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impalementation · 3 years

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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 3

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

“Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

Prior to becoming a romantic interest, Spike is everything I discussed in the last section. He is an id and a mirror for Buffy, he’s prone to both romantic exaggeration and cutting realism, and his liminality suggests ambiguity. But outside of “Lovers Walk”, the writing doesn’t actually delve too deeply into Spike’s nature as a romantic. If you stopped the canon at “Restless”, you’d probably think that Spike’s love for Drusilla was intriguing, but that the show hadn’t really gone anywhere with the implications of it, and for all you knew, that might not be an important part of his character anymore. So one of the most interesting things about season five to me, is that in this season in which the writers first consciously, deliberately decide to explore the sexual and romantic tension between Spike and Buffy, they also emphasize Spike’s romanticism more than ever. The choice to define Spike by his romanticism is a choice that follows naturally from everything established about his character, but it was also not an inevitable choice. Therefore, it’s a choice worth looking at in some detail.

Consider everything that “Fool For Love” establishes about Spike, especially the things that contradict what was supposedly canon at the time. It makes Drusilla his sire instead of Angel, meaning that he is sired by a romantic connection, and as a direct result of heartbreak. It makes him a poet living in the middle of the Victorian era, an age at odds with his previous ages of “barely 200” and “126”. Meaning that the writing specifically decides to ignore its canon in order to associate him with an era in which passions would have been repressed (rather than the Romantic era of the early 1800’s or the modern energy of the early 1900’s). Moreover, the episode reveals his entire aesthetic and personality to essentially be a construct. But most tellingly of all, it reveals him to be an idealist. Spike is not just a performance artist; he yearns for the “effulgent”, for something “glowing and glistening” that the “vulgarians” of the world don’t understand. In other words, he yearns for something bigger and more beautiful than life: something romantic. Later, he chases after “death, glory, and sod all else.” Spike may be a “fool for love”, who has a romantic view of romantic love specifically, but the episode is very clear about the fact that he is also a romantic more generally. When Drusilla turns him, she doesn’t tempt him by telling him she’ll love him forever. She tempts him by offering him “something…effulgent”. (Which, in typical Spike form, the episode immediately undercuts by having him say “ow” instead of swooning romantically). The fact that “Fool For Love”, Spike’s major backstory episode, is so determined to paint him as a romantic--and in particular, a disappointed, frustrated romantic--that it is willing to contradict canon to do so, tells you that this choice was important for framing Spike and his new, ongoing thematic role.

I’ve talked in the past about how season five is all about the tension between the mythical and the mortal--between big, grand, sweeping narratives, and the reality of being human. Buffy is the Slayer, but she’s also just a girl who loses her mother. Dawn is the key, but she’s also just a confused and hormonal fourteen-year-old. Willow is a powerful witch, but she also just wants her girlfriend to be okay. Glory is a god, but she’s also a human man named Ben, and finds herself increasingly weakened by his emotions. And Spike embodies this tension perfectly. He’s a soulless vampire with a lifetime of bloodshed behind him, but he’s also this silly, human man who wants to love and be loved. He wants big, grand things, but every time they are frustrated by a Victorian society, a rejection, a chip, a pratfall, or dying with an “ow”. Furthermore, his season five storyline is all about the tension between loving in an exalted, yet often selfish way, versus loving in a “real” or selfless way.

There was a fascinating piece a ways back that discussed how Spike’s attempts to woo Buffy in season five almost perfectly match the romantic narratives of Courtly Love. In the words of the author:

The term "Courtly Love" is used to describe a certain kind of relationship common in romantic medieval literature. The Knight/Lover finds himself desperately and piteously enamored of a divinely beautiful but unobtainable woman. After a period of distressed introspection, he offers himself as her faithful servant and goes forth to perform brave deeds in her honor. His desire to impress her and to be found worthy of her gradually transforms and ennobles him; his sufferings -- inner turmoil, doubts as to the lady's care of him, as well as physical travails -- ultimately lends him wisdom, patience, and virtue and his acts themselves worldly renown.

You can see for yourself how well that description fits Spike’s arc. He fixates on the torturous, abject nature of his love, and has it in his head that he can perform deeds and demonstrate virtue, and this will prove to Buffy that he is worthy of her. But despite Spike’s gradual ennobling over the course of the season, I think it would be a mistake to see the season as using the Courtly Love narrative uncritically, or even just ironically. The same way it would be a mistake to see season two as using the Gothic uncritically. Spike is as much Don Quixote as he is Lancelot. He is a character that deliberately tries to act out romantic tropes, giving the writing an opportunity to satirize those tropes, including the tropes of chivalric romance. In particular, the writing criticizes Spike’s (very chivalric) fixation on love as a personal agony, something that is more about pain--and specifically, his pain--than building a real relationship. Over and over in season five, he is forced to abandon these sorts of flattering romantic mindsets in favor of a more complicated reality.

So at first, Spike’s “deeds” tend to be shallow and vaguely transactional. He tries to help Buffy in “Checkpoint” even though she doesn’t want it (and insults her when she doesn’t appreciate it), he asks “what the hell does it take?” when Buffy is unimpressed by him not feeding on “bleeding disaster victims” in “Triangle”, he rants bitterly at a mannequin when Buffy fails to be grateful to him for taking her to Riley in “Into the Woods”, and he is angry and confused when Buffy is unmoved by his offer to stake Drusilla in “Crush”. While these attempts to symbolically reject his evilness are startling for a soulless vampire, and although Spike certainly feels like he is fundamentally altering himself for Buffy’s sake, none of it is based on understanding or supporting Buffy in a way that she would actually find substantial. Moreover, he lashes out when his gestures fail to win her attention or affection. He has an idea in his head of how their romantic scenes should play out, and reacts petulantly when reality fails to live up to it.

But these incidents of self-interested narrativizing are also continuously contrasted with scenes in which Spike reacts with real generosity, or is surprised when he realizes he’s touched something emotionally genuine. When Buffy seeks him out in “Checkpoint”, his mannerisms instantly change when he realizes she actually needs real help (“You’re the only one strong enough to protect them”), rather than the performed help he offered at the beginning of the episode. At the end of “Fool For Love” he’s struck dumb by Buffy’s grief, and his antagonistic posturing all evening melts away. He abandons his romantic vision of their erotic, life-and-death rivalry in favor of real, awkward emotional intimacy. In “Forever” he tries to anonymously leave flowers for Joyce, and reacts angrily when he’s denied—but this time not because he wanted something from Buffy. Simply because he wanted to do something meaningful.

This contradictory behavior comes to a head in “Intervention”, the episode in which Spike finally begins to understand the difference between real and transactional generosity. Up until that point, Spike has been reacting both selfishly and unselfishly, but he hasn’t been able to truly distinguish between them, which is why he keeps repeating the same mistakes. Although he touches something real at the end of “Fool For Love”, for instance, he goes on to rifle through Buffy’s intimates in the very next episode. And so “Intervention” has Spike go to extremes of fakeness and reality. He gives up on having the real Buffy, and seeks out an artificial substitute that lets him live out his cheesiest romance novel scripts. It’s important that the Buffybot isn’t just a sexbot, even if he does have sex with her. She’s a bot he plays out romantic scenarios with the way he played them with Harmony in “Crush”, allowing him to almost literally live within a fiction. But then he “gives up” on having Buffy in a way that’s actually real, by offering up his life. He lets himself be tortured, and potentially killed, for no other reason than that to do otherwise would cause Buffy pain. The focus is on her pain, not his. For the first time, he acts like the Knight he’s been trying to be all along. He performs a grand, heroic deed that causes the object of his affection to see him in a different light, and even grant him a kiss. Yet ironically, as part of learning the difference between real and fake, he ceases to press for Buffy’s reciprocation. Through the end of season five, Spike continues to act the selfless Knight, assisting Buffy in her heroism without asking for anything in return. Which culminates in his declaration that he knows Buffy “will never love him”, even after he’s promised her the deed of protecting Dawn, and even though she allows a kind of intimacy by letting him back in her house. He proves that he sees those gestures for what they are, rather than in a transactional light. The irony of the way Spike fulfills the narrative of chivalric romance, is that his ennobling involves letting aspects of that narrative go.

In a Courtly Love narrative, the object of the Knight’s affection is fundamentally pedestalized. The Knight himself might be flawed, but the woman he pines after is not. She is “divinely beautiful” and “unobtainable”, something above him and almost more than human. This is why it’s so comic that in Don Quixote, which was a direct satire of chivalric romance, Alonso Quixano’s “lady love” is a vulgar peasant farmgirl who has no idea who he is. (Think of the way Spike asks if Buffy is tough in “School Hard” or threatens to “take her apart” despite “how brilliant she is” in “The Initiative”, followed by scenes where Buffy is acting like the teenage girl she is. Or how Giles in “Checkpoint” says that Buffy has “acquired a remarkable focus” before cutting to Buffy yawning.). Although it’s true that Buffy is beautiful, and supernatural, and profoundly moral, she is also very human, and the writing is very concerned with that humanity. Season five in particular, as I’ve mentioned, is preoccupied with the duality of Buffy’s mythic and mortal nature. Thus it becomes significant that Buffy is assigned such a heightened role in Spike’s chivalric narrative. Just Spike is at once Lancelot and Don Quixote, Buffy is at once Achilles, Dulcinea, and a coming-of-age protagonist.

And part of the “lesson” of Spike’s arc is for him to see both sides of the roles they embody. One of my favorite things about the scene in Buffy’s house in “The Gift” is how adroitly it conveys the dualities of both Buffy and Spike with simple, but poetic imagery and language. Buffy stands above Spike on her steps, conveying her elevated role, and Spike honors the way her heroic status has inspired him by physically looking up to her as he explains that he expects nothing from her. But by expecting nothing from her, and promising to protect her sister, he also honors the fact that she is a real person with no obligation to him, and a younger sister she cares about more than anything. He also honors his own duality by at once making Knightly promises, and acknowledging that he sees through his former delusions: “I know that I’m a monster, but you treat me like a man.” In “Fool For Love” he tried to acknowledge the same duality of realism and romance, by declaring to Cecily that “I know I’m a bad poet, but I’m a good man.” But at the time, he was an innocent, whose desire to be seen, and whose romantic avoidance of “dark, ugly things”, left him unprepared to understand how Cecily really saw him (similar to Spike’s insistence in “Crush” that what he and Buffy have “isn’t pretty, but it’s real” just before Buffy locks him out). Spike is a character defined simultaneously by continuous disillusionment and dogged aspiration, which is why he makes perfect sense as a character to embody a season torn between the pain of being human, and the wonder of the gift of love.

Fittingly, the season ends with Spike’s most devastating loss of innocence of all. He fails to be the hero for Buffy or Dawn (note that Knightly language he uses on the tower: “I made a promise to a lady”), and he loses the woman he loves. He may have become more virtuous, but unlike in a chivalric romance, that virtue wins him neither Buffy, nor something flattering like “world reknown.” The climax of the “The Gift” is full of romance—a god, a troll hammer, a damsel on a tower, a heroic self-sacrifice, a vampire transformed into a Knight—but the end result is that Buffy is dead, in part because he wasn’t good enough, and all that he and the Scoobies can do is grieve. Stories got Spike nothing, even when reality finally lived up to them. It is a swan song to the myths of childhood, and on the other side of Glory’s portal, Spike and the other characters will have to confront a world where those myths have been left behind.

part 4: “But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self

#romanticism series #s5 #gen #buffy #spike #this section is deliberately focused on spike's arc #but not to worry #the next one focuses on buffy's side of things and the role of spike's arc in supporting buffy's in the last three seasons #they just needed their own sections to breathe #btvs

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comradesummers · 4 years

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Top 5 best Fuffy moments?

Hi, thanks for asking and allowing me to indulge in all of my Fuffy feels.

5. When Buffy hands Faith the Scythe in the final episode.

I’m just kind of obsessed with that moment because it’s Buffy acknowledging that they’re on equal footing and trusting Faith to lead in her absence. Like after all those years spent as enemies, it’s really satisfying to see that kind of natural, instinctive trust.

4. The kiss on the forehead.

For obvious reasons. Also, I will forever be bitter that the kiss wasn’t on the lips like it was supposed to be, but I guess I’ll take what I can get.

3. “I’m glad you came.”

I mean I know we all love Fuffy for the friends to enemies to lovers angst of it all, but even the angstiest ship needs some soft moments, and this one is just the softest sweetest thing. Faith allows herself to be vulnerable in front of Buffy and admits that she has nowhere to go on Christmas, and Buffy is so genuinely happy to have Faith there, and it’s so cute. It really is a shame that this beautiful softness had to be interrupted by Bangel drama, but I’m still grateful that we got to have this moment.

2. Bad Girls

Just the entire episode, because I couldn’t choose a single moment. I mean, the heart on the window, “we’re slayers girlfriend,” the Bronze scene, all of it. Hell, even the fact that Buffy robs a store just so that she would look cool to her crush is kind of amazing to me. This whole episode is basically just Fuffy on steroids and I fucking love it so much.

1. “Thank god we’re hot chicks with superpowers.”

Buffy and Faith’s conflict has always been about desperately wanting what the other one has. Faith wants the privileged middle class life that Buffy leads, a loving mother, a support system, a watcher who cares about her. All of those things that Faith has been denied and is rightfully pissed about. And Buffy, for all that she’s been through, can’t really comprehend what it’s like to be as alone and feel as worthless as Faith does. But what Buffy does want desperately is Faith’s freedom. Her lack of responsibility, the lack of expectations people have for her. The fact that she isn’t constantly put on a pedestal and expected to fix everything grants Faith the kind of freedom that Buffy could never have.

But after seasons of individual character development, as well as the whole kicking Buffy out of the house debacle (on a side note, fuck that shit) – a situation in which they are both forced to inhabit the other’s role and experience a fraction of the other’s burdens – they are finally able to come to a real understanding (and communicate properly!). When Faith makes some self-deprecating remarks, Buffy adamantly argues that Faith is not in any way a worse slayer than she is. And Faith, in turn, acknowledges how hard Buffy’s job is and how lonely it is. It is so extremely cathartic that both of them can finally acknowledge the suffering of the other, and build each other up in the face of their respective insecurities and self-doubt.

It might not be like the shippiest moment between them, but I think it’s the most absolutely necessary one, and a beautiful resolution to a 5 season long conflict. The only thing that would have made it better is if they had made out afterwards.

#buffy summers #faith lehane #fuffy #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer

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magaprima · 4 years

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Potentially Unpopular Opinion:

Even though there are problematic aspects of CAOS, I, generally speaking, truly enjoy the show. Unironically. I like it. I don’t think it takes itself too seriously, I always enjoy things that take organised religion and tear it apart through whatever metaphors they choose (here it’s churches of darkness, anti-popes etc) and the acting is all round solid.

I see a lot of people complaining about it non-stop and that’s just not my vibe. Like I get going ‘wait, the writers did this for this character but not for this’ or ‘the writers have gone for this trope or this gender problem etc. I do that. That’s observational viewing with awareness. But just because you have that doesn’t mean you can’t also genuinely enjoy the show. I mean, using Buffy as a reference, I have a problem with the fact it’s set in SoCal and yet there’s not a single latinx character on the show, or that Kendra, as a non-white slayer, only lasted a couple of episodes, but we get another white slayer lasting as long as Buffy herself. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy Faith’s storyline or still feel the horror everytime I watch Drusilla kill Kendra.

I mean whether you like the narrative direction of CAOS or not, or the choices the writers make over story arc, you can’t deny the writing makes sense in relation to the characters themselves.

Sabrina obsessing over Nick all Part 3 makes total sense when you consider how fixated she was on Harvey in Part 1 to the point of ill-advisedly resurrecting his dead brother to ‘fix things’, and Lilith openly states he was Sabrina’s primary tie to the mortal realm. Sabrina is established from the very beginning as being a bit boyfriend mad, which considering she’s a 16 year old girl, is totally viable. We’ve also seen throughout all the parts how quick to judge Sabrina is, how she forms her opinion before learning any further and never shakes that her opinion (much as Lucifer does. Morningstar vibes, much?) and how she tends to be sanctimonious towards the witch community despite wanting to be a part of it, Sabrina’s entire vibe is ‘but I’m better’ (which entirely fits her Morningstar parentage since But I’m Better could be the Morningstar phrase) so it entirely fits her character that the moment she sees Lilith with Lucifer, she condemns her, judges her. That’s Sabrina’s go-to. Also her attitude with taking Nick, her challenging Caliban about why he didn’t help, her not telling her Aunts about Lucifer in the basement, all fits her superiority complex.

People say they don’t like that Lucifer was written more amusing this season, so more likeable, but Lucifer has always been charming and likeable, that’s how he wins people over, why he has so many names in his Book of the Beast. He is charming and endearing and amusing and makes you smile. If he wasn’t, people would run a mile. The fact is, this is the first time the writers are letting the audience see this side of him, the side that inevitably entrapped Lilith in the beginning, and it’s the audience job to resist that and not give in, to remind ourselves of what he is...or do we fall into the same trap as the characters on the show?

Zelda has always been shown to be a bit of a control freak (though if you read the novels you know her heartbreaking motivations for being like that), that’s why she’s uncomfortable with the idea of Mambo Marie’s magic at first, because it’s beyond her control, it’s why she wipes out Hilda’s book, it’s why she turns Lilith away, it’s all about eradicating things she can’t control, because when unpredictable things are in her life, she can’t protect those she loves (Mary was unpredictable with the shooting and suddenly Zelda’s whole bloody family died). Zelda has also shown to like being in charge, to have power, and people like Lilith and Mambo Marie coming in would also challenge that which is another reason to reject them. It’s just Marie doesn’t give up, whereas Lilith switches to default and dismisses and leaves. Zelda is in character, even if we don’t like the narrative turn given. Ya get me?

Ditto for Lilith in her accepting Regency, siding with Lucifer temporarily, becoming pregnant, it’s all about survival, which is Lilith’s main driving force. I went into a separate long-ass post about how Lilith was in character throughout season 3 whether you like her narrative turns or not, so I won’t do it again here.

I mean people say Faustus has become out of character, but there were signs for all of his decisions way back in Part 1. He was willing to near or actual kill Sabrina in her Harrowing in an effort to establish power and control, he likes being in the place of power, telling people what to believe, he likes control, his wife Constance was clearly the type of well-behaved meek wife he believed men should have, and we saw his flashes of manic behaviour at times such as the Feast of Feasts and when the Thirteen arrive, and we saw how abusive he could be towards Prudence, giving and taking affection to control her.

I could go on, but my point is disliking narrative choices of the writers is not the same thing as disliking the writing. I have a problem with a lot of narrative choices in the show, but I like all the writing. Like I hate that Sabrina took the crown in the first episode of Part 3 and Lilith was pushed aside, but Sabrina being manipulated by her boyfriend-obsessed drive to save Nick, putting her own concerns above Lilith’s and believing she can do better at ruling Hell than anyone else? Definitely in character. I hate that Lilith is now back under Lucifer’s control, reduced to concubine and also has to carry a child she didn’t want. But Lilith making a plan with Blackwood, saying to hell with keeping the Spellmans safe after their rejection, and impregnating herself to ensure the Dark Lord can’t kill her for at least 13 months so she has time to plan, whilst giving Sabrina supportive advice to ensure she doesn’t burn that ally bridge? Totally in character.

My point is, despite the show having problematic aspects, or things I personally wish were different (like I wish Lilith was on the throne, but there are those thrilled Sabrina is there), I still enjoy the show unironically. The two are not mutually exclusive.

#i see hate on it so often in the tags #that i just felt the need

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sophygurl · 5 years

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Hi! I was just browsing through my activity and noticed that after I responded to your ask about ships a while back, you reblogged and shared your thoughts about Spuffy. I'm so glad you were able to read my opinions and understand them, even if you didn't agree with them. I just wanted to stop by and ask what your thoughts and feelings are on Spuffy? I'd love to hear your perspective :)

Oh wooooow, you have no idea how happy you just made me! I feel like I talk about spuffy quite a lot but without ever really saying much of anything because inside of me it’s just a lot of (!!!!!>?>>?!!?!>fjhghhf?!?!?!?!!?) YKWM? Like feels central exploding all over the place and it’s really difficult for me to put into coherent words.

But I’ve also been wanting and meaning to write some serious spuffy meta and kinda dissect what it all means to me personally, as a survivor, for some time now. And like. Especially with all of this purity culture stuff coming to a head, it feels like a good time to take the time to try and do it because, yea, shit not only doesn’t have to be pure to be helpful - but sometimes the darker stuff IS the Most helpful.

And I really did appreciate your perspective about the relationship because you talked about the ways in which it did and didn’t work for you without ever shaming anyone for the way it does work for them? And I wish we could all do that more.

So thank you so much for sending me this ask, and asking for my perspective because sometimes all it takes for me to finally settle down and write something I wanna write anyways is to be asked by someone else to do it!

This is absolutely gonna get long so have a read more cut.

For context, let me start by saying that I didn’t watch Buffy when it first aired - it was, mmm, I wanna say about 10-11 years ago when I decided to try it out. And while I was watching it, I was also in the midst of doing some heavy duty therapy work on my PTSD stemming from childhood sexual abuse and then some further traumas in my young adulthood that happened because of poor processing of said abuse. I’m not gonna get into details about my personal traumas except for some specific ways in which they relate to the lens in which I watched and processed the relationship between Buffy and Spike. BUT, due to that lens, there very well may be triggery content in this post.

My experience watching Buffy, in general, started out with me being really unsure what the draw was in season 1 and then slowly getting more involved in the characters and relationships and mythos as the series developed into a more mature and nuanced show. I was really hooked by season five, and season six is my favorite, with seven a close second.

I liked Buffy, the character, okay in the beginning but it wasn’t until she started really going through and processing her traumas that I started to personally connect to her. So season six was like, my jam. She was raw and stripped down to the nerve, and cycling between like outright rage to pure numbness and just lashing out trying desperately to feel and to make sense of her experiences and I was like - yea, Buffy, same, Same. And then in season seven she starts really contextualizing her trauma and using the pain of it to give herself more power and then sharing that power with others and it was just … fuck, I can’t even begin to tell you what that meant to me. In that last episode, I felt her handing me back my OWN power - like I FELT it - it really … anyway. We’ll get there.

And then there was Spike, who I loved right away. I love me some snarky villains. I love me the bad boy who has hidden depths inside of him. I love the villain who doesn’t … really fit the mold of the other villains in-verse. I love the villain who doesn’t mind working with the heroes if it fits his agenda. Basically, Spike was fictional catnip for me right out of the gate.

I adored Spike and Drusilla together for a lot of reasons, but for Spike to develop beyond just Big Bad, he had to fall out of her orbit, so I was okay with that ending.

On the other hand, I was never into Buffy and Angel. Watching the series as an adult, it just felt creepy to me how this old vampire basically stalked a very innocent-seeming to me teen Buffy. Their romance reminded me of girls I knew who fell for older guys when I was in high school where the older guy seemed sort of dangerous and mysterious and I get the draw from Her perspective - but not necessarily his? I don’t know, I just personally never really bought them being truly in love - they were sort of practice relationships for one another? Her as a young teenager, and him as someone just starting to re-learn humanity. I never Disliked them together… I just never shipped it. The idea of them being one another’s One True Love’s was just sorta meh to me.

So when Spike started having his crush on Buffy? I was so ready for that. Because it was so silly at first, right? It was not serious. It was creepy and weird and wrong. But in a way that appealed to me.

How do I explain? I guess, it had to do with all of the reasons that Spike was Not Like All The Other Villains/Vampires. Angel was always different but ONLY because he was cursed with a soul. It was a thing done TO him and when he reverted back to Angelus he was literally a whole different person and did not have any desire to turn back into Angel. When he was Angel, he was all brooding and guilt-ridden and terrified of his other self.

But Spike was always different just because he was different. This didn’t mean he had a soul or a capacity for love or the ability to be a Good Guy. It just meant he worked a little differently than the other vampires. I truly think he loved and was devoted to Dru. I don’t think she was capable of returning that love in the same way.

So, anyway, Spike is back and he’s split with Dru because Dru could just … tell … something was off and Spike was wanting to deny that but then suddenly - crush! Not love, not attraction, not lust, not desire - a freaking schoolboy crush.

But of course it was creepy because hello - soulless vampire who has never had a healthy relationship of any kind in his LIFE. But he starts doing these odd things, like wanting to comfort Buffy when he sees that she’s upset and being willing to take care of Dawn when no one else was available and HE doesn’t get it either, but somehow he’s becoming a slightly more decent person because of this weirdass crush?

IDK, that’s appealing.

And let me clarify. It’s not appealing to me because I see myself in the Good Girl who can make a Bad Boy into a better person. That is never what’s appealed to be about these types of relationships.

In large part because of my abuse, I see different layers of myself in each character.

I went through a large portion of my life pretending very hard to be a Good Girl and then when I finally came out of denial about the abuse realized that was because inside I felt like a very Bad Girl and then as I pursued more recovery realized it’s all a lot more complex than that but really I’ve been more of a Decent Person who felt like a Bad Person trying really hard to be a Good Person. I hope that makes sense.

But the point is. I see myself in both the Good and the Bad characters in these sorts of push-pull love-hate dynamic relationships.

And what I love about spuffy, specifically, is that they’re both … both. Eventually. I’m getting ahead of myself. But yes, Spike suddenly wanting to be decent here and there because of his weird developing feelings for Buffy appealed to me - and especially to part of me that feels Bad. I’m Spike in this scenario, not Buffy.

But I’m also Buffy, being really grossed by this Bad Person’s interest in me. When Buffy throws her money at Spike and says he’s not good enough for her - that’s me hating myself and saying I’m not good enough. But it’s also, strangely, me taking a stand and saying I’m worth better than the ways in which I was treated.

Gods, this whole abuse recovery dichotomy can be so confusing to explain because like. I never abused anyone. But the ugliness I feel inside of myself has to do with what happened to me, and also with what I know people in my family have done to others. So there’s this idea of Badness there. And the idea of there being forgiveness and redemption for that Badness is very very appealing.

And at the same time? There’s this beauty inside of myself that I always thought I was faking but that it turns out - is fucking real and precious and important. And standing up for that broken beautiful part of myself and saying no to being used and abused again is so powerful.

So in that scene? I’m the ugliness in Spike being hated by Buffy but I’m ALSO the powerful beauty in Buffy standing up for herself.

You can maybe see how this all gets even more tangled up the further we go, yea?

So Spike gets chipped and becomes a part of the team - all the while simultaneously reminding them that he’s still a Bad Guy AND slowly becoming a slightly better person because of his interactions with them and his feelings for Buffy. He’s not even close to redeemed, okay, he’s still a villain. He’s just a more and more intriguing villain, an anti-villain, even, eventually.

And then season six. And Buffy comes back. And she’s broken and raw and needing something that her friends cannot give her. She is needing to connect to the darkness inside of herself, and who is waiting there for her?

And so yea, okay, hatesex is very appealing to me just inandofitself. It’s like double the passion and it’s animalistic and there’s something so sexy and gratifying about two people just using one another with equal force, yk?

And Spike and Buffy are physically matched perfectly. She can take all her anger and pain and rage out on him without permanently damaging him. And she’s NEVER been able to let loose like that before. Her first time with Angel was a more tender and sweet moment and then - welp - turns out they can’t do the do. And otherwise she’s been with humans who she’s had to hold back with. There was zero holding back with Spike.

So from Buffy’s perspective, there’s this amazing relief and release and yea, even, empowerment in being able to just freely let herself go in this way.

From Spike’s point of view, it was about more. And here is where I feel for him because, at this point he’s still not really capable of love in the way we talk about it as being something from a soul. He’s chipped but not soul’d. He has strong feelings for Buffy that no vampire (besides cursed-soul Angel) should be able to have. But it’s not … quite … love. It’s passion and it’s care and it’s wanting and it’s even becoming something like friendship. But it’s not love, much as he thinks it is.

But he does Think it is. And he’s thinking it’s the same for her, but she just can’t admit it, yet. The hatesex to him … is just … sex. And he fully believes he’s winning her over. And so her constant rejection of him as a fully human person with a soul and feelings guts him - even as he’s still trying to convince himself that he does love her and she does somehow secretly love him back.

The fact that she keeps using him physically, and also keeps coming to him for emotional support, supports this belief and keeps him from understanding the reality of the situation.

Now, I think I mentioned than when I was watching this for the first time I was in heavy duty therapy mode yea? Well, there was another even heavier duty therapy mode a good tenish years prior when I had first admitted to the abuse I experienced and got really good and fucked up and made some bad personal decisions and here is where some of that comes to play because I saw myself in this scenario - again from both sides.

I am Buffy learning to enjoy the pleasures of my body and sexuality for the first time but also making really bad decisions about who to share that with because I am still so new to processing my trauma.

I am also Spike - longing for something more and better and being told (by myself) that I was not good enough, that I was bad, that I was not a full human person who deserved good things or good relationships.

(There, there, pastme - it does get better)

Back to first-time-Buffy-watching me. And I am enjoying the HECK out of the spuffy sex and I am feeling for poor pining Spike and feeling for Buffy who is hating herself for what she’s doing and also shipping them like WHOA because there is so much about their dynamic that is just sexy and fun and FEELS everywhere.

But I knew Seeing Red was coming, because I did have a few things spoiled for me just by existing in the world for years without having watched the show yet myself. I really didn’t wanna watch it, or the rest of season six. So I got into a spiral of just watching the earlier parts of the season over and over - specifically the musical and through the 3 episodes of heavy spuffy sex. I did a LOT of processing during this time and then eventually girded myself to watch what I knew was coming.

And Seeing Red is awful. Traumatic. Triggering. Terrible. But also, like, gods, did it make sense for where these two characters were at this point in time? I didn’t feel like it was contrived or somehow put in just for the heck of it. It made sense in the narrative. Spike legitimately just did not get it. He did not realize he was attempting rape until … finally … he did.

And the horror of that, the horror of realizing that he almost did that to the ONE person in the world that he has ever cared that much about? Broke him. Sent him off on a magical quest to get his fucking soul back.

No one did that. Even Angel was Cursed with his soul, right? No vampire ever wanted to get their soul back - even had enough non-ensouled feelings to have the ability to want such a thing. Not to mention going through the trials of actually getting it back.

Season seven Spike is such a different beast. He’s messed up from the soul-thing, but I honestly believe Most of his messed-up-ness came from what The First was doing to/through him. Because … gods, okay.

When Spike goes through the flashbacks and recognizes what his trigger is? (Like the show legit uses PTSD terminology here - it was a Trigger) He processes his Own old traumas and he is able to tell Robin basically - fuck it, I know who I am. I know I did terrible things without my soul, but I can’t and won’t beat myself up for that (for example the way Angel does) because it wasn’t entirely my fault and all I can control now is who I am now and what I do now.

Now THAT spoke to me as a trauma survivor. Stop hanging on to all of this so-called badness inside, forgive yourself, and move on. WOW. Fucking powerful.

And what he DOES choose to do is to be there for Buffy in any way she will allow him to.

Ensouled Spike is no longer creeping around her or making weird assumptions about her or trying to Get something From her. Ensouled Spike defends her when others attack. Ensouled Spike holds her all night when she needs it and gives her pep talks and asks what he can do to help and accepts when he can’t help and just stands there quietly willing to do battle With her.

I just … phew… that makes me emotional.

Because, again, I look back at some of those dysfunctional relationships I got into in my early 20′s and like. None of those fuckers would have done anything like that.

And my attraction to the Fictional Bad Boy with a Hidden Heart of Gold was never about expecting any of them to. I was with them, unconsciously or even some cases consciously, on purpose to punish myself or to work out past traumas with or just to Feel Something. I never expected or even necessarily wanted deep love from them.

So, here’s the thing. None of those fuckers would have done anything like that for me. Nor I them.

So Spike slowly gaining his redemption through his willingness to become a better person because of his love of Buffy? Fucking spoke to me.

And Buffy slowly accepting the darker parts of herself through her willingness to let Spike into her orbit because of her feelings for him? Fucking yes.

And when she hands him the - shit it’s been a long time - that medallion meant for a champion? And he doesn’t think he’s worthy, but she says she knows he is. Fuck!!! That is ME accepting ME, okay? All of myself, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the messed up and the slowly healing. All of it.

And when he sacrifices himself in the end??? When that’s how she’s finally able to defeat The First? All that power sharing with all of the other women was *chefkiss* but it also took Spike. Spike who stormed on the scene in season two with snark and a twisted sense of love and no desire to ever be a hero? That Spike!? Sacrificing himself and STILL NOT BELIEVING BUFFY LOVES HIM.

Because by then, let’s be clear, she did. Maybe not the same way he loved her, but she did love him. And he doesn’t believe it, can’t believe himself worthy of that love. But he sacrifices himself ANYway?

THAT Spike? Is no longer asking anything in return. He gives all of himself and won’t even accept her statement of love in return. “No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it anyway.” Just AUGJH?!? You know???

That was me … redeeming me … for me….

So anyway.

I just want to add that AS I WAS WRITING THIS OUT, I got another ask in my inbox stating “People who like problematic or villainous characters are apologist for shitty people and should rethink their life because they’re shitty people.”

And this is the exact WRONG time to come for me like this because I just poured out my entire traumatized abuse surviving soul into the internet to explain why watching a problematic villain evolve and learn to do better helped ME to contextualize and process my fucking trauma. So fuck you. People who write anonymous hate without knowing the full story are being shitty and should rethink their actions because they’re shitting on actual REAL LIFE COMPLEX INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE.

The end.

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pacificwanderer · 5 years

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I’m starting to feel very nervous that there will be no romance between Ben and Rey. What if it’s just them reconciling and that’s it. Their relationship just evolves to them being friends at the end of IX or their relationship is so subtle and is left ambiguous...

Hey Nonnie,

Romance has always been an overt part of SW as a whole, so there’s no reason to believe that any romance between Rey and Ben would be subtle or ambiguous.

I’m going to be frank, but they were not so subtly eye-fucking each other on that elevator (my non-shipping spouse thought they were going to kiss, which is exactly what they wanted the audience to think).

She saw his tits.

They touched hands in a symbolic union across space and time.

And then there’s the whole throne room scene. I just, you know it’s not only the Reylos that see this shit, right?

Here’s a fun article from Vanity Fair: How The Last Jedi Became the Sexiest Star Wars Movie Yet that features such gems as:

But having seen the film with a full audience three times, I can say no moment draws more audible gasps and applause than when Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and Daisy Ridley’s Rey whirl around in brief slow-motion, stand back-to-back, and take on a room of their shared enemies together. It’s the sexiest moment in a franchise that already featured a young Han Solo answering Leia’s earnest “I love you” with a smoldering “I know.”

But I hate to break it to you: the Tumblr fans were right. With Rey’s non-Skywalker lineage confirmed, she and Kylo burn up the screen in the franchise’s most intense relationship we can’t help but root for—even though we know we shouldn’t.

It’s tempting, at first, to deny the existence of any sexual tones in The Last Jedi. This is, after all, a franchise for kids. But sex, love, and bad or off-limits romances have always been written into the D.N.A. of Star Wars—albeit a little less lustily.

And like this entire paragraph:

But for all the romantic picnics between Padmé and Anakin and passionate stolen kisses of Han and Leia, nothing in the Star Wars franchise has ever had quite the dangerous spark as the late-night Force Skype sessions between lonely, misunderstood misfits Rey and Kylo. “You’re not alone,” they urgently confess to each other as the movie pushes them closer. Nothing is sexier than a forbidden romance—and, like any overprotective father figure, Luke should have known that busting up their call would only drive Rey directly into Kylo’s arms. (Note the precise moment in the film where she switches from calling him Kylo to calling him “Ben.”) The fact that Kylo is unwittingly being used as some kind of sexy emo honeypot so Snoke can lure Rey into his clutches is beside the point. These kids think the connection they have is special because they are special.

Okay, so read the entire article because it’s gold.

And then this article is just lol:

1. Kylo Ren takes his shirt offLike I wasn’t going to start with this? Adam Driver as Kylo Ren gamely serves up the most Star Wars beefcake since Luke went sleeveless on Dagobah, and even Rey is rattled. She forgot to force-knock before barging in on the dude, and here’s Kylo Ren alone in his room, stripped to the waist, boasting sweaty pecs that look like he sliced Alderaan in half and glued the remainders to his chest. It’s a lot! Finally, even people who don’t subscribe to HBO can wonder, “Shit, am I attracted to Adam Driver?”

2. Kylo and Rey’s whole thingMany weirdos shipped these two characters after The Force Awakens, and now I kinda get it. Kylo and Rey never make out, but they still share The Last Jedi’s sexiest scenes as well as a telepathic connection fostered by sinister voyeur Snoke, the galaxy’s mightiest cuck. And how about that moment where Kylo kills his mentor — it’s always hot when a space goth murders a lazy magician — and then flips sides with Rey to kill off a straggling crew of ruby-red stormtroopers? If watching seven seasons of Buffy has taught me anything, it’s that there is no sex sign more unequivocal than teaming up with your sworn enemy to throw stage punches.

And like, this is going to get a little ranty (not directed at you, nonnie, just in general because I have a lot of feelings about SW and Reylo lol), but I don’t know if I can properly convey just how big of a fucking deal it is that Ben killed Snoke for Rey. He killed his master for someone he’s known for, what? Three days? A girl who tried to kill him twice? And he’s not even mad about it! I think he’s impressed, and more than just a little bit in love with her.

But he killed off what everyone thought was going to be the big bad, because he wanted to keep her safe. He was thinking of this plan from when she arrived on Snoke’s Supremacy. He knew what he had to do, but he wasn’t sure until that lightsaber fell in front of him and everything clicked because there was no way he was going to let Snoke have her.

After everything he’s been through and everything that Snoke has done to him, he wasn’t willing to give her up.

He killed someone who has had a hold on him since BIRTH, basically an evil wizard that had a powerful spell over him for his entire life, and he killed him for her. I don’t know if people realize just how significant that is for Ben. Unless you’ve grown up in an extremely oppressive environment (think fundamentalist religions or even cults), it’s hard to properly convey just how much of a big fucking deal it is to turn on everything you’ve come to know.

Snoke isolated Ben so completely that they weren’t even allowed to utter his birth name in the FO. He tried to fashion him into a weapon that could be used to bring down Luke. But furthermore than that, the relationship was insidious and predatory in nature, but as is the case with those kinds of relationships, people are brainwashed into believing certain things. They condition people to have certain reactions (so, when Han questions Snoke’s loyalty to Ben and tells him that Snoke will use him and destroy him, Kylo basically replies with a ready response, “No, the supreme leader is wise.” LIKE FUCK ME SIDEWAYS. That’s a learned reaction, something that gets triggered by specific circumstances/conditioning and, in this case, that circumstance is someone questioning Snoke’s power).

So turning away from something that you’ve been indoctrinated into is hard and, in some cases, impossible because of the kind of conditioning that is used to control people accounts for that kind of thing (which also makes Fi//nn turning against the FO a huge fucking deal too, btw). But Ben overcomes that for her. This isn’t something you do for like some rando on the street. He did this because he wanted to keep her, and she wanted to keep him, but not as they are at that point. Both of them need to figure out some shit on their own before they’re able to come together and resolve their problems and get a HEA.

He made his first step towards the light for her, but now he has to find his own reasons for coming around. He has to want to change for himself, and not because Rey or anyone else wants him to, in order for there to be any kind of lasting change in his life (and of course it’s fine if he needs help to do that, but the main motivating factor has to be that he wants to change).

And I’m not so convinced that Rey is sold on the idea of the Resistance. Like it was always her intention to go back to Jakku until Kylo got her to see the truth about that. She’s been fighting to survive her entire life, like she doesn’t owe them anything. I think her story is going to be more Force driven than anything else (with the eventual resolution for it all at the end), but we’ll have to see.

Also. ALSO. She shipped herself to him, right smack into fucking enemy territory, risking torture and death, to get him back. She did that. SHE DID THAT. RIGHT IN THERE. Like how impulsive and awesome. She saw the good in him, saw that they shared something yet to come, and BOOM she’s in there to get him back. I admire that about her. It’s brave and such a fucking hero thing to do, and for the villain. MY GOD. FOR KYLO FUCKING REN. THE DUDE SHE JUST TRIED TO KILL TWICE. I JUST. *FLAILING*

BE STILL MY VILLAIN FUCKER HEART.

Anyfuckingways. Basically, LF knows how thirsty everyone is for more Reylo content, JJ knows how thirsty we all are for more Reylo content (his director’s commentary, what does he say when the story shifts back to Rey and Kylo? “Back to the story that everyone cares about?”).

Just don’t worry. Honestly, it’s not worth it. And, honestly, this shit already isn’t subtle or subtext or any of it. It’s right the fuck out there. Obvious enough that other media comments on it and fanboys get riled up about it.

It’s real. And I have faith that they cast Adam Fucking Driver because they know what a god damn fabulous kisser he is, like they’re not going to let those “plush lips” go to waste. WHAT A CRIME THAT WOULD BE.

WHAT A WASTE.

Anyways, there’s a shitton of awesome Reylo meta out there that pretty much lays out why people thing it’s going to happen and if you’re still worried about it, maybe take a break from spoilers/the fandom for a bit because, at the end of it all, it’s supposed to be fun and not stressful.

Cheers and chin up, Nonnie!

#reylo #epix speculation #long post #also carrie promised us a space kiss with daisy lol #it's going to be fine guys #normally I don't answer these because I've gotten too many #but I'm feeling sassy and avoiding work rn #asks and answers #anonymous asks #ask pacificwanderer #Anonymous #don't get me started on his lightsaber #just don't #or just the whole fucking throne room scene

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multifandomaddictedfangirl · 5 years

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(Spoilers) Bangel break up in season 3

I really think the Bangel relationship was really well-developed in season 3. The writers fully exploited the relationship. They told everything that could have been told at that point. In season 3, every status has been covered : enemies to coworkers to friends to lovers to ex. It was pretty intense for 1 season.

I’m a huge Bangel shipper so, obviously, the broke up scene tore me apart. But I think the show needed that. The relationship wasn’t going anywhere at that point. The whole high school vibe was over. The student-vampire dating story has been exploited. The soulmate thing has been done. The impossible love story has been stated. What now?

Time to move on. The break up.

Buffy was just graduating from high school in the end of season 3. She was 18 years old. She was still just a young inexperienced dreamy and idealistic teenage girl. Even though she had seen a lot of tough and scary things in her slayer-life (which forced her to be more mature than other girls and grow up faster), she hadn’t done much stuff in her normal-life. She hadn’t seen a lot of things. She hadn’t tried so much.

She needed to take some distance from Angel. Angel was (and still is) the love of her life. And for a teenage girl, that’s all that matters for sure. But Angel was keeping her from fully living her life at its best. Angel is a vampire, he is immortal and eternal, therefore he is stuck in time. He’s already lived his life and experienced stuff (as a human and a vampire). Buffy didn’t, at that point. If Angel hadn’t break up with her, she’d have never had the chance to.

She would have stayed at Sunnydale her entire life, being the same old Buffy, living at her mom’s place, dating Angel, fighting evil, and probably working a part-time job. And that’s it. That would have been her life.

She needed to go to college and really focus on her study for once. She needed to feel more like a regular student, with normal student problems (such as fitting in, finding her place, doing homework, working hard). She needed to do something new, feel disoriented, have it hard. She needed to be challenged. Going to college was really good for that.

She also needed to have fun. Buffy was a young, dynamic, funny, beautiful, girl. She needed to enjoy her life. She needed to go to college student parties. She needed to live by herself, not with her mom. She needed to be able to hang out with other people. She needed to leave the family nest a little. She needed to have fun with her friend. She needed to have new relationship. She needed to have sex again. She needed to try new things. She needed to gain some freedom (and also, as a result, some sense of responsibility).

She needed to grow. She needed to learn more things about herself, to know what she truly wanted and what she didn’t. To know how to trust her judgement. She needed to struggle, to handle the pressure/the anxiety/the life problems. She needed to fail, to know how to deal about it and get up. She needed to win too and gain confidence (by herself!).

The most amazing thing is how it has been done by the show. Buffy was able to do all that because she had let go of Angel for a while (years, even). And she had been able to let him go because he made it clear he would always love her and be there if she needed. He would wait for her and she knew that. Buffy knew she would never lose Angel. She didn’t have to worry about him. She knew he would always be there and they would always find each other, one way or another. She didn’t need to look back on her shoulder and get stuck in the past. Because of their love, she could move on.

That made it easier for her to just take some distance for a few years, in order to live her life and experience things she could have never tried by staying with Angel.

And she did. Surely, Buffy isn’t the same person she was in season 3 at the end of the show. She has grown. And that’s positive.

And I think that’s really brave, kind, healthy and respectful of Angel to understand that Buffy needed all of that. Because when he broke up with her, he had no guarantee she wouldn’t fall in love with someone else and start a life with this person. He had no guarantee she would ever be available again. He had no guarantee she would wait for him. He had no guarantee she would still love him after all these years. He had no guarantee she would still want him (and want to build a life with him) after having experienced life and after having seen what she could have had (normal life, normal boyfriend, children maybe, etc.). He had no guarantee her feelings wouldn’t have changed with time.

But he still understood. And fully accepted. He accepted the idea that she had to live her life without him for a while, and that she might never be with him again but that it was okay. That she had to be apart from him for a while in order to become a whole grown-up person. That she had to work things out, experience stuff, enjoy her life, make some discovery, learn new things and grow because that’s life.

That he had to leave so she could truly live.

Anyway it was so beautifully done by the show. And even if they do break up and take some distance, you can still feel it’s not over.

First, Angel comes back again for a few episodes throughout the series. There are some crossover episodes. He is not forgotten. He is a part of her world. She is still “his girl”. Even when Buffy has other love interest, she never denies her love for him. And we all know Angel will be her first and last love.

Besides, my headcanon is that they do find each other at the very end, when Buffy is no longer the Only One and other slayers can takeover. I believe she is then ready and everything brought her to be happy with him.

#Bangelforever ❤️

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headlineawards · 6 years

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2018 Headline Winners [Fic Awards, Giles]

Giles Fiction Awards

The Watcher Watch Award [Best gen., Giles]

Winner - Second Sight by Il_mio_capitano “A wonderful story that grips you right from the start and doesn't let you go until you've read it all. Delightfully sarcastic humour paired with an original and suspenseful plot, what's not to like? But even more praiseworthy are the outstandingly three-dimensional characters. There's Randall - hilarious, irresponsible, infuriating, inventive, a loyal friend and an absolute moron, he practically jumps out of the page straight away. There's Giles' dad, not simply grumpy but with so many nuances and unobtrusively scattered background information, he too feels like a complete and real person. His obsession with the exact time sort of bookends the story instead of just being a random meaningless quirk. And, of course, Giles' glorious grandmother, obviously the source of the family sarcasm and such a force of nature despite her blindness - which is in itself another example of the endless richness of details in this exceptional work. Amazing.”

Runner-up - The Uxbridge English Dictionary by DHW “The Uxbridge English Dictionary affectionately captures the Season 3 Giles/Wesley rivalry in all of its obnoxious glory. Wesley’s pompous interior monologue is perfectly rendered in his battle of wits with Giles. It’s a delight to see Giles’ playful side come out in the course of the game, only to be met with unexpected comeuppance.”

The Twosome of Cuteness Award [Best romance, Giles]

Winner - Believe it Or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles Remix) by Thecarlysutra “What made Rupert different than Wesley? We know Rupert left home and took up with a bad crowd, but what was the impetus? Thecarlysutra's ‘Believe It or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles remix)’ gives us a convincing answer. We're impressed by the slow transformation of Rupert's character, from a boy excited to study the Slayer close up who, as Veronique notes is “not to me like the type that gets in trouble” to a kid who's willing to take actions that might get him into trouble with his father, and finally ending up as a young man who punches the Council leader before walking out the door. Veronique turned him into a man; the Council, by killing their Slayer, made him into Ripper. That's really well done and we can see it happening that way. The characterizations are excellent. The Council ignore Veronique but she's obviously thinking for herself right from the start. Her first words dress down the head of the Council for calling her Veronica rather than Veronique. What we found most impressive were the differing worldviews. The Council sees Slayers as temporary, like milk or fruit. Veronique describes herself as something that might not last long but improves with age, as cheese and wine. Rupert fears her impermanence and denies it. When his father confronts him, saying he'll be a widower before twenty, we see the first hints of Ripper's rage: “Rupert could feel the rage pumping through his veins, spreading through his body like disease. His hands shook.” Rupert, changing, is caught halfway between her viewpoint and the Council's but, lacking her fear of loss, is caught up in rage. Wow! We also adore the descriptions, particularly of the first sword fight between Rupert and Veronique. How his style, more like logic than fighting, is no match for Veronique who “began like a flamenco dancer, her body curving, drawing into the air, spinning away. Her bare feet were soundless on the teak floors, and the gauzy material of her dress blurred the silhouette of her body; it was like fighting a ghost.” That's an amazing description and we can see where Ripper got his fighting skills from. Veronique's time may have been short but she changed Rupert, as a fighter, as a lover, as a human.”

Runner-up - Kids Today by Quaggy “We adore how the feelings that Buffy and Giles share for each other are revealed slowly but lead inevitably to the ending. At the start, we learn that Buffy had been made younger, taken back to a pre-Slayer age, in the middle of a battle. Giles, thinking she was dying, had been first to her side and she'd calmed when she saw him before passing out. Giles had been so devastated by the thought that he'd seen her third and final death that he'd killed everyone who'd had a part in it, but Buffy hadn't died. Giles cares so much that he leaves the details of giving Buffy a new identity to the rest of the Scoobies so that he can remain at Buffy's side while she's in the hospital. He brings her daisies and reads from her favorite books. Buffy's comment that Anne wouldn't have thought Cordelia was such a romantic name if she'd met their Cordy is a lovely detail as is the idea that the Scythe reinstates Buffy's Slayer powers, allowing her to heal from a death wound. The Scoobies are surprised when Buffy asserts herself, saying that Giles has to be at high-school with her – for training purposes of course – but Giles thinks he's put himself at a disadvantage by showing Buffy that he's her most loyal ally. In fact, he's shown her that he cares and to be by Buffy's side is not a disadvantage at all. He's thrilled that she wants him there. What a sweet story.”

The Good Squirm Award [Best smut, Giles]

Winner - Crossing Lines by Littleotter73 “Buffy and Giles are both perfectly characterized in ‘Crossing Lines’. It is extremely well written from beginning to end, starting off with a power struggle between the two of them as partners in the office. It isn't long before a bold move by Buffy leads to a discovery of their mutual desires to be partners outside of the office as well, leading to a steamy office hook up. At the conclusion they find a resolution both personally and professionally, solidifying their relationship.”

Runner-up - Confluence by DHW “There's a lot going on in this part of the "Sanctuary" series! We get of course a sizzling D/s scene, in which Giles proves once more that he's the world's classiest Dom. But we also see a very different kind of sex - without rules and without hiding behind their made-up names it's new and strange for both Buffy and Giles, but no less enjoyable for the reader. The characters' voices are especially well written. Their banter is delightful and feels just really "them". Conflict sneaks in when Giles, typically, resolves that Buffy would be much better off without him, but she's having none of it. The dispute culminates in a powerful scene in which Giles literally strips (and metaphorically too), displaying a heartbreaking mix of vulnerability and defiance. So good!! We can't wait until the last part of this captivating series is out.”

The Dark Age Award [Best dark, Giles]

Winner - All Set Down by Destoto-hia873 “We are thrilled to give the award to Destoto-hia873 for ‘All Set Down’. This story is amazing. First, the mislead works incredibly well. You think you're reading about things you already know, just embellished with more details and more insight than the series offered, and that would have been a great fic in itself, but then the subtle hints that something's different, something gone even more wrong than in canon can no longer be ignored and suddenly this is no longer simply sad but alarming. Second, the build-up of suspense works well. Alternating the scenes between past and present is a brilliant move. It allows the story to drop small clues, Giles' actions after the event, and keep the reveal of what went before until the next to last scene. For example, Giles is covered in her blood, which isn't canon. Washing his “reddened hands” can't help but bring up shades of Lady Macbeth suggesting guilt. Giles hanging crucifixes and performing the uninvite spell is a fascinating clue. Obviously, he's keeping out both Angel and Spike, but we know that Spike's very protective of Dawn. The pair of caskets might be the most exceptional of the clues. We know someone has died and the clues are there, but we don't want to accept that it's Dawn. Wow! Third, the characterizations are spot on. This is exactly what Giles would have done in this situation. Every thought, every word, every movement, every action, it's all perfectly him. Watching Dawn's growing realization, that Buffy's death has not closed the portal and what must happen next, is heart-wrenching. It's devastating to see her come to the conclusion Giles has already arrived at, especially seeing her bravery and watching Giles be undone by her trust. I cried then.”

Runner-up - Epilogues by DHW “’Epilogues’ is a well-crafted story with a bittersweet heart. The writing style offers a rich background of sounds and smells and descriptions, but in a very natural way that never distracts or stops the flow. We adore how the first and final scenes bookend the story, how the similarity of structure in the language of the two scenes frame the story and highlight the change that has taken place in Giles' life. We love how the facts are uncovered bit by bit by bit, never revealing too much, but never drawing it out for too long either. For example, when we first meet Mr. Edmund Fairweather, there is nothing to tie him to Giles other than the fact that Buffy is happy to see him. In the next scene, the description reminds us of Giles and we're told that the three translators working there, although the same age, are “former students of one era or another” and that Fairweather “has the air of an ever so slightly unkempt Professor, though much too young”. However, it's not until he recognizes Buffy, until he slams his hand on the desk when she starts to say his name, that we're sure he's Giles. It's tough to see Giles depressed and downright suicidal. The night Faith was killed - a truly traumatic experience - appears to be the origin of his mental state, all the clues seem to point towards it, the nightmares, the guilt... So, the shocking reveal that it's actually the other way round, that he felt this way all along and his attempt to end his life was what caused Faith to die in the first place, feels like a kick to the gut. The hints of Giles' attraction to Buffy are fantastic. A fave is when she first comes to his office. He doesn't see anything but her. He misses the tome she's holding until she hands it over. We like how the story plays with the idea of fate. At the start, a quote from Aristotle sums up the author's point: Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. But throughout the story both Giles and Buffy think of their choices as fate. For example, Buffy, thinking of the passage that led her to Giles, assumes it can have only one meaning, that “Giles is to come home, and she is to guide him.” However, her very next thought comes up with another option: “Or, should she fail, he will sink into his new life and forget there ever was a man named Rupert, or a girl named Buffy.” Giles comes up with a third meaning: fate is calling him to his death. Both Buffy and Giles feel as if they're being pulled by fate until after he's suicided, until after she knows what he's been fleeing all those years. And then she makes a new choice, to let him die, at least on paper, so he can finally be free of the Council. But at the end, the prophecy has been fulfilled: Hysminai, the Slayer, guides. Peace follows.”

The Rather British Award [Best characterization, Giles]

Winner - The Need to Believe by Anyjay “Very well written. The author does a fantastic job of portraying Giles's sadness and remorse for not only what was done to Buffy, but for what had happened in the past. Leading to a very touching moment between Giles and Buffy in which they reconcile after the cruciamentum.”

Runner-up - Believe it Or Not (The Courtship of Rupert Giles Remix) by Thecarlysutra “This story is full of love and heartbreak. The author does a fantastic job of getting inside Giles's head as a youth when he meets his father's slayer. It also helps to fill in the gaps as to why Giles chose to disobey the council and interfere with Buffy's cruciamentum.”

The You Were the One I Loved Award [Fan favorite, Giles]

Winner - Second Sight by Il_mio_capitano

Runner-up - Dénouement by Quaggy

#headline awards #Headline winners #Headline winners 2018 #anthony head

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apinchofsanity · 7 years

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Why the hate on Joss Whedon? Did he do something? I'm out of the loop so I'd like to know. Thank you.

No problem, thanks for asking :D My personal opinion on Joss Whedon is that he has a very strict vision of what writing women entails, and fair enough in the 90s and early 2000s that vision was refreshing to see on mainstream tv, he had a multitude of strong female characters in Buffy and Firefly which I love and will continue to love throughout my life. BUT!!! my problem is with his treatment of women, both as characters on screen and as real people in his life.

My number one big issue is his continued use of rape as a plot device, fair enough some of my issues with this are indeed personal (which I won’t go into detail), but you can’t deny that there is a worrying trend. This is very prevalent in his show Firefly. Joss Whedon himself said a few years after the cancellation of the show that he planned on having a “gang-rape scene” featuring one of the main female characters Inara, conducted by the cannibal monsters in the show Reavers. Not only do I have a MASSIVE problem with this horrific idea, but I also find myself extremely uncomfortable with the idea that a so called “feminist” writer like Joss could write such a scene with the INTENTION of using it as character growth for the lead male character Mal. He also used the threat of rape during the show on an episode called Objects in Space, where a bounty hunter Jubal Early boards the ship to kidnap River for the reward. He threatens the female character Kaylee multiple times with rape throughout the episode in order to get her to do as he says.

Rape is once again used as a plot-device in Buffy in order to further the development of a male character. This time in the form of Spike and the episode Seeing Red, where Spike attempts to rape the main female character Buffy while she’s incapacitated. Not only does he force viewers to see something so traumatic he also makes it all about Spike? like forget the traumatizing of Buffy but let’s just focus on the fact that Spike feels #superguilty and thus runs away in self-disgust to “find his soul”. Also, the story apparently came from a female writer of the show who shared her experience in forcing herself sexually on her ex so they would get back together and her subsequent guilt about it. So not only did Whedon use rape as a plot device, he decided it was better to reverse roles? as if men can’t get raped by women?? I think if he used the original story he could have done a lot of good in raising awareness for male rape victims and help battle the stigma surrounding men being “unable” to be raped by women.

Next up is his particularly rotten treatment of a female employee. Christina Carpenter has said during the 2009 DragonCon that because she fell pregnant during the filming of the tv series Angel, Joss became noticeably more hostile in his attitude towards her. She believes full heartedly that her pregnancy was the reason behind this and that her becoming pregnant interfered with his “vision” for her character, which let’s face it is like a giant man-baby throwing a fit when people don’t play like he wants them too. She wasn’t even notified that she wouldn’t be returning for the fifth season which is petty as fuck from a writer who considers himself a “feminist icon”.

(takes a deep breath, oh man I still have so much to say)

Moving on to the complete character butchering of Natasha Romanoff (I will forever be pissed about this ffs). Ignoring the fact that he has a male character in the first Avengers openly call Natasha a “whining cunt” throughout the movie Age of Ultron he single-handedly manages to embody everything that ISN’T Natasha Romanoff and force it down out throats. Number one, Natasha would NEVER! NEVER! date Bruce Banner, they have a good friendship in the animated series where Bruce trusts Natasha but it’s a friendship and a partnership as Avengers. That is ALL it should have ever been, not only do they have the combined chemistry of two inert gases, but the “romantic” scenes between them were so cringe-worthy I nearly died. Whedon was literally so BUTT-HURT over Clintasha and desperately wanting to be “unique” that he created a whole imaginary fucking farm family for Clint and forced two of the most unlikely characters together. In Avengers we see Natasha who is scared of Bruce and the Hulk and is only JUST at the end of the movie beginning to become comfortable with him. But now all of a sudden in Age of Ultron we’re supposed to believe she wants to have a romantic relationship with him?? No, just fucking no. Friends yes, teammates who trust each other yes, but boyfriend and girlfriend? fuck NO!! I’m not even going to touch the whole “I can’t have babies so I’m a monster like you” thing with a ten-foot fucking pole because I probably don’t have enough time. Other than completely demeaning Natasha’s character with a shitty romantic subplot, he also makes her the damsel in distress for Ultron, where she has to wait to be rescued by Bruce. Natasha fucking Romanoff does not wait to be rescued by anybody, she’s a feared ex-KGB assassin, one of the best might I add, a SHIELD agent and a general fucking badass!! She does not get rescued.

Last but not least on my massive Anti-Whedon rant is the Wonder Woman script that was leaked online. Oh lord, oh my god. I can not express how happy I am that they didn’t let him direct, bless all the Gods, bless them. In the script, he manages to write a completely out of character Diana who is a loving, kind, strong willed and kick-ass female into a cold hearted warrior which basically goes against EVERYTHING Wonder Woman is about. He wrote Steve Trevor as a giant fucking condescending dick-wad who made grossly sexual jokes about Diana and who basically treat her like shit but she still falls for him? NO THANKS!

SO… to wrap it all up. I am never going to see the Batgirl movie, my heart physically aches for the amount of shit this overly entitled self-proclaimed “feminist” is going to put my beloved Barbara Gordon through.

Other people can see it that’s fine, other people can like Whedon and his writing that’s totally fine. I don’t judge, I don’t hate on people for what they like, even if they don’t share my opinion.

Maybe, just maybe Whedon will wake up one day and stop being such a deep-friend douche-nozzle and actually treat female characters decently, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Until then you can count me out for anything that man writes.

THE END :D

P.s this ranting felt really fucking good, thank you! :P I needed to let off some steam after taking a statistics exam yesterday :D

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sulietsexual · 7 years

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Buffy + Restless

Short opinion: Dreamscan be pretty cool.

Long opinion: Tbh, Idon’t have the same love for Restless that a lot of the fandom does. That beingsaid, I would never deny that it is a brilliant episode, with some spectacularcharacter insights, and on a meta level, it’s probably unmatched in the ‘Verse.I think, in order to break down this episode, I’m going to have to godream-to-dream, starting with …

Willow

Willow’sdream is probably the most straight forward and easy to interpret, as it dealswith Willow’s ongoing theme of finding herself and shedding her formerpersonas. As I spoke about in a previous ask, Willow is a character who neverseems at ease with herself, whether she’s speaking from an internal POV orreferring to a Doppelganger or past self. This episode seems to emphasize thisdiscomfort, with the repeated viewpoint that Willow is wearing a “costume” andBuffy eventually tearing it off to reveal the Willow from Season 1 underneath.

Atthis point in the series, Willow is at a crossroads regarding her identity, notquite the confident/dark Willow of the later seasons, but no longer the shyWillow of Season 1. Willow’s dream sequence, however, shows that part of herstill retains her early-seasons persona, and that in her transition from highschool to College, she has not quite managed to shed her former personality,and is scared that other people will see through her new-found confidence andreveal her for the timid, mousy girl she believes she once was, tearing awayher “costume” as Buffy does in the dream.

I’veseen theories floated that the “costume” is a reference to Willow’s sexuality,but I’m inclined to disagree, mostly because Willow never seems to strugglewith her sexuality. She accepts her attraction to Tara readily, and her onlysource of conflict comes not from struggling to accept her sexuality butstruggling to choose between two people whom she loves and is attracted to.That being said, there are allusions to Willow’s evolving sexuality within herdream, such as Oz’s reappearance, the poem she paints on Tara’s back and herimagining Oz and Tara as a couple in the classroom sequence. The interpretationof these events will depend on how you view Willow’s sexuality, but it’s mybelief that initially Willow was meant to be bisexual (and I still headcanonher as such) and her fear of Tara and Oz hooking up and leaving her behind isindicative of this.

Xander

Xander’sdream is a little more complicated than Willow’s, at least on the surface. Theevents of Xander’s dream vary, from his Mrs Robinson-esque fantasy of Joyce, tohis Apocalypse Now sequence featuring Snyder, and the themes of Xander’s dreamget a little buried, but after a few re-watches, they emerge. Essentially,Xander’s dream continues to explore his ongoing themes of the season, focusingon his belief that he is getting left behind, his continued fear of and abusefrom his parents and his need for familial relationships.

Xandergets a bit lost during Season 4 and definitely disconnects from his friendsover the course of the season. Being the only one not to go to college (whichI’m convinced is not through lack of smarts, but from a lack of belief inhimself stemming from years of being told he’s not good enough or smart enough)Xander spends a lot of the season feeling left out and disconnected, as hewatches Willow and Buffy evolve and drift away from him. His dream in Restlesscertainly seems to indicate this. I believe that the scene with Willow and Tarain the back of the van indicates not only Xander’s sexist attitude and fetishisationof Willow’s budding sexuality, but his fear of being left behind as she movesforward in a new direction, as indicated when Willow and Tara offer to let himjoin, yet he can’t reach them as he climbs through the back of the van.

Xander’s need and desire for familial relationships is alsoshown through his interactions with Buffy and Giles, first with him trying towarn Buffy about her surroundings and Buffy responding by calling him “BigBrother” and then with Giles’ statement that Spike is “like a son” to him andXander’s response of “Yeah, I was into that for a while”. Both of theseinteractions are brief, but clearly show Xander’s desires, and how he viewsBuffy as a sister and Giles as a father figure (there is so much more meta tobe written about Xander and Giles’ relationship and how sad it actually is dueto Xander’s obvious need for a father figure coupled with Giles’ thinly-veileddisdain for Xander).

As with Season 6’s Tabula Rasa, Xander’s interactions withAnya in the dream are probably the least personal, indicating even at thisearly stage in the relationship that he is not overly attached to or fond ofher. Her casual mention about getting back into vengeance could indicate alatent fear Xander has of what could happen if Anya ever regained her powers,and her trying to communicate with him while speaking French could indicate alack of communication within their actual relationship.

Running throughout Xander’s entire dream is the underlyingthreat that comes from his family. One often-overlooked part of Xander’s lifeis the fact that his parents – in particular his father – are abusive. Thereare many hints dropped that thisabuse is physical as well as emotional, and the climax of Xander’s dreamcertainly seems to confirm this, with his father literally pulling Xander’sheart out. Xander’s desire to escape his family but inability to break awayfrom them (“That’s not the way out”) is illustrated throughout his entiredream, and sets up his Season 5 storyline of emancipation and eventual escapefrom his family life.

Giles

Despite being the shortest sequence, Giles’ dream is possiblythe hardest to deconstruct, as not a lot is revealed in it. While Willow’s dreamis an almost straightforward study in character evolution and Xander’s dream clearlyunderlines the character’s desire to escape his biological family and form hisown family away from them, Giles’ dream is not as easily labelled.

Buffy appears as both a child and an adult in Giles’ dream,indicating his conflicting feelings towards her as a human and a Slayer, andclearly demonstrating the fatherly love and concern he holds for her. When shesuccessfully “slays” the vampire during the game at the carnival, Giles’ retortof “I don’t have any treats for you” could be indicative of Buffy’s lack oftraining during the season, illustrating how she has not been coming to Gilesfor the usual advice and guidance.

More intriguing is Olivia’s appearance in the dream, as shefirst appears pregnant and then weeping over an empty stroller, indicating thatshe may either have broached the subject of commitment and children with Gilesand been turned down, or that there actually was a child conceived, which was either lost or aborted. Eitherway, Olivia’s appearance comes across as unsatisfactory, as there is literallyno follow up to her appearances, in the dream or in reality. She disappearsafter Season 4, never to be seen or spoken of again.

Meta levels aside, Giles’ dream contains the coolest part ofthe entire episode, The Exposition Song, which is hilarious and gives us aglimpse of what’s to come in OMWF. Giles’ dream is also the first to reveal whothe entity stalking them is, and it’s fitting that Giles, as a Watcher, is thefirst one to realise that it’s the First Slayer.

Buffy

While Buffy’s dream contains some reflection regarding herarc in Season 4, for the most part it is actually laying the foundation for herarc in Season 5, with some subtle hints dropped regarding Dawn and herinteractions with the First Slayer sparking her desire to delve into her Slayerroots.

Joyce’s appearance in Buffy’s dream seems to represent acouple of things for Buffy. First, it could be interpreted as Buffy’s distancefrom her mother over Season 4, as Buffy moves away from home and startscollege, gaining her first taste of independence. While in the dream Buffyappears concerned for her mother, she is also distracted by people around her,and wanders off, leaving Joyce trapped, which I believe could be foreshadowingfor Joyce’s illness, and Buffy’s concern and fear for her mother, coupled withher “distractions” in the form of Glory, Dawn and Riley. The physical wallbetween Buffy and her mother becomes metaphorical in Season 5, as Joyce’sillness takes her away from her daughter and forces Buffy into something of arole-reversal with her mother.

Riley’s appearance in Buffy’s dream is surprisinglyimpersonal, with the focus being on his role in the Initiative coupled with abelief that Buffy is a “killer”. The latter is indicative of Buffy’s own mindframe, but it’s interesting that Riley’s appearance is tied not to Buffy’s andhis relationship, but to the institution which got in between them and wouldultimately take him away from her. As with Anya’s appearance in Xander’s dream,Riley’s appearance in Buffy’s dream only serves to underline the lack ofconnection and love between them, and could be seen as foreshadowing for Riley’sdisconnect from Buffy due to her Slayer-ness.

The most interesting part of Buffy’s dreams are herinteractions with the First Slayer in the desert, as these scenes really set up her arc in Season 5 ofdiscovering her Slayer roots. As the First Slayer insists that the Slayer mustwalk alone, Buffy reasserts that she will not be defined or ruled by her Slayer-ness,that she is connected to the world through her friends and her family. This isparticularly interesting, given her disconnect from both friends and familyover the course of Season 5 and well into Season 6, and watched in hindsight,this interaction with the First Slayer underlines the extent to which Buffychanges and disconnects in later seasons.

Overall, Restless is a great episode, maybe not quite living up to the hype whichsurrounds it, but a solid meta-based romp, exploring the core fourcharacters whom we have been with from the beginning of the show. Funny,insightful and unsettling, it’s easy to see why Restless is often listedamongst the best BtVS has to offer.

I wear the cheese, itdoes not wear me.

#answered #karaszorelsdanvers #buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #btvs meta #meta

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impalementation · 5 years

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one of the reasons i’m pretty enamored of the house symbolism in season 7 is because of how it connects to vampire mythology. what’s one of the big vampire weaknesses? they can’t get in your house. which, in its victorian incarnation had to do with the idea of these deviant forces trying to disrupt the domestic, christian sphere. the home is stable and safe and sacred, and vampires want to pervert it. but they can’t unless you let them in, so be a good person of virtue and don’t. eve stuff. female virginity gatekeeping stuff.

and buffy, just by having the concept of a disinvite spell, had already kind of subverted that. buffy is not permanently “ruined” by sleeping with a vampire (ie, angel does not have permanent access to her house), or something. she has the power to dismantle and re-erect boundaries if she so chooses. which is a nice statement on agency and self-determination and what have you.

but the terrifying thing about the first is that it does not care about boundaries. it’s already inside the house. it can send bringers crashing through the windows. it can appear as your mother, or your friend, or yourself. you can’t keep it out. the house is regularly being half destroyed--notice that in conversations with dead people, the episode in which the first makes itself known, the house ends up completely trashed--and the characters are regularly in the process of repairing it. this echoes buffy’s constant attempts and failures to shore up her own emotional edifices, to be a hard-hearted generalissimo in the face of despair. since season 2, buffy has been learning the painful lesson of self-reliance, the lessons of disinvitation and “i trust me.” but in season 7 the show explores the idea that perhaps those lessons were built upon a shaky foundation. that perhaps the existentialist tendency towards a sort of privileged individualism (ie, it’s easier to rely on yourself if you have superpowers--or less metaphorically, things like money or socially acceptable traits), needs to be tempered with emotional generosity, with the empowerment of people other than yourself. that this sort of generosity will make you stronger, not weaker, because it means that things won’t fall apart (your house won’t fall apart) if you screw up.

all season long, characters struggle with parts of themselves that they can’t remove, can’t disinvite. buffy refers to spike fighting against “the monster inside [him],” spike tries and fails to “cut [his soul] out,” willow’s character episode is called the killer in me, buffy has power and responsibility that she didn’t ask for. this is why it matters that spike spends so much time in buffy’s basement. if he is, as i argued here, both the show and buffy’s id, then it makes sense for him to be in the basement, because the id is often associated with basements (most famously in psycho). but just as importantly, he is a vampire. he is a vampire that is inside the house. he is the id, and the potential for shame over that id, that buffy is not keeping out out of a sense of purity, but the id that buffy has invited in in order to make peace with in some way.

(there is stuff to analyze in the fact that buffy gets disinvited from her own house, and then pays this isolation forward by kicking someone out of their house. both isolation and generosity as cascading effects.)

this is in contrast to the christian concept of original sin. caleb is an eye-rollingly heavy-handed character, but he doesn’t just exist to take smug pot-shots at christian misogyny. he exists to remind us of this other, more toxic version of dealing with shame. this idea that people, but especially women, are inherently sinful and have no way to truly purify themselves. that one must perpetually beg forgiveness from an unknowable, untouchable god. throughout the season, self-punishment is regularly contrasted with giving of oneself. spike burning himself on a cross helps no one, but him burning up to win a war does. buffy hurting herself in season 6 helped no one, willow denying her powers helped no one. the lesson of the season is that all this stuff that you’re ashamed of, all this stuff that you’re trying to keep out, is the stuff that you need to transform, not deny. it’s in your house whether you like it or not. you’ve done those things, you feel those feelings, you have that power, whether you like it or not. the question is what you’re going to do about it. you can either try and fail to cast it out. or you can find strength in it.

#season 7 apologist blogging #s7 #gen

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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A Barrage of Buffy

Because I am a great big geek, one of my personal goals is to read all of the novels inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the second in a series of posts collecting relatively short reviews of these books. All of the following are set during the show’s third season.

Obsidian Fate by Diana G. Gallagher In 1520, a Spaniard conveying stolen Aztec treasure to a secret hiding place was killed by a mudslide while holding a particular obsidian mirror. Now, his remains have been found in an archaeological dig in Sunnydale. It turns out that the mirror contains the essence of the Aztec god of night, Tezcatlipoca, who quickly makes a graduate student working on the dig his High Priestess and adopts a jaguar form to prowl around and do some chomps. The gang must prevent his brainwashed followers from offering enough human sacrifices to empower Tezcatlipoca to banish the sun forever.

There were definitely things I liked about Obsidian Fate. I liked that Buffy is worrying about her friends leaving for distant universities and colleges and trying to figure out what she herself is going to do. I liked that Angel has begun to think about moving away to let Buffy live her life. I liked that Giles is still grieving Jenny. A lot of the characterization and dialogue was good—especially Oz, which is pretty difficult to do. Surprisingly, Kendra and Faith both get a mention, though the latter is nowhere to be seen (and this is all set before she goes bad). No Wesley at all. It’s also really neat that the Mayor and Mr. Trick are facilitating Tezcatlipoca’s rise!

But oh man, so many descriptions of temples and stones and boulders and pillars. It’s very tedious. Also, one of their fellow students has become temporary host to part of Tezcatlipoca’s essence and plans to sexually assault Willow prior to sacrificing her. Nobody, besides Oz, seems to be quite as pissed off about this as they should be. Lastly, a subplot about how one of Buffy’s prophetic dreams showed Angel’s demise offers zero suspense. Still, their reunion on the final page does produce a genuinely cute moment.

Is this one worth a read? Eh, it could be worse.

Power of Persuasion by Elizabeth Massie This was a bit of a clunker, I’m afraid. The awkward teen daughter of a culinarily disinclined restaurant owner grows fed up with catering to her incompetent father’s whims and, by chanting supplications whilst surrounded by random items from the restaurant’s pantry, somehow successfully summons a Greek goddess and her two muse daughters to help her change things. They proceed to compel a lot of female students (including Willow) to join their “womyn power” crusade, which mostly involves campaigning for girls to have the right to try out for the vacancies on boys’ teams that arise when male athletes keep turning up dead.

Many of these Buffy media tie-in novels have similarly mediocre plots, but are usually made more tolerable by the author having the ability to capture how characters speak and interact. Not so much here, unfortunately. I appreciated that with Willow, Giles, and Xander falling under the sway of the villains and Angel out of town, Buffy had to rely on Cordelia and Oz to help her. But, while Cordelia’s scenes were fine, much of Oz’s dialogue and demeanor seemed wrong to me. Also, some weird abilities are ascribed to vampires, like one scene where a struggling vamp leaves scorch marks where her heels have dug into the earth.

I suppose the best praise I can muster is, “It’s pretty lame, but at least it’s short.”

Prime Evil by Diana G. Gallagher Seldom have I read a book so starkly divided between enjoyable parts and excruciating parts!

Set after “Doppelgangland,” the plot of Prime Evil involves a witch attuned to “primal magick” who was first born 19,000 years ago and who keeps being reincarnated and gathering sacrificial followers in an attempt to access “the source.” Her current identity is Crystal Gordon, a new history teacher at Sunnydale High, and her latest crop of doomed devotees is composed entirely of students. Obviously, it’s the Scooby Gang’s job to stop her.

First, the good. Most of the scenes with the main characters are fun, with dialogue that I could easily hear in the actors’ voices. Anya and Joyce have significant roles, and there was notable awkwardness between the latter and Giles. Although this was presumably the result of their dalliance in “Band Candy,” I liked that the explanation wasn’t explicitly stated. I thought it was interesting that Crystal tempts Willow to join her disciples by promising a cure for Oz, and I did have to snicker at a scene in which Angel, for the sake of expedience in getting to safety, has to sling Xander over his shoulder.

The bad, however, cannot be denied. There are many tedious flashbacks to Crystal’s past incarnations and these quickly became literally groan-inducing. In addition, the theoretically climactic magical battle at the end is full of prose like “The great source-river of wild magick coursed in violent abandon through the orbits of comets so ancient and distant they had never been warmed by the sun” and succeeded only in making me profoundly sleepy.

In summation… zzz.

Resurrecting Ravana by Ray Garton A rash of cattle mutilations has the Scooby Gang suspecting hellhound activity, but when several people turn up eaten, after each has spontaneously killed their dearest friend, it’s clear something else is up. There’s more of a mystery here than these books generally offer, with a plot that features Hindu gods, an elderly collector of magical artifacts, his lonely granddaughter, and a certain statue that can resurrect a deity who will reward one richly for this service (and whose minions will kill everyone else).

Along the way, a new guidance counselor of Indian descent is introduced (replacing the guy who got killed in “Beauty and the Beasts”). At first, I thought this was going to be another one of those “Willow falls under the sway of a new female staff/faculty member who is secretly evil” storylines, but, refreshingly, that did not turn out to be the case. Willow just talks to her about problems with her relationship with Buffy, which come to a head in a couple of full-on brawls in the library. It takes a really long time for anyone to put together that their situation parallels the murders/devourings happening elsewhere in town, but it does lead to a nice final moment for the book.

Characterization is spotty. Pretty much each character has a moment that feels especially right as well as one that feels especially wrong. Xander and Cordelia’s bickering is even nastier than usual, and it’s never outright said that they’re being affected by the same creatures who manipulated Buffy and Willow. That said, I did enjoy all of Buffy’s interactions with her mother, particularly a late-night trip to Denny’s. All in all, Resurrecting Ravana wasn’t bad!

Return to Chaos by Craig Shaw Gardner Return to Chaos is a bit different from most of the other Buffy tie-in books I’ve read. Instead of a new big villain coming to town, the plot is mostly about some new allies coming to town. A quartet of Druids, specifically, consisting of an older guy named George and his three nephews, one of whom develops feelings for Buffy. George wants to enlists the Slayer’s help in performing a spell on the Hellmouth that will supposedly prevent bad things from crossing over, but he’s really vague about his plans, and it soon becomes evident that he isn’t in his right mind. The nephews genuinely are allies, though, which is kind of refreshing.

This book was written in 1998, and it seems that the author was not privy to much that was going to happen in season three. A couple of vague references are made to Angel coming back, and about Buffy trying to move on romantically, but Xander and Cordelia are still very much together as a couple. That would put this somewhere between “Beauty and the Beasts” (episode four) and “Lover’s Walk” (episode eight), except that it is very clearly spring and we know that “Amends” (episode ten) is Christmas. Oopsies. There are a couple of other small errors, too, concerning Buffy’s eye color and Giles’ glasses.

This is another book in which there’s more of Oz than I’d been expecting. Some of his scenes and thoughts are okay, and I appreciated that the author wrote a teensy bit about Oz’s family, but at other times he just seems far too verbose. (This, combined with the errors mentioned above, makes me wonder just how familiar the author was with these characters.) Cordelia has a subplot of her own, as well, in which she falls under the thrall of a former rival turned vampire. The Druids recognize that the vampire is using a “mastery” spell, which is likened to the power Drusilla exhibited when she was able to kill Kendra so easily. I thought that was kind of neat.

In the end, despite some flaws, it turned out to be pretty decent.

Revenant by Mel Odom In 1853, 35 Chinese laborers were killed in a mine cave-in on a site owned by some of Sunnydale’s forefathers. The incident was covered up and families were unable to provide their loved ones with a proper burial. Now, the unquiet spirits of those men want vengeance on the owners’ descendants and have managed to communicate with the troubled brother of one of Willow’s friends, who enlists her help. Honestly, this plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there’s a rich importer involved (who’s receiving help from the mayor) and chanting and statues and dragons and warehouses what go boom and demons that turn into goop.

Sometimes, Odom has a bit of trouble with characterization—Oz’s dialogue often doesn’t feel quite right, and sometimes Buffy comes off as vapid, like an early scene where she’s worried about her hair while Willow is running for her life—but other scenes are spot-on. I particularly liked a moment where Giles is forced to hotwire a truck (“I was not always a good boy”) and the final scene wherein Xander attempts to parlay his latest romantic disappointment into Buffy’s half of a Twinkie they’re sharing. Odom also incorporates and elaborates on some of the issues characters are worrying about at this point in the show: Buffy ponders her future with Angel, Xander dreads being left behind after graduation, and Cordelia seeks to avoid trouble at home by helping with research. The action scenes are easy to envision, as well.

Unlike most other books set during this season, the brief Xander/Willow fling and its fallout are acknowledged. Like the others, neither Faith nor Wesley is mentioned, and the former’s absence is particularly glaring, given the evident difficulty of the big battle. Still, Revenant ended up being a pleasant surprise.

By: Michelle Smith

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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oncemorewithgauss-blog · 7 years

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1 & 144

“Welcome to the Hellmouth” 1;1

“Chosen” 7;22

I’m always at some place in re-watching Buffy, although I must admit, unless I am doing a complete, “start to finish” viewing, I rarely visit Season 1. Just knowing what’s to come, I can’t help myself, and end up in later seasons. This habit gave me the idea to watch the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in pairs of episodes, starting with the first and last, then the second with second to last, third with third to last, and so on. Like working from the outside in, this pairing pattern ends in the middle of Season 4, episodes 16 and 17 (for those who are curious). Starting this particular re-watch with selected pairs that span the entire series has reminded me how special the spirit of this show is and how consistent it is, in ways that it didn’t HAVE to be, but did anyway. Let’s get into comparing and contrasting “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “Chosen.”

The first scene of “Welcome to the Hellmouth” is excellent is setting the precedence that the story you are about to enter is not what you have been conditioned to expect. A teenage couple, at night, in an empty building, about to start sexy-time is a horror trope that tells the audience that A) they are going to die and B) we’ll get a glimpse of our monster. The other trope at work here is that the girl is being pressured into a sexual situation and has reason to fear the boy she is with. Whedon combines these two expectations and turns them on their heads: the monster is not coming from the unknown darkness, the monster is already there, and it’s the not the girl whom should fear the boy, but the other way around as Darla’s vamp face appears.

This cuts to our first shot of Buffy, having a prophetic dream. This dream includes the Master, the cross necklace from Angel, the VAMPYR book in the library, and hoards of vampires in a cemetery. As each of these elements are revealed to the audience throughout the episode, we are seamlessly shown that Buffy is trustworthy and her intuition is an important guiding force. This becomes more and more important as the series progresses and finally culminates in the finale. WE trust Buffy to lead us into battle, even when the Potentials and the Scoobies doubt her. The groundwork for this trust relationship with the protagonist and the audience starts in THE FIRST EPISODE.

One of my favorite parts of the first couple seasons is Buffy’s laundry list of ridiculous cover-ups for Slayer related activity. In this one we get her telling Principal Flutie, “That gym was full of vamp -… asbestos!” and her mother, “I’ll only hang out with the living - lively! Only lively people.” This need to hide being the Slayer slowly fades over the seasons, until “Chosen” when she has an army of people that not only know who she is, but are all included in her plan to defeat The First. Not only does she step into her own power over the course of the series, but she readily shares that power with others to save the world.

Buffy’s response to Cordelia bullying Willow is what made me commit to Team Buffy forever and always. She’s the new girl at school, and turns down fast-tracked acceptance into the popular clique because she doesn’t derive satisfaction from putting others down. Instead of “avoiding the losers” as Cordelia advises, Buffy instead seeks Willow out to befriend her.

Speaking of Willow, her insecurities and self doubt are adorably surface in “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” She’s just so green in this first episode! We see that she immediately admires Buffy through their conversation on the quad at school, and then later at the Bronze when she tells Willow to “seize the day.” Willow also clearly respects and admires Giles as well; her sheer glee when talking about him and the collection of books he brought to the Sunnydale High library is incredibly endearing. “He knows everything!”

After the gym incident at her old high school, Buffy has been attempting to deny/quit her Slayer calling. She is trying very hard to be a “normal” teenage girl. As her new Watcher, of course Giles is a strong force in reminding her that she can’t really deny her reality. Their first interaction is very indicative of this; Giles with his not very undercover enthusiasm as he pulls out that enormous VAMPYR volume, and Buffy’s immediate shutdown of their conversation as she realizes it’s the book from her dream and quickly books it out of the library. Giles seems totally confused by this interaction; why would she pretend she isn’t the Slayer? When the dead boy from the opening scene is discovered in the gym locker room however, Buffy cannot help herself and has to go investigate. As Giles will say some time from now, “She’s a hero, you see.” Buffy begrudgingly goes back to the library to confront Giles that she both knows it’s vampires, but also that she’s not in the Slayer business anymore. Giles tries to convince her in the library and the Bronze that she cannot ignore her calling. While it’s clear to the audience that technically Giles is right, he’s a little heavy handed in trying to push Buffy back to being the Slayer. It’s true that one cannot sustain denying their truth, but Buffy needs to come to that realization on her own. This dynamic: that Giles is correct but Buffy needs to come to said understanding in her own way is very consistent throughout their relationship in this series. We see it illustrated on the balcony when Giles is trying to get Buffy to “feel” the vampires in the Bronze by “honing her senses.” Buffy spots one, not by her spidey-vamp-sense, but by her keen observance of the way he’s dressed. She achieved the outcome Giles is searching for, just not in the way he expects.

Their conversation in the library is how Xander discovers Buffy is the Slayer, and when he confronts her about it at the Bronze, her authentic concern for Willow is how he comes to undoubtedly believe her. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” we see that even when Xander is out of his element, he’ll be right there in the thick of it trying to help the people he cares about. In “Chosen” the man has lost an eye, doesn’t had super powers, but is still showing up for the apocalyptic fight with his friends.

Angel’s cameo in both of these episodes is actually very similar: He comes out of nowhere, bearing helpful jewelry, shares some cryptic, yet important information, and then disappears into the shadows. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” he says “You’re standing at the mouth of Hell and it’s about to open,” which is echoed in the finale since Buffy literally stands at the mouth of Hell and chooses to jump in. Watching these episodes back to back made their meeting in “Chosen” feel warmer than I remember in the past. When they first meet, the air is full of the strong tension of possibility. In the finale, there is a feeling of reprieve, a reminder of the support Angel has always had for Buffy over the years, yet she no longer falls head first into that opportunity of comfort. Her famous “cookie dough” speech shows how much self awareness and acceptance Buffy has come to know. She is no longer trying to be a “normal” girl, she just is, and she’s still changing and growing. And for real, the literal apocalypse is upon her, like she really has time to deal with romantic vampire drama.

After killing Caleb and her conversation with Angel, Buffy returns to the house with the boost of the Slayer scythe and champion amulet, yet still unclear on their path to victory. Seeing Dawn when she first opens the door, and then Anya in the background with Xander reminded me of how much more help Buffy allows herself to accept from others these days. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” the Scoobies haven’t even formally formed yet, and Buff is trying to keep anything Slayer related out of her life. Now, she not only has Giles, Willow and Xander backing her up, but also Dawn, Spike, Anya, Faith, Robin, Andrew, and the gaggle of Potentials.

In their final conversation before the battle, The First tries its last hand at cutting into Buffy while she can’t sleep in the basement. The First patronizes her army of “little girls,” bringing up that trope of underestimating the strength of teenage girls. Lest we forget, Buffy was a teenage girl when she averted many previous apocalypses. It taunts Buffy with the mantra-like prophecy of the Slayer, “Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer." This callback directly ties this episode to “Welcome to the Hellmouth” when we first heard those words opening the episode and met our chosen one for this generation. The First was trying to make Buffy feel alone and disheartened of course emphasizing the singular-ness of the Slayer prophecy and reminding her of how effective it’s been at taking out the Slayer line. By doing this, The First unknowingly gave Buffy her idea of sharing her power to create many, many slayers. Damn, if that isn’t just very satisfying in its full circle.

Buffy’s idea highlights the ways that she and her friends have grown, and still have some growing to do, since “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” Giles remarks that it flies in the face of all tradition, but it’s “bloody brilliant” for it. He is no longer her Watcher that guides her, he’s there to follow her lead in the end. Willow’s self doubt and insecurities about her abilities still show themselves (after season 6, very understandable) yet she still trusts Buffy and agrees to perform the very powerful scythe spell. Buffy following her instincts and befriending Willow eventually leads to them not only stopping the apocalypse but changing the Slayer line FOREVER. Buffy is no longer running from the Hellmouth and her calling, she is taking it on by the horns. She is not alone in this endeavor either, she cannot do it without the help of those around her.

Spike is such a strong presence in this story that it is strange to try to compare an episode where he didn’t exist, and one where he saves the world. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth,”, Buffy is striving for ideas of simplicity and normalcy in her life. Her relationship with Spike is a clear indication of how over the seasons she has abandoned those ideas and embraced complexity and grey areas. In the final episode, Spike is a source of reprieve, unconditional love, and unwavering support. While there have been many opportunities and reasons over the years for Buffy to remove Spike from her life (and the world), she didn’t. She followed her intuition, and Spike ended up being the champion that destroyed the Hellmouth.

“So this is where you make a choice… Are you ready to be strong?” Buffy has made the choice to be strong, to pick back up the mantle and responsibilities of the Slayer countless times over the years, starting with her choices in “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” She can ask this of the Potentials with authenticity and sincerity because she has been there before. She is still there, still making the active choice to keep fighting, to meet her calling. When the battle is finally over and Faith asks, “You’re not the One and Only Chosen any more. Just got to be like a person. How’s that feel?” Buffy’s face comes over with a look of completion and hope. By being her truth and sharing her power, she now is not alone in her calling.

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #welcome to the hellmouth #review #buffy #chosen #season 1 #season 7

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sulietsexual · 7 years

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Tell us why you ship Dangel! They have such a complex, layered history and are so horrible for each other yet still have this chemistry and connection...

OMG, Darla and Angel, they are such an amazing and dark and fascinatingand multi-faceted ship. So here, Nonnie, have an essay exploring their relationship and showing why they are soamazing together!

Darla and Angel have one of the most complex relationships in theWhedonverse, which combines hate, love, lust, violence, dependency, anger,responsibility, selflessness, selfishness, darkness and patience. First andforemost, Darla is Angel’s sire. She made him which means he will always belinked to her. She chose him because she saw something great in him, a darknessshe could share. Together they were a near-unstoppable force of evil, pushingeach other to greater heights of sadism. If Angel had never been re-ensouled hewould have stayed with her. Even when he has been re-ensouled he tries toreturn to her, because she is his constant. They do not love each other butthere is a deep connection there. They are each other’s “mate” for all intentsand purposes. Darla represents Angel’s darkest place and she will always be theperson who will tempt him the most. Wolfram & Hart recognises this which iswhy they choose to use her as a weapon against him.

When she returns as human, Angel recognises whyWolfram & Hart have brought her back. He understands instantly why theychose to deliver her to him because he knows how dark he can and has beenaround her. Darla, too, knows this, and it is a driving factor for her in herpursuit of him, possibly as a way to ignore her pressing soul and the feelingsand emotions she is not used to. When Darla returns as human, she once againfeels the pull towards Angel that she did as a vampire, but due to the presenceof her soul, these feelings are deeper, more real and affect her much more thanthey ever could have when she was a vampire. For the first time in centuriesshe is feeling real, deep human emotions, and I think she genuinely starts tofall in love with Angel over the course of Season 2.

Angel, meanwhile, tries to stay away from her,but once her soul kicks in he finds it impossible to resist trying to help her.In a way his helping her is selfishly motivated; he wants to see her throughthe adjustment of having a soul because no one was there to help him. Throughher, he can offer the support and understanding that he never had. He also feelsresponsible for her because he is truly the only one who can completelyappreciate what she is going through. He wants to help her but he can’t helpher in the manner which she wants – he refuses to turn her, as it goes againsteverything in his nature. He also knows that if he did turn her he would unleasha monster, one who could tempt him even further than before.

However, as soon as he finds out Darla is dying thedynamic changes. Now he truly is selflessly helping her. He recognises howWolfram & Hart have manipulated her, how cruel and vicious they have beentowards her, all to get to him. Once more, he feels responsible for her as shewould not be going through the hell she is if it weren’t for his battle withWolfram & Hart. He looks for ways to save her, and in his search he finallyfully sees her as human and his feelings for her start to change. In his eyesshe becomes someone he could love and someone he cares for enough to try tosave. In his most selfless gesture he offers up his life in exchange for hers,wanting her to have the chance that he feels he never will, the chance to leada normal human life, completely uninterrupted by supernatural forces. He wantsso badly for her to be human, to experience her life the way she was meant to.When they are informed that nothing can be done for her, his breakdown is inequal parts about her and about himself. He is devastated that Darla will nowdie but he is also devastated because he sees that there is no redemption, nosecond chances for her and by extension, himself. The greater forces will neverallow them peace and in that moment he realises that.

This is perhaps why he offers to turn her. He sodesperately wants her to be given a second chance that he contemplates siringher, saying that it might be different given that he has a soul. However, bythis point in time Darla has realised that she has been given a second chance.Not the one they were both hoping for but a second chance nonetheless; thechance to die the way she was meant to. Through Angel’s sacrifice, through hiscaring, she has accepted her fate and made peace with herself and with him. Sheasks Angel to make peace with it too, and he embraces her and says that shewon’t be alone in it. This is probably the most touching moment in theirrelationship, as together they accept the inevitable and connect on a level theyhad been unable to connect on before this.

This connection is only allowed a few minutesbefore it is brutally ripped from them, once again courtesy of Wolfram &Hart. As Angel watches helplessly, Darla is sired by Drusilla. This event has aprofound effect on Angel and on Darla. Darla is no longer the evil counterparthe needs to stay away from. She has now become someone real, someone human whomhe cares for deeply and was willing to give his life to save. To be forced towatch her die and then be turned into a monster again is more than Angel can takeat that point. He is left devastated that he was unable to save her. When hereturns to the hotel he is babbling incoherently, remembering the details ofhis own siring and thinking over what Darla just went through. He gathers hissenses enough to try to save her again. He doesn’t want her to rise, howeverthis time it’s less about the monster she will become and more about her. Hehas finally come to genuinely care for her and he doesn’t want her to gothrough existence as a vampire again. Yet when he comes face-to-face with her,these feelings are ultimately his downfall. As she looks up at him and asks“Angel?” he hesitates. He doesn’t see her as a demon anymore and in that onemoment he is unable to distinguish between Darla the human and the demon thatnow wears her face.

Darla, meanwhile, is suddenly a soullessmonster again, however, she is now a soulless monster who has recent memoriesof being human, of feeling human emotions and of connecting to Angel on a humanlevel. This is extremely important to remember, because it explains Darla’sconflicting and confused feelings towards Angel, and why his presence throwsher for a loop. Darla was a soulless vampire for four hundred years and she allbut forgot what is was like to be human. To become a vampire again after beingnewly human for so long allows her to develop very complex feelings forAngel, feelings which she fights and denies, because they are so foreign toher, but feelings which are ultimately her downfall, because she allows them totake control of her.

Once Darla has been turned, things become much morecomplicated for Angel. Where once he could easily see Darla as demon and nothesitate to kill her (as he has done to protect Buffy) he now knows what it isfor Darla to be human. He has feelings for her now and has seen the true Darla,the one he never encountered as Angelus. This makes it infinitely harder forhim to kill her and in order to do so, he needs to access his darker urges. Heneeds to become darker in order to eliminate someone who has become importantto him, whom he now cares for. It will cause him pain to kill her, some ofwhich he experiences when stalking her and Drusilla. He admits that he is tooclose, that he has felt her heart beat, he has smelt her human scent and he isstill too close to those feelings. He cannot kill her directly so he choosesinstead to set her and Drusilla on fire before turning his attention towardsWolfram & Hart, seemingly forgetting about Darla in the process.

By the time Darla resurfaces Angel has losthimself so completely in his own darkness that any feelings for her human sidehave all but disappeared. She has reverted back to being his dark place, tobeing the demon that turned him and fed his most sadistic urges. This is whywhen he loses faith in humanity he automatically turns to her. He has just beentorn down by Wolfram & Hart and made to face all the evil that exists inhis world. He wants nothing more than to forget the world, to “feel somethingother than the cold”. In the moment he decides to sleep with Darla it is notabout losing his soul (which he knew would never happen with her) it is about acomplete escape from his good side. He wants, in that moment, to completelygive into darkness and Darla has and always will provide him with that. Withher he is allowed that darkness, soul or not. He uses her for his own selfishreasons but he would only do this with her. Sheunderstands his darkness, she will always encourage it and with Darla he cancompletely give himself over to it.

Darla, in turn, is still so caught up in herleftover human emotions, that she pretty much uses Angel back. She is hoping to turnhim into Angelus, to bring forth the soulless monster she once knew andconnected with, the demon who can sever herlingering feelings of humanity. She gives herself over to Angel completely,because she is hoping to see the return of Angelus andtherefore, the return of her mate, her darkest place.

Unfortunately for Darla (but not for Angel)sleeping with Darla has the opposite effect and actually provides Angel withanother important event, his epiphany. He recognises this and even thanks herfor it, although she in turn is disgusted and appalled by the turn of events.The gratitude that Angel feels for whoever provided him with his epiphany istransferred to Darla and he once again decides not to kill her, warning her tostay away as the next time he will not be so lenient. He then leaves her in hisroom, leaving her and everything she represents behind him.

When Darla returns Angel is able to distancehimself from her. Possibly spurned by the memory of what happened the last timehe felt compassion for her, he keeps himself aloof and refuses to engage her inany way. It is only after he has heard the heartbeat of the child she iscarrying and comes to the realisation that it has a soul that he allows himselfto feel for her. As her pregnancy unfolds Angel is unwittingly drawn closer toher, especially once the child’s soul starts to affect her. In one of theirmost beautiful scenes, Darla confesses how much she loves her child, and in thatmoment she and Angel are bonded together deeper than they ever have beenbefore. They have created a child with a soul, something no one thoughtpossible. They both love him more than anything in the world and will doanything and everything to protect him. This bond is one that neither Buffy norCordelia will ever share with Angel. Darla is the mother of his child and assuch he will always be connected to her through Connor.

In the hours that follow, Darla’s condition worsens, and as she starts to feel the child’s soul more she starts to realise what sheneeds to do. The revelation that Holtz is in their time allows her to realiseall the evil that she and Angel did and, for the first time, fully feel andappreciate what it means to have a soul. As she collapses outside Karatos andtearfully tells Angel that they can’t make up for anything they have done, hesees her completely for the first time. He recognises what they have donetogether and apart, what she has gone through as a human, then a vampire with asoul. He tenderly holds her hand and kisses her fingers and in that moment, heloves her.

Long after staking herself, Darla will remain apart of Angel and a part of his life. She lives on in his son. Theirs is acomplex, rich, complicated and deep relationship. Darla will always hold a partof him. She will always represent his darker half yet at the same time, throughConnor, she also represents the good in him. She will always be connected tohim and in the end, he loved her. Darla will always be a part of Angel and this is why I will always love this pairing.

#answered #Anonymous #ats #ats meta #dangel #rachel talks whedonverse #meta

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