fray-adjacent

kikimay asked for my Top 5 Buffyverse women!

Buffy Summers: For the ways she both resists and embraces her calling. For her kindness. For her determination. Because I love her sweet, silly early season self and her relatively hard, battle-worn late season self. Because she loves cheesy puns and figure skating and has a stuffed pig named Mr Gordo. Because the mission matters to her. Because she gets a visceral joy from slaying, and she knows that if she wasn't the Slayer, she'd lose an essential part of herself. Because she loves as deeply and brightly as the First Slayer tells her she does, and she expresses that love most fully not to a boyfriend, but to her sister.

Because her lot fucking sucks, and when she realises she can change it, can share her power and responsibility, she does.

Willow Rosenberg: I don't admire Willow the way I do Buffy, but I feel a lot of affection and sympathy for her and am in awe of the quality of her character arc over the show's seven seasons. Willow is intelligent, hard-working, ambitious and arrogant. She's insecure and in need of approval, and unlike Buffy and Tara, she doesn't have a super strong internal moral compass. She wants to fight the good fight alongside her friends, but she also wants to be important. She doesn't want to be wrong about anything ever, because if she isn't perfect then who will ever love her? If her friends don't need her, why would they want her around? She's at once complex and multifaceted yet very consistent. Sometimes she makes me angry, sometimes she makes me sick, but she is so very human and beautifully written and performed.

Cordelia Chase: it's possible I have a soft spot for pretty girls with hidden depths. She makes me laugh, she plays off other characters in a group incredibly well, and I love her transformation from selfish oblivious rich girl to a member of the team in Angel.

Tara MacLay: she brings a strength and emotional maturity to the Scoobies that no one else on either show possesses, with the interesting possible exception of Oz. The support she gives Buffy from "The Body" to "Older and Far Away" is wonderful and I love her so much for it. You deserved better, Tara.

Anya Jenkins: this last one was tough because I also love Dawn. Which matters more, my involuntary empathy for Dawn and admiration for how she grows in later seasons, or how much Anya makes me laugh? The episode "Selfless" was the eventual tiebreaker. Hands down my favorite character study episode -- when the character being studied isn't Buffy anyway.

Honorary mention (in addition to the one for Dawn) for Faith Lehane. She's a fantastic character, though funnily enough my favorite incarnation of her is on AtS S4/BtVS S7, when she's all emotionally mature and repenty. And when she arguably gets the least narrative attention.
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I was inspired by settiai to take stock of my vid WIPs.  I love vidding and I have so many ideas, but sometimes I get a little lazy, a little undisciplined.  So, if nothing else, I can use this to keep myself on top of my goals and how well I'm meeting them?

( Maybe if I use Cinelerra and don't have to clip I can make these? Maybe???? )

They suggested to rec for a small fandom, but I'm going to rec for one of the largest: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Because I just love it that much.

Ten Things Buffy Does Best: A short, spoiler-free essay by Mike Marinaro, creator of Critically Touched and writer of the most thorough set of Buffy reviews I've seen.  Here he outlines why Buffy is his favorite show, and I totally agree.

The one thing I love about Buffy that Mike doesn't discuss is its wide range of female characters, its emphasis on women and girls' relationships with each other, and its celebration and exploration of female power.  So my second and third recs are for vids that showcase these aspects of the show with few spoilers.  There are many Buffy vids I love, but these are two that, by virtue of their emphasis on themes ranging throughout the series and their lack of spoilers, are great intros to the series.

Scarlet Ribbons byaycheb. Joss Whedon said that "the very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it."  This lovely vid captures just that aspect of the show, while contrasting this sort of "power with" that many women -- and some men -- exercise with the authoritarian "power over" represented by the "vampires, the demons, and forces of darkness."

Living Dead Girl by bradcpu.  Don't think for a second that BtVS essentializes female power as inherently better, gentler, or more egalitarian than male power.  This vid explores the "dark side" of power, and a whole bunch of other things, through the character Faith.  It is awesome. 

Of course, one thing neither of these vids captures is the humor of the series.  For me, that is a huge part of the show's appeal.  It's just some of the funniest damn television I've seen.  And not only is it funny, it's can also be just plain heartwarming.  In a genuine way.  So I'll leave off with a vid that captures some of the humor, kindness, and warmth of the show.  Of course, a lot of the show's humor isn't visual, so this leans more toward the show's use of physical comedy, but hey, I love that too.

Smile, by charmax .  Made for a past More Joy Day!  Includes lots of Angel as well as Buffy.