This Year's Model of Humanity

Because, well, on occasion, I will do this. You know, for sufficient reason and with good enough excuse to babble about what I love.
( 1. Fandoms that I still care about (20 total) )
( 2. First Fandom )
( 3. Most Recent Fandom )
( 4. Five Fandoms that Mean Quite a Bit to Me, Really )

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer series finale, Chosen, really resonated with me, right from the first viewing. But I was never able to find just the right words (words are, in the end, always inefficient -- they never encompass the deepness of what I feel).

Interestingly, the making of the Wesley vid is giving me some of the right words.

The reason that season seven resonates with me on an emotional level is because of the completion of a series-long theme -- deconstructing the demonization of female power. The Watchers have long been a symbol of patriarchy on the show ('this is how women and men have behaved, since the beginning'). The switch-and-bait aspect of the Slayer myth is an essential part of it all.

It's about the reduction of female power.

About taking female power and putting limits on it, putting it into the control of men (as we see in Restless, the First Slayer in chains). It's about making it sound dangerous and unnatural (side note: many people also disliked Family, an episode that deals with exactly the same issue of falsely claiming that female power was, in essence, demonic).

And we get to see that from the other side in Damage, where the Slayers are free from outside control (and, again, this is interpreted by many fans as a bad thing). This issue is also addressed in the direct demonization of Cordelia and Fred (again, on Angel, we see the issue from the viewpoint of male-directed characters instead of female).

In many ways, Wesley starts out as a parody of a Watcher but, in the end, he understands what a Watcher should be -- nothing at all like his father and nothing at all like a general. With Illyria, their relationship is one of equals, and he's not a Watcher but a Guide, giving Illyria a reason to care about humanity and about fighting the good fight.

I mentioned the other day that I feel a connection between Buffy and Wesley's arcs, not the least because they are the ones that illustrate to us (separately) that the ideal relationship is not that of a Slayer and her Watcher, but of a Guardian and a Guide. It's not about killing, but about protecting. It's not about instructing, but about sharing knowledge.

Other reasons include, but are not limited to, the Buffy/Spike=Wesley/Lilah line of thought and thoughts regarding the earlier comical aspects of each character (Movie!Buffy and BtVS!Wesley).

So, people are talking about more obscure moments of squee. Not the big, huge "Oh, my God!" moments, but the smaller, quieter ones that linger in the heart. So, one per season. Some aren't terribly obscure, but none of them are Buffy jumping off a tower.

1. In Xander's nightmare, there are swastikas on the wall, thus upholding what he says earlier about being afraid of Nazis (Nightmares).

2. Dru and Angel begin the tiny thread of their family being 'like jasmine' (which culminates in the naming of Jasmine in S4 Angel!).

3. Xander getting the math wrong in his head when he's being distracted by trying not to think of sex (Earshot).

4. Xander going up stairs in Buffy's dream (Restless). I just really love that he's the only Scooby to show up in her dream, because she shows up in everyone's. Because I'm a hopeless 'shipper.

5. Buffy using her kick-ass hearing to fight demons that she can't see (Family), thus continuing a tiny thread from Invisible Girl.

6. That face that Buffy makes whenever she drinks whatever it was that she was drinking in Life Serial. Just.... complete, adorable cuteness.

7. Buffy checking Xander's watch (Lessons). Never gets old.

Because I'm tired and have no original thoughts, I will meme.

a. Post a list of 10 TV shows you watch(ed).
b. Have your friends list guess your favourite character and/or pairing from each show.
c. When guessed, tell us why you like that character/pairing.
( 10 shows, all pairings and characters are now guessed )

So, I'm watching my BtVS tapes to make sure that I have the right labels and...

I just saw the end of Lovers Walk and my heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces. Xander and Willow screw up so badly and then you have Buffy and Angel...

Buffy: "What I want from you, I can never have. You don't need me to take care of you anymore, so I'm going to go."
Angel: "I don't accept that."
Buffy: "You have to."
Angel: "There's got to be some way we can still see each other ."
Buffy: "There is. Tell me that you don't love me."

And, of course, he can't. So she walks away.

*sniffles as her OMG! Tragic Love! button is hit*

It didn't hurt like that the first time around. I wasn't at all invested in Angel's character, so I didn't care much. Enough.

ETA: OMG! The mood icon is so appropriate!

Wrote this for lasultrix and realized that I was writing Perfect Possible Willow and Giles. Which is great, because I've been wanting to set their characters (I want to write every character in an intimate one-on-one setting before I try anything fancy).
( Roughly a year and a half after Chosen )

Title: Something More
Author: Diana Michelle
Email: [email protected]
Pairing: Dawn/Andrew
Rating: PG (if that)
Notes: Written for riddering. Set 7 years post-Chosen (fits into Perfect Possible, my post-Chosen 'verse).
( Andrew was a great guy, but frustrating as hell in a… whatever they were. )

Fraser and Angel actually have a lot in common. It's all about that knife-edge of control. Both of them are very alpha. Control freaks.

That's what Clark grows up to be. That's what Buffy learns to be. They have to keep themselves in check, always remember how strong they are in relation to the people around them. That other people are more physically fragile. It's a superpowered holding back control, which is slightly different than the control that Fraser and Angel types have, which is more the darkness-holding back control (though Fraser's darkness certainly isn't at the level of Angel's, he definitely has it).

I like the ones that constantly keep themselves in check. All that power and all that control - it's very hot.

And it's fun watching people walk that edge and seeing what can make them fall over. Well, not 'fun' so much as... fascinating, as Spock would say. Spock - one of our first fandom examples of this, actually. Stronger than human, deeply repressed, no wonder people found him intriguing. And his pairing with Kirk is also a familiar pattern - one who is repressed emotionally and the other who can provoke first to lose their control at times. A hug, some words a little too 'emotional', "have been and always shall be", the beginning of a new memory.

Buffy's an interesting case - at first, Buffy is the one who provokes (with Angel), while later, she is the one provoked (with Spike). As she grows older, we see her build that shell of control and protection around herself. And in Smallville, Clark is also 'becoming' before our eyes, as is Lex. It isn't always a pleasant process. Watching someone learn to put up more walls doesn't tend to be. Seeing the difference between Young Liam (Spin the Bottle) and the Liam is The Prodigal is such a sad thing. He's learned that trying to keep to his father's rules doesn't help him at all, and whereas in Wesley's case, Wes just kept trying to be evermore perfect (and this, I believe, would also apply to Fraser's case), Liam gave up, gave in, and let himself become what his father thought him to be.

I tend to think that Liam was an artist, even as a human - long years can give you knowledge and training, but they can't give you desire. I can't imagine Liam's father having much use for an artist type, though. Liam wanted to see the world, wanted to be somebody. He wanted the finest of things, wanted to take. But even as a demon, he didn't think that he could own. Darla certainly wouldn't stand for belonging to a creature that she'd made - made so that she could have the power in a relationship, so that she could be the one choosing a beautiful companion for once. Her own dear boy, as she'd been the 'dear one' to so many, including the vampire that sired her. No wonder Angelus thought it was amusing that Spike thought that his Sire was his.

There are moments that stay with me. In the Smallville vein, I can never forget Clark's Lex dream in Slumber. Without that, I might not have understood how deeply his terror ran about Lex discovering his secrets. In Angel, my mind flits back to Angelus, telling Darla that he planned to make Drusilla a vampire, and her expression. She tells him that "no one you keep up with you, not even me," and that's what I think about when I hear those words. He proposed something that she would have never considered. In Buffy, I will never forget what she said to Giles in The Gift - "I don't know how to live in the world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away... I don't see the point."

Angel's experiencing that now. Everything just keeps getting stripped away. Now, he doesn't even have the surety of being chosen. He might not have believed in the Shanshu, but he never imagined that it could be about anyone but him. He knew that he was contested, that he was wanted, that the world would always fight to keep him. He can't stay near his loved ones. He can't confide in his friends. He can't do anything but his best and he isn't sure whether or not he's even on the right side. He's not sure what evil wants him to do. Any choice he makes could be the wrong one. Everything he touches, everything he loves, turns to ashes (sometimes literally, as in the case of Darla). And the worst parts are the parts that he did to himself. And he knows that, as surely as he knows that he'll never breach the gates of Heaven.

And the ones he loves are happiest without him in their lives. Now, we know that that isn't true (Buffy, for example), but I have no doubts that Angel believes it and that is what matters, especially this year.

Because this year is all about perceptions. Is Eve evil? Was Spike a ghost? Does being a monster change who you are, especially if your loved ones can't see a difference? What is hell? Everyone is something other than they are, especially the twisted momories crew. Appearances can be deceiving and just because someone seems to get along with people, doesn't mean he doesn't want to kill them for what they've done. Angel's standing in a graveyard in the middle of the night, and he's always wearing a mask. People can't always tell metal from flesh. And most obvious of all, sometimes the prophecy isn't the prophecy and the cup is too goldeny to truly be full of torment. And bruises aren't always real and the blood is just paint.

It's about what people believe to be true. Reality bends to desire. If you believe strongly enough and if your will is powerful enough, reality bends - at least it does in the Buffyverse. Buffy's done it many a time.

And what you feel to be true is what is true to you, regardless of the 'facts'. Buffy killed Angel, not because she physically killed him, but because she was willing to kill him.

Buffy closed a dimensional portal because she believed with everything inside her that the world wasn't worth saving if she couldn't save it this way.

Reality bends.

One of the reasons that I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer so much is because it can be viewed on so many levels - several of them unintended by the creators of the show, but no less valid for that. Authorial intent isn't everything.

The reason that people latch onto the Heart/Spirit/Mind divide offered in Restless is because it works. And the reason that Normal Again is such a kick-ass episode is because it makes sense. It makes sense that it could all be in Buffy's head, because everything in Sunnydale does revolve around Buffy.

Xander as Heart, Willow as Spirit, and Giles as Mind are metaphors that carry through-out the entire series. You can chart them, and where they are tracks to where Buffy is.

But they aren't the only ones that it works for - every single major character in BtVS can be used as a symbol for a part of Buffy. Cordelia is the representation of Buffy Before. Cordelia is Buffy without Slayer powers - of course, when she goes over to Angel, her symbolism changes (and wow, the Angel stuff is interesting. I really need to write about that sometime). And what Cordelia shows us is that Buffy would have become Buffy even if she hadn't been a Slayer. And once Cordelia has truly begun that transition, she moves off the show, because her journey as Buffy's shadow self is complete - it's been transferred to other parties.

Buffy has many shadow-selves, many 'what-if's. Cordelia, Kendra, Anne, Faith, Spike, and Kennedy all come to mind and there are probably more. All of them are rejected possibilities. In the end, their experiences with her tend to uplift them, bring them to the light as she serves as their inspiration. And her experiences with them teach her about herself.

There are several places where Buffy takes a step forward into maturity, where the show evolves. The Pack is the first time that we saw that the show can actually be scary. Prophecy Girl really takes things up a notch with Buffy's speech to Giles and her momentary death. The next turning point is Lie to Me, where we learn that no matter how much we trust someone, you never know what's in their past (Angel re: Dru). That theme continues in The Dark Age.

The overall theme of Season Two is really one of betrayal, culminating in Buffy choosing the world over her love with Angel. She kills him to save the world and hates herself for it, as she hated herself for him turning evil in the first place ("It was me?"). It's about hidden faces and masks.

Becoming has so many betrayals - from Xander's Lie to Spike attacking Angelus to "Close your eyes."

In Lie to Me, the hidden past of a group member is the 'B' plot - in The Dark Age, it's the 'A' plot. Lie to Me is about Ford, whereas The Dark Age is about Giles. Themes that were in the background move to the foreground. The subtext is rapidly becoming text. Every single season two episode features a betrayal of some kind, but they become more important as the season builds.

In retrospect, what Giles does in Season Seven echoes what he's done just prior to Welcome to the Hellmouth - he forces himself to become the duty of the Watcher, not allowing anything else in him. Slowly, Buffy loosens him up, but then she dies a second time and he never recovers from that. Even though she comes back, he never recovers from seeing his Slayer dead. That fear and pain drives him in Seasons Six and Seven, and then the Council blows up and it gets even worse.

I love that after her "I don't know if I can trust you" last episode, Buffy trusts Angel with the human blood this episode. It's sweet.

Ah, this is the first episode where we see Xander actually connect with Cordelia. She says, "This is what happens when you have school on a Saturday," and he gives her this surprised look. They have more in common than he'd thought. And then later, they fight - close. It's intimate. If Willow hadn't interrupted them, that might have been their first kiss.

And here we have a scared Giles barking orders and essentially telling Buffy that her opinion doesn't matter. Once again, I'm reminded of Season Seven Giles.

"Nothing's safe in this world, Rupert. Don't you know that by now?" Sometimes, I feel that that is the lesson that Season Two is teaching - nothing is safe in this world. No one is fully honest (Everyone lies, Ethan tells us) and everyone has something they'd prefer the world not know about them. Or do they? The issue in S2 is you can only ever truly count on yourself, and Buffy learns that lesson far too well. It's much easier to walk alone than it is to integrate independence with interdependence. People can disappoint you terribly, Buffy learns. It's harder for her to learn that it's worth trusting even if that is so. She does manage it, though - that's what the whole Spike&Buffy story of Season Seven is about.

I love that Buffy and Xander just get it -
"No, no one dead."
"But someone unconscious."
They're so often on the same wavelength. Which possibly makes them better as friends than as lovers. Possibly. They really are very alike. They're kindred spirits. They make very good friends.

Oh, and this episode marks the first time that magic (well, 'majiks' as Giles says) is equated with drugs.

"It was an extraordinary high."

And there's this -
"Buffy, I'm sorry."
"I know."

Which is a big ouch, isn't it? Buffy is so sweet to him at the end, though. "Turns out you're also a person."