titsgirlbuffy

[titsgirlbuffy]

love how in all his appearances on btvs angel just kind of always looks like he has a rock in his shoe and is awkwardly waiting for a good time to take off his shoe and dump it out but the time never comes so he just perpetually has to deal with the feeling of a rock in his shoe

[titsgirlbuffy]

Buffy Summers is my favorite character on Buffy and (with a couple of exceptions that I prefer to put down to bad writing) I will always find her sympathetic, but. The only reading of the second half of Season 7 that makes any sense to me at all is that we are supposed to think Buffy is doing a pretty bad job of taking care of the Potentials, and that this is why they all end up choosing to gamble on Faith's leadership instead of hers. Like, yes, obviously Empty Places is a badly written episode and the central conflict isn't motivated very well and Dawn kicking Buffy out of her own house is absurd.

But I mean ... look, let's just pick a few of Buffy's inspiring speeches at random, shall we?

From Showtime, in which Buffy 'inspires' the Potentials by ... uh, fighting a powerful vampire while reminding them all how much stronger than them she is:

"Looks good [for the Turok-Han Buffy's about to fight], doesn't it? [The Potentials] are trapped in here. Terrified [...] and there's nothing they can do but wait. That's all they've been doing for days. Waiting to be picked off. Having nightmares about monsters that can't be killed. But I don't believe in that. I always find a way. I'm the thing that monsters have nightmares about. And right now, you and me are gonna show 'em why."

Or from Potential, the very next episode, when Buffy follows that up by telling the Potentials over and over again how likely they are to die:

"You’re all going to die. But you knew that already because that’s the cool reward for being human. […] Don’t kid yourselves, you guys. This whole thing is all about death. You think you’re different because you might be the next Slayer? Death is what a Slayer breathes, what a Slayer dreams about when she sleeps. Death is what a Slayer lives. […] The odds are against us. Time is against us. And some of us will die in this battle."

And from Get It Done, speaking after they just found out that a young Potential called Chloe killed herself:

"Anyone want to say a few words about Chloe? Let me. Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. And anyone in a rush to be the next dead body I bury, it's easy. Just…think of Chloe, and do what she did. […] I'm the slayer. The one with the power. […] I've been carrying you - all of you - too far, too long. Ride's over."

See also, Buffy's speech in Selfless ("there's just me ... I am the law".) See also her admission in Conversations With Dead People that she thinks she's better than all the guys she's ever dated.

To me, it feels obvious that the intended arc of this season, however imperfectly executed, is that Buffy has a sense of herself as uniquely and especially "the one with the power'", but that she's never had any real leadership or mentorship role before and she doesn't know how to use that power to look after all of the Potentials. That she's afraid she won't be able to protect them all and so doesn't want to make emotional connections with them and tells herself (and them) over and over that some of them are going to die no matter what and they just have to accept that. That she tries to keep them at arm's length and hide how badly their deaths actually do affect her, and that she adopts a protective tough-love approach which backfires spectacularly. And that eventually she realizes this approach isn't working and that she should be trying to share her power with them instead of using it to tell them what to do.

And yet so many people on here seem to think that when the Potentials get (understandably) upset about this -- upset about being called weak and stupid by a woman who barely seems to know their names and can't seem to stop reminding them that she has power and that they don't -- that we're meant to think "oh, they are all so ungrateful and unpleasant and Buffy is a saint for taking such good care of them anyway". That her "arc" this season is that she is perfect and doesn't need to learn anything and doesn't have to change in any way, all while people keep giving her shit for literally no reason.

And I just don't see how that makes sense! I just don't find it an interesting narrative and I don't really see how the show itself supports it. The Buffy Summers who gives the speeches I quoted above wouldn't think of sharing her power with others. That's an idea she only comes to when she realizes that being "the thing that monsters have nightmares about" is no substitute for being a good leader and making real connections with other people.

[titsgirlbuffy]

the jealousy and gay tension in this scene is so palpable that it is practically a material entity

[titsgirlbuffy]

[titsgirlbuffy]

Just thought to myself "can't women have a bad time in fiction without rape being involved" which really shows you how much you're in the fucking trenches if you are both a horror fan and women fan

[titsgirlbuffy]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer -  6x17 “Normal Again” Outtake

[titsgirlbuffy]

I love Angel because they’re like

“David Boreanaz, can you do an Irish accent?”

“No?”

“Okay great, get him into hair and makeup.”

and then kept doing that for like 8 years

[titsgirlbuffy]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent power fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of whump, and/or hooking up with various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization that I personally don't like (I have neither the time nor the desire to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[titsgirlbuffy]

It truly is a shame that everything leading up to Jasmine is so entirely shit. Like were it not for the shitshow that was the episodes preceding her I do think Jasmine would be remembered as one of the best villains of the Buffyverse. They COOKED with those 4 or so episodes she was in. Sadly the seventeen episodes preceding her are full of some of the worst writing imaginable.

[titsgirlbuffy]

Watching seasons 2 & 3 of Angel and man. Gunn was NEVER just the muscle. He is SO SMART he is CONSTANTLY figuring things out. He's the one who finds the flaws in Darla's story and points them out to Kate. He's the one who figures out where Drusilla took Darla's body. We see him constantly come up with cover stories so good he's the one charged with calling hospitals looking for people in Cordy's visions. He's perceptive and intuitive and he's SOOOO clever. Yes next to Angel he's probably the best fighter of the group but my man you were NEVER just the muscle.

[titsgirlbuffy]

[titsgirlbuffy]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER REWATCH -> Killed By Death (2.18)

[titsgirlbuffy]

what i love very much about buffy as a show is it seems like you cant say "they shouldve been at the club" because they were, critically, at the club literally all the time. however, despite this, and i can't emphasize this enough, oh my god, they shouldve been at the club. especially buffy herself. no one shouldve been at the club more. and she WAS. however, in the ways that are important, she also was not

[titsgirlbuffy]

hate this weird trend of shows and stuff being written with shipping and fandom in mind. um get thee hell out of that writer's room if i'm being fully honest

[titsgirlbuffy]

who is the most transgender character in buffy the vampire slayer

[titsgirlbuffy]

was thinking about btvs 5x10 and how puzzling it is to me that buffy runs after riley to try to catch him before he leaves and how strange it is that she chooses to do that right after xander has finished telling her how not in love with riley she is. and then i was like oh right, this is a marti noxon episode. which means it's all about buffy sensing there's something monstrous and wrong in her and fleeing from it with everything she's got.

consider if you will: buffy's rising sense of panic as xander explains how riley is a dream boyfriend and how if she really loves him, she ought to be much more appreciative of him than she is. she's shaken because she knows xander is right. she knows that she should love riley and she knows that she doesn't. and that scares her. it means there's something wrong with her, something broken in her, and she can't face that. so she runs. it may look like she's running to riley, but that's just a cover. she's running away from whatever's inside her that makes her not want the thing that's normal and nice and good. she's desperate to cover it up, to force herself to want what's right and normal. it's not really about riley at all.

[titsgirlbuffy]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

2.18 “Killed by Death”