocated for in developing her theory of intersectional feminism. Kendra’s treatment in Buffy is indicative of both the white feminism that will often ignore racist representations in a text because of its slight feminist messaging, and the necessity of including intersectionality in the evaluation and creation of feminist texts.

***

Buffy is filled with incredibly disturbing scenes. We watch Willow get skinned alive by a demon (“Same Time, Same Place”), Buffy’s own mother attempt to burn her at the stake (“Gingerbread”), and a demon stalk and murder sickly children in their hospital beds (“Killed by Death”). However, “Seeing Red” (2002) remains one of Buffy’s most upsetting episodes. Spike corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom and violently attempts to rape her until she is finally able to fight him off. In a recent interview, James Marsters (Spike) described his opposition to the scene, inadvertently pinpointing the reason this scene is so difficult to watch: “My argument was that, actually, when anyone is watching Buffy, they are Buffy…the audience, especially the female audience, they are not superheroes, but they are Buffy” (Marsters). This scene is particularly upsetting not only because of the content, but also because it presents many women’s worst fears—if an injured Buffy, who is still exponentially stronger than an average woman, can barely fight off Spike, what hope do they have of fighting off their attacker? Additionally, Spike is not presented as a violent vampire here: he is presented as human, making this scene more realistic and horrifying.

Wendy Fall, a doctoral candidate at Marquette University and editor of Marquette’s Gothic Archive (“Graduate Research”), discusses this scene at length in her article “Spike Is Forgiven: The Sympathetic Vampire's Resonance with Rape Culture.” She suggests that because James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire (1845) is the first English-language vampire narrative that conflates an attack and rape scene, it established a “three-part strategy [gaslighting, silencing the victim, and emphasizing the assailant’s goodness] which encouraged readers to overlook Varney’s sexual violence, and thereby increased their sympathy for him” (Fall 76). She argues that although Spike’s attempted rape technically avoids Rymer’s narrative because he does not attempt to bite Buffy and is never even seen as a vampire, “The more problematic nature of this attack…is in what happens next, when the show adopts similar narrative schemes to Rymer’s to reinforce sympathy for Spike after his attempted sexual assault” (Fall 76).

Fall points out that there are only three more episodes in season six following Spike’s attempted rape, followed by a four-month gap between seasons, prompting the audience to forget how violent and serious it was (77). Not only are Spike and Buffy not seen together for the rest of the season, but they are separated because attempting to rape Buffy acts as a catalyst for Spike’s quest to get his soul back. This gives the audience time to develop sympathy for Spike as they watch him go through painful trials as he tries to recover his soul, while diminishing the severity of the attempted rape in their minds—because, surely, someone willing to go to this extent to obtain their soul and be a better person would never have acted as violently as he did.

Fall argues that Buffy also follows Varney’s narrative strategy of silencing the victim because “the show’s writers seem unwilling to allow the characters to have further discussion on the topic; Buffy never tells anyone the full story, and after this scene, she rarely mentions it again” (78). Fall further claims that “they had access to a strong female character and the opportunity to address her experience of trauma, but they opt not to pursue it” (78). Surely, at least part of the reason we never see Buffy attempting to deal with the emotional aftermath of someone she trusted trying to rape her is because the larger narrative suggests a degree of victim blaming that cannot coexist with holding Spike accountable for his actions. Prior to this scene, Buffy and Spike had been having a consensual sexual relationship, and Buffy attributes the start of this relationship to her “bad kissing decisions” (“Smashed”), so “when Spike attempts to rape her, it seems like an inevitable consequence of her poor decisions” (Nichol).

Finally, Fall suggests that Buffy completes this pattern when it “adopts a narrative strategy that redirects attention away from sexual violence by emphasizing the assailant’s positive contributions” (80). Not only does the rest of season six focus on Spike’s attempt to regain a soul, but the early episodes of season seven also show Spike as psychologically damaged as he comes to terms with the harm he caused as a vampire, putting Buffy and the audience in a position to want to pity Spike when we next see Spike and Buffy interact. Fall suggests that this plotline goes further than simply asking the audience to excuse the fact that this character tried to rape someone. She argues that “the vampire narrative’s memory-altering strategies are also deployed to reinforce rape culture, mostly in the cases of assailants who have sufficient financial power to reframe their own narratives to emphasize their better deeds” (Fall 83). This narrative is everywhere, especially after it became widely acceptable, even expected, to report on the #MeToo movement. It’s unfortunate that this supposedly feminist show perpetuates and validates this narrative that has successfully allowed so many rapists to escape legal scrutiny; Brock Turner’s swimming career comes to mind as a relatively recent example. While Fall ends her article on a relatively hopeful note, providing research stating that articles—like hers—that challenge rape myths can make people more likely to believe survivors than assailants (83), arguments for forgiving Spike still abound.

In 2017, Alyssa Rosenberg, an opinion writer for the Washington Post who covers culture and politics (“Alyssa Rosenberg”), made a case for why both Buffy and the audience should have a more forgiving view of Spike. In her article, “On ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” we fell for the Slayer along with Angel, Riley and Spike," Rosenberg specifically addresses this scene as a “horrifying…illustration that Spike’s gestures are not the same as moral reform” (Rosenberg); however, she identifies it as “the catalyst for a quest that ends with Spike…earning back his soul and sacrificing himself to save the world” (Rosenberg). Rosenberg’s argument falls flat in a way many rapist-apology narratives do. She directly acknowledges the horror of the narrative, both literally in the scene and also in the audience’s minds as they grapple with the fact that this character who is supposedly trying to reform himself can still do something this violent; yet, she quickly glosses over it. Rosenberg immediately dives into how trying to rape Buffy influenced Spike to become a better person, without addressing how it affected Buffy—the actual victim. She highlights that Whedon’s integration of the narrative tactics Rymer introduced to get the audience to want to forgive Spike were effective.

Rosenberg argues that although Spike “commits some of the show’s cruelest acts…he sacrifices the most in an attempt to atone for his sins” (Rosenberg). She additionally characterizes his arc following his attempted rape of Buffy as “a journey that encourages us to think about the conditions under which even someone guilty of heinous acts can perform genuine penance and achieve real redemption” (Rosenberg). Interestingly, her choice of the word “penance” invokes a religious underscoring that implies that once he has performed this penance, Buffy, and by extension, the audience who identifies with her, have no choice but to forgive him. Additionally, none of the “penance” Rosenberg describes is directed towards Buffy. Spike undoubtedly goes through physically and emotionally painful trials as he attempts to regain his soul; however, this is not so much penance as it is a self-centered act. Spike believes that getting a soul might make Buffy finally love him, eventually “becom[ing] a legitimate romantic interest after the near-rape incident” (Nichol).

Rosenberg claims that Buffy “explored where evil and misogyny come from and urged us to fight them,” while simultaneously “ask[ing] those of us who loved Buffy and identified with her to contemplate grace and forgiveness” (Rosenberg). She technically is not wrong here, Whedon absolutely positions us to want to forgive Spike. However, I would venture to argue that the question up for debate is not so much the question Rosenberg poses of are we put in a position to forgive him, as it is, should we be put in a position to forgive him. Buffy is intended to be a role model for the pre-teen and teenage girls who watch the series. Yet, here, it sends a very damaging message: if you have a consensual sexual relationship with someone without loving them, you’re responsible if they attempt to rape you; but even if someone tries to rape you, you should easily forgive them and possibly begin a romantic relationship with them because they may change.

***

In the past few years, the public feminist conversation has shifted towards embracing Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. This has therefore influenced the ways we read all texts, even texts such as Buffy that were created after Crenshaw’s paper was first published but before intersectionality was a major concern of the feminist movement. Additionally, the #MeToo movement has revealed the prevalence of the abuse of power by men in all sectors, but notably in Hollywood. Joss Whedon admittedly “didn’t make a point of hiring female directors…[or] people of color’” (Busis); explicitly equated a woman unable to have children with the Hulk—yes, that Hulk (Yang); and, as recently as 2015, refused to call himself a feminist (Busis). The combination of these two public paradigm shifts, closer examinations of Whedon both personally and as a creator, as well as Kai Cole’s disturbing essay about her ex-husband has many people questioning what Whedon’s work can add to the cultural conversation surrounding feminism in 2019. Is the problematic nature of Joss Whedon a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked?

Joss Whedon has made his name creating and writing shows featuring strong female characters. However, he does not seem to understand that “having a girl beat up guys is not equivalent to a strong female character when they always, constantly depend on men” (Simons). Yet, he has still managed to create a career and profit off of television’s lack of actual strong female characters, catering to a largely underserved audience who hoped to see any sort of feminist ideas in fictional television. “Whedon’s openly feminist agenda, frequently mentioned in interviews, has provided an interpretive framework for much Buffy scholarship” (Berridge 478). Whedon pushes this narrative and the public’s perception of him as a well-meaning feminist, while refusing to be labeled as such “because suddenly that’s the litmus test for everything you do…if you don’t live up to the litmus test of feminism in this one instance, then you’re a misogynist” (Busis). It’s upsetting for fans of Buffy to realize that its creator feels that unless he is overtly espousing feminist ideas, his writing will be seen as misogynistic—which, it has been, he’s been criticized for both his Avengers: Age of Ultron script (Yang) and his rejected Wonder Woman script (White).

Although his public persona is that of a feminist, a closer look at his work and his personal life tells a very different story. In a commentary DVD extra for the second season of Buffy, Whedon discusses writing the script for the initial confrontation between Buffy and Angelus, saying “It felt icky that I could make him say these things. It felt icky and kind of powerful. It was very uncomfortable and very exciting for me to do it” (Nichol). This short piece of commentary is a perfect metaphor for Whedon’s career. He’s trying to be seen as “more” of a feminist by claiming he had no idea how he could write a scene where his heroine is eviscerated by her (newly-evil) boyfriend after having sex with him. However, he’s actually taking what could’ve been a moment to discuss the prevalence of slut shaming in our culture and refocusing it on himself.

Not only has his work contained misogynistic and offensive language toward women, but according to his ex-wife, Kai Cole’s, guest blog on The Wrap, he has also had several inappropriate affairs “with his actresses, co-workers, fans, and friends” (Cole). Aside from cheating on his wife, as creator and producer of several prominent series—at least in terms of his actresses, co-workers, and fans—it could be argued that he objectively had more power in these situations. This begs the question of exactly how consensual these affairs were and how much, if any, (possibly unintentional) coercion may have been involved. Furthermore, Cole says he wrote her a letter trying to excuse these affairs, explaining that he “was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women” (Cole), and blaming them, rather than taking responsibility for his actions. This pattern of blame is unsettlingly close to the blame Buffy endures for her relationship with Spike.

***

Despite the shortcomings of both this show and its creator, Buffy was, and remains, a prominent series in the lives of many of the pre-teen and teenage girls who have watched and grown with Buffy and her friends since its 1997 premiere—this author included. However, as we become more educated on certain cultural topics, we—especially those of us in positions of power and privilege—are often forced to reconcile our love of certain texts with their more problematic aspects.

I began this essay with a very different conception of Buffy than I have now. Admittedly, I bought into the allure of this series’ surface-level feminism and girl power when I was watching it for the first time. Sure, it was sometimes overtly problematic, but the positive aspects seemed to outweigh the negatives. I thought that this essay would reveal the surface-level feminism of Buffy ran much deeper than I originally realized—not the opposite. A closer examination of Buffy has revealed that the issues with this series are far more serious than its creator’s personal failings. Reading Buffy as a cultural text exposes a series of disturbing messages. Moreover, even when it does put forth feminist ideas, they often fall under the more exclusionary sect of white feminism, completely ignoring Crenshaw’s proposed intersectionality, which had been published nearly a decade before Buffy’s premiere.

The question of how Buffy should be read in 2019 is a question that has been repeated a lot recently: Can the Harvey Weinstein’s films still be appreciated? What about The Cosby Show? Or shows affiliated with Fox Broadcasting, and, therefore, Roger Ailes? While some argue that these men and any texts or media associated with them should be “cancelled,” others call for a separation between the artist and the art. However, I would argue that, at least for Buffy, it is not so much about separating the artist from the art as it is about recognizing the art for what it is—its limits included.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my mom for proofreading all 4,500-odd words of this and catching the many mistakes I missed. I would also like to profusely thank Mary Kovaleski Byrnes for her support, guidance, and the much-needed periodic confidence boosts.

Works Cited

“After Life.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 3, UPN, 9 Oct. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/70c15619-2955-499f-b1ca-48bb650ad68f.

"Alyssa Rosenberg." The Washington Post, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/people/alyssa-rosenberg/?utm_term=.29211618cb7b. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

“Beer Bad.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 5, The WB, 2 Nov. 1999. Hulu,www.hulu.com/watch/6ce16885-24ba-48b0-b729-b01c3b52213d.

Berridge, Susan. "Teen heroine TV: narrative complexity and sexual violence in female-fronted teen drama series." New Review of Film & Television Studies, vol. 11, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 477-96. ESCOhost, doi:10.1080/17400309.2013.809565.

“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2, episode 16, The WB, 10 Feb. 1998. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/4569c5ed-aebc-4cea-86ce-8e05f2fbef4f.

Busis, Hillary. "Joss Whedon Declares Himself a "Woke Bae"." Vanity Fair, 10 Mar. 2017, www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/03/joss-whedon-woke-bae-feminism-buffy-the-vampire-slayer.

Crenshaw, Kimberle. "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist

Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics." University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1989, no. 1, 1989, pp. 139-67, chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8.

Cole, Kai. "Joss Whedon Is a ‘Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,’ Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says (Guest Blog)." The Wrap, Aug. 2017, www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/.

Edwards, Lynne. “Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatta in Buffy.” Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox and

David Lavery, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002, pp. 85–97.

Elison, Meg. "The Non-Toxic Masculinity of Rupert Giles." Syfy Wire, 17 June 2018, www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-non-toxic-masculinity-of-rupert-giles.

Fall, Wendy. "Spike Is Forgiven: The Sympathetic Vampire's Resonance with Rape Culture." Slayage, vol. 48, Summer/Fall 2018, pp. 68-86. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f3h&AN=133526410&site=eds-live.

“Gingerbread.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 3, episode 11, The WB, 12 Jan. 1999. Hulu,www.hulu.com/watch/666ff3b9-c7d6-4f5f-adaf-3483ce8add76.

"Graduate Research." Marquette University, Marquette University, 2018, www.marquette.edu/english/research-graduate.php. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

Grady, Constane. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer's feminism is still subversive, 20 years later." Vox, 10 Mar. 2017, www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/10/14868588/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-feminism-20th-anniversary.

“I Robot…You, Jane.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1, episode 8, The WB, 28 Apr. 1997. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/6232c153-896e-4d99-b152-9feed2f99fd1.

"Kent A. Ono." University of Utah Profiles, University of Utah, faculty.utah.edu/u0849982-Kent_A._Ono/hm/index.hml.

“Killed by Death.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2, episode 18, The WB, 3 Mar. 1998. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/75cb8a45-13ec-4b44-91a3-920d85cc6908.

Luria, Rachel. “Nothing Left but Skin and Cartilage: The Body and Toxic Masculinity.” Sexual Rhetoric in the Works of Joss Whedon: New Essays, edited by Erin B. Waggoner,

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010, pp. 185-193.

Magoulick, Mary. "Frustrating female heroism: Mixed messages in Xena. Nikita, and Buffy." Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 39, no. 5, Oct. 2006, pp. 729-55. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao& AN=edsgcl.153778141&site=eds-live.

Marsters, James. “Buffy’s James Marsters on the hardest day of his professional life.” The A.V. Club, 9 Mar. 2017, https://tv.avclub.com/buffy-s-james-marsters-on-the-hardest-day-of-his-profes-1798258915.

"Mary Macgoulick." Folklore Connections, Georgia College & State University, 1 Apr. 2001, faculty.gcsu.edu/custom-website/mary-magoulick/.

Nicol, Rhonda. “When You Kiss Me, I Want to Die”: Arrested Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight Series. Gale, Cengage Learning. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e dsglr&AN=edsgcl.H1100110197&site=eds-live.

Ono, Kent A. “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and (‘Other’) Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV.” Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television, edited by Elyce Rae Helford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000, pp. 163–186.

Pender, Patricia. "Buffy Summers: Third-Wave Feminist Icon." The Atlantic, 31 July 2016, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/07/how-buffy-became-a-third-wave-feminist-icon/493154/.

Riordan, Ellen. "Commodified agents and empowered girls: consuming and producing feminism." Journal of Communication Inquiry, vol. 25, no. 3, July 2001, pp. 279-97. EBSCOhost, proxy.emerson.edu/login?url=search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.78260548&site=eds-live.

Rosenberg, Alyssa. "On ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ we fell for the Slayer along with Angel,Riley and Spike." Editorial. The Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2017/03/10/on-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-we-fell-for-the-slayer-along-with-angel-riley-and-spike/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.90b458f0de94.

“Same Time, Same Place.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 3, UPN, 8 Oct. 2002. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/f9a3b884-b72b-4bef-81e4-bcd95b002608.

Simons, Natasha. "Reconsidering the Feminism of Joss Whedon." The Mary Sue, edited by Kaila

Hale-Stern and Dan Van Winkle, Dan Abrams, 10 Apr. 2011, www.themarysue.com/ reconsidering-the-feminism-of-joss-whedon/.

“Smashed.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 9, UPN, 20 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/7728e9d5-e05d-4be3-ac93-d8792a018e54.

“Touched.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 20, UPN, 6 May 2003. Hulu,www.hulu.com/watch/ba2c6e7c-b015-47d2-8c62-4f16be64c579.

Whedon, Joss. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The WB and UPN, 1997-2003.

White, Adam. "Five time Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed 'woke bae', blew his feminist credentials." The Telegraph, edited by Martin Chilton, The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/joss-whedon-5-times-blew-feminist-credentials/.

“Wrecked.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 10, UPN, 27 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/661f80ab-5cdc-426f-a494-283b03cf2ca6.

Yang, Jeff. "Is Joss Whedon a feminist?" Editorial. CNN Wire, 8 May 2015. EBSCOhost, www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/opinions/yang-joss-whedon-feminism/index.html.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Ruby Rose

This is a reposting from Sept. 22nd, 2017 in an effort to get all my recaps onto tumblr. Thanks!

I am combat ready! Or at least writing ready. For ages now I've wanted to tackle a comprehensive recap/analysis of each RWBY webisode and what better time to start then a few weeks before Volume 5? Though I'll mostly be sticking to plot points as they occur chronologically, any new RWBY viewers should be aware that recaps will include spoilers, mostly in the form of referencing foreshadowing and parallels. Read at your own risk. 

Let's get started.

Our series technically opens with four trailers (which you can no more skip than Doctor Who fans can skip Nine), but for the purposes of this recap we're saying that we start the show off with an origin tale. A fairy tale, if you will. Our very first shot is of a high tower decked out in green, beacon-like lights that I'm sure are in no way symbolic standing atop it.

Our narrator, an unknown woman, begins with a cryptic message:

“Legends, stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts of a forgotten past.”

Obviously not everyone has forgotten these legends, considering that she's the one telling us them, but right from the start there's a dichotomy set up. There are people, humans, who view the past as something that inherently includes them. Any myths that are passed down are about humans--they're the "exploits of heroes and villains." However, this woman reminds us that there was an existence long before mankind was created; that the world, its history, and its power is far more vast than we're willing to acknowledge. Or able to. 

We're small in comparison. We're just "remnants" of something far larger.

(Also, interestingly, note the "we" in "we are remnants." We learn a lot about Salem later on and no matter how she might look or act, she seems to view herself as human.)

From there on we're given the story of man's creation. Born from dust into an "unforgiving world" already populated by monsters, were it not for their discovery of certain elements--a power that they named "dust" after their own origins--they never would have survived, let alone flourished. Power allowed for civilization. As the story supposedly resolves, we get a change in animation style, moving from the story-book imagery to the real world. The focus on a shattered moon suggests that, despite humanity’s success, things are not all peachy-keen.

Also, enter these guys.

This is Roman and I just love his entrance. RWBY is a show that is very overt in its tropes and homages, and though there's complexity later on, for now Roman and his goons are pretty straight-forward. They're Bad. How do we know they're Bad? Because they're creeping out of the shadows late at night. We've got this guy smoking in an age where the habit is thoroughly demonized. All his goons are pretty identical in true, gangster fashion and Roman himself is the most flamboyantly dressed, drawing on a long (and very problematic) tradition of queer-coding villains. He's wearing a bowler hat for heaven's sake, which is basically just a step up from a fedora.

He's also a redhead. That'll be important.... later.

For now, Roman struts down the street (giving us a hilarious first-look at RWBY's silhouette background characters) and Salem changes her tone, suddenly sounding far more menacing as she lays out humanity's inevitable destruction. All lights "flicker and die" and we're warned that "there will be no victory in strength." The only thing that keeps the scene from becoming depression central is the introduction of a new voice, a man's that--if you're paying attention--you'll recognize later in the episode:

"But perhaps victory is in the smaller things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul."

Pan down to this cutie.

Wow! I wonder who the small, honest soul could be? 

(Also take note of the ad on the back of the magazine: the Schnee logo with the tagline "The Finest of them All." Weiss, based off of Snow White, is therefore "the fairest of them all." Or at least she thinks she is.)

Roman barges in and starts talking about how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late which... raises a number of questions for me? Like why they're looking for a dust shop that's open at all. Why not just wait until everything is closed down and then rob the place? It certainly wouldn't be hard to break in. Given what we know of the villains' larger plans in Volume 3, it could be that they want to sow fear in the people of Vale by committing robberies in plain sight (recall the horrified background characters as Roman walks by), but if so why not actually attack in broad daylight? Overall it just seems like a strange comment.

We're given our first glimpse of Roman as an ambivalent villain as he refuses the shopkeeper's money. He's here only to complete his mission of stealing dust, not entirely wipe the guy out so... yay, I guess?

One of the goons notices our little red riding hood and pulls a sword on her, which is kind of hilarious. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because right after that a different goon pulls out a gun which is obviously the more logical weapon here. But no. Goon #1 needs his massive, red sword to threaten the small child with.

Small Child is not impressed.

"Are you robbing me?"

"Yes!"

"Ooooh."

And she proceeds to kick him from the back of the store all the way into the far wall.

Let's take a moment to appreciate Roman's dafaq face here:

This is a technique nearly two decades old. Everyone knows the story of how Buffy got started. Whedon wanted a stereotypical heroine--small, cute, blonde--but who, rather than getting killed by the monster in the alleyway, ends up being the very thing that the monster should fear. It's an oldie now, but a goodie. We're presented with this tiny, adorable girl who is characterized as a victim, only to find that she's the one with the most power. Not only can she kick a full-grown man across a room, she's got some crazy weaponry tucked away too.

This is, by definition, a badass moment.

As we see in the ensuing fight this little girl is very proficient with her scythe. There's a great moment as her headphones play "This Will Be the Day" diegetically, only for the song to move into non-diegetic soundtrack, and then back to diegetic music as she turns off her headphones and... they disappear? Presumably she has pockets.

Iffy animation aside, RWBY seems like the kind of world that would give its girls pockets.

Roman: "Okay... get her."

That little moment of confusion--Roman's disbelieving "Okay?"--seems a little like inconsistent world-building. Certainly he knows that Signal and Beacon aren't too far from here, meaning that there are lots of teenagers around, Huntsmen and Huntresses in training that are capable of kicking his henchmen's ass. Is he just thrown off guard by this girl's (even younger) age? Who can say.

Regardless, she handles all the goons with ease. Ruby (yeah, let's just use all names for simplicity's sake) has a direct and efficient fighting style. This is our first glimpse into the maturity hiding behind a seemingly immature outer shell. Ruby doesn't take the time to taunt the goons or get all flashy with her fighting, she just takes them out, pure and simple, something that young and confident heroes often struggle with. Roman proves a little harder though when his cane turns out to be a gun.

Lesson One: pretty much everything in RWBY is a gun. Cane? Gun. Scythe? Gun. Thermos? Gun! That lamp? Probably also a gun.  

As Roman escapes we get another glimpse of Ruby's priorities when she asks the storekeeper, "Are you okay if I go after him?" It's a small but wonderful moment that tells us Ruby isn't a hero who wants to fight for the sake of fighting, at least outside of friendly competitions. Had the storekeeper been injured or needed her for some other reason, Ruby would have held his needs above just catching the bad guys. That's important.

So, having gotten the a-okay, Ruby chases Roman up to the rooftops and we hear his annoyed (yet impressed?) mutter of, "Persistent." Just as they're about to duke it out again an airship arrives that Roman boards, throwing out a dust crystal that explodes when he shoots it. It looks like Ruby might have been caught in the blast, but at the last possible second Glynda Mother-F***ing Goodwitch arrives to save the day.

Why was she out in town this late at night? How did she feel seeing some tiny child fighting a notoriously wanted criminal up on the rooftop? These are questions only fanfic can answer. The point is that Glynda saves Ruby not once, but twice, all while exhibiting a truly impressive amount of power. It's here that we first get to see not just fantasy weapons, but what we might term magic (in what will quickly become a fairly convoluted magical system). It isn’t until later that we realize others don’t consider Glynda’s abilities to be magic, though given what we now know about semblances and their assumed connection to Humanity 1.0, it’s perhaps no coincidence that the audience is meant to think this is magic at first glance. But telekinesis--the ability to manipulate anything from objects to the weather itself--is staggering nonetheless and the show should really give Glynda something else to do with her power besides fixing craters and broken buildings. Or just bring her back, period. 

Glynda even makes a little "Humph" sound when she blocks the blast like, "Please. You'll have to try harder than that."

They do.

Roman yells to the pilot that they have a "Huntress" to deal with and we're given glimpses of a more important villain: fancy dress, high heels, strange tattoo on her back, and an affinity for fire. She's deemed important simply by the fact that the 'camera' always keeps her face hidden from view, inviting speculation as to who she is and what her motives are. Though she and Glynda seem pretty evenly matched (with Ruby joining in to help), Roman flies them out of there before things get more heated. Pun intended.

As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that, in retrospect, we did just see magic with Cinder... which we then assume for a very long stretch was her semblance given what we quickly learn about Glynda. You can see why this stuff gets muddled. The fact that Ruby, a bright and fighting obsessed girl, doesn’t seem to think it odd that someone can shoot fire just hammers home how not magic-y these abilities read to characters in world. Until the plot suddenly wants them to. AKA bird anger. 

Regardless, as the viewer cheers at the rarity of three women dominating a fight scene, Ruby has bigger things to think about. Like the fact that Glynda is a Huntress and Ruby just has to have an autograph.

Cut from this:

To this:

Humor aside, this actually does a lot for situating what a Huntress is in the viewer's mind. We might not have an exact definition yet, but we know two important things: they're on the side of our small hero (Glynda protects Ruby) and they're regarded as at least minor celebrities. In short, they're the Big Good to the mysterious Big Bad.

They’re also, as we’re about to see, subject to the law. 

But back to Ruby. See that spotlight? Glynda has this 15yo girl in an interrogation room, prowling about while lecturing that she "put herself and others in grave danger." Interesting. What others were in danger? Civilians? Looks like everyone else cleared the streets once Roman showed up. The shopkeeper? As said, Ruby was very careful about making sure he was okay. Normally I’d be 100% on Glynda’s side here, but I think Ruby actually acted very maturely given the circumstances. Especially considering that she’s right: they started it. Glynda’s generic reprimands might imply that there are many non-Huntsmen trained fighters out there making a mess of things (at least by Glynda's standards). Certainly we later see conflict between trained Huntsmen/Huntresses and those who learned to fight "outside the kingdom." 

Also... just reminding everyone... that Glynda uses a riding crop. Rooster Teeth had to know the can of worms they were opening with that little choice. If you don't want porn of the deputy headmistress and various other characters, don't dress her like a dominatrix and give her lines like, "I'd have sent you home with a pat on the back... and a slap on the wrist!"

Glynda is very serious that Ruby would be in big trouble if it weren't for the fact that a certain someone wants to meet her. Enter my trash fave:

Ozpin.

He's basically Dumbledore if he actually had better justifications for his iffy decisions and looked like a hot 30yo. My priorities aside, more fascinating questions start cropping up. How long has Ruby been held in this room? What was that conversation between Glynda and Ozpin like--Hey, I found this random child who nearly took out a whole criminal gang, that seems like your kind of thing? Why does Ozpin arrive with a full plate of chocolate chip cookies? Did he bake them himself? Does Ruby ever get Glynda’s autography?

These kinds of questions are the lifeblood of fandom.

As an aside, I'm a complete animation snob. I've been spoiled by too many great artists to immediately accept just anything you throw up on screen. When I first watched this episode and saw Crunchy Roll's review that RWBY is "lovely to look at" my response was, "...seriously?" This moment, when Ozpin gives Ruby the cookies and they proceed to just disappear as they approach her mouth was my breaking point for a while. I had to be talked into watching more... and I'm so glad I was. Now, after years with these characters, I have a much deeper appreciation for the art style and the beauty that RWBY contains. Now the cookie scene is just straight up funny to me.

Back to plot though. Ozpin introduces himself by introducing Ruby. We get her name for the first time and as Ozpin peers down at her he says, "You have... silver eyes," which confuses Ruby and has the viewer nodding sagely. Yep. That'll come back later.

Ozpin reviews Ruby's fight and wants to know where she learned all that. More specifically, he wants to know who taught her to use "one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed," which is another fascinating moment that I think is largely overlooked by the fandom. Ruby is living in a world chock-full of crazy dangerous weaponry. Already we've seen a gun-cane and a riding crop used as a wand. The fact that Ozpin labels Ruby's sniper-scythe as one of the most dangerous not only re-emphasizes her skill, but hints that the scythe may be a particularly powerful weapon... one even he might favor. Though we later get to see Ozpin fight with his cane and he clearly prefers that form, we've yet to get a full explanation for those gears in it:

In retrospect after Volume 6, there’s little evidence that his cane turns into a full other weapon, but it was an cool theory for a while. 

Ruby says proudly that her Uncle Qrow taught her everything and that she's currently a student at Signal Academy.

Ozpin: "And what's an adorable girl like you doing at a school designed to train warriors?"

Ruby: "Well... I want to be a Huntress."

Ozpin: "You want to slay monsters?"

Ruby: "Yeah."

Ruby launches into an excited speech about following in her big sister's footsteps, looking for a career that's more "romantic" than the police, and above all getting to help people. Watching Ozpin in this scene gives us a pretty clear view into his thoughts: his shock at Ruby's proficiency with the scythe, making sure he's reading the situation correctly (this small, adorable child wants to fight evil?), his look of approval as Ruby tries to explain her thinking. There's even what I read as a little test. "You want to slay monsters?" A major theme in RWBY is that people are the real monster, the biggest threat, and it takes Ruby a long time to learn that. To semi-quote Sirius, the world isn't split into good people and Grimm. Though Ruby doesn't realize this yet--she just implies that she wants to fight Grimm--her skill and pure intentions (which will come into play later during "Mountain Glenn") are enough for Ozpin to offer her a place at Beacon two years early. As we learn later, as an added bonus this also helps keep her safe. Those with silver eyes are hunted and Ruby has not been keeping a low profile. 

"You want to come to my school? Well... okay."

One of these teachers is happier about this situation than the other.

It’s pretty amazing though.

Yang thinks it's amazing too. We jump ahead an unspecified amount of time to meet Ruby's half-sister on the airship to Beacon. I adore their interaction here because so often media limits sibling relationships to arguing and competition. Not so with these two. Yang isn't at all jealous that her little sister is getting special treatment. Ruby is the only one with issues:

Ruby: "I got moved ahead two years... I just don't want people to think I'm special or anything."

Yang: "But you are special."

Ruby just wants to be a normal girl with normal knees. No bee's knees allowed.

As Ruby begins struggling with her new situation we get Roman's name in a news bulletin, along with a hilariously different art style.

We also get reference to people called "Faunus" who possess animal traits, their civil rights movement, and the violent organization called the White Fang that recently interfered in a peaceful protest. The bulletin is cut off by a holographic Glynda's welcome.

Yang: "Who's that?"

Glynda's hologram introduces herself immediately after, but I find it funny that Ruby doesn't even look like she's going to try and answer. As if she hadn't met and fought alongside Glynda just a little while ago. Also. Ruby knew exactly who Ozpin was. Didn't have a clue about Glynda. Poor Professor Goodwitch does all the work around Beacon and receives none of the credit lol.  

I actually really like Glynda's speech here though. She's welcoming to the students without coddling them. Like other shows with children entering combat, RWBY lets the viewer know that we can't always apply our real-world morality to these situations. These kids might be young--17 years old and 15 in Ruby's case--but they're going to be treated like adults for as long as that’s logical. As we’ll see later though, there’s a distinct difference between responsibility inside school and out... 

Right before our pilot ends we're introduced to Jaune, or the name we know him by so far, "Vomit Boy." The webisode ends on a light note with Jaune getting puke on Yang's shoes and the two sisters freaking out about it. We're also given our first, gorgeous look at Beacon:

Now that’s animation I can get behind. Everything is light and happy. Ah, they have no idea the horror that's coming for them. Just wait until Volume 3.

Until then, 💚