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crack_van2003-09-24 10:50 pm
ethrosdemon.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2003-09-24 10:50 pm
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hackthis for betaing my summary. Yes, I really am that neurotic.
BTVS: An Overview
Uh oh, here we go, 'Nsync has got the flow…
Back up. Restart.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a television show about the one girl in this generation who was born to defend the world against vampires and demons and anything that goes bump in the night. Even drunk frat boys from time to time. Our slayer was a plucky, blond girl from California named Buffy who had severe relationship problems, came from a broken home, died in the line of duty not once but twice, was once a cheerleader, had more clothes than a supermodel, and who needed to eat a couple ham sandwiches.
Angel, the vampire with a soul. Has his own show now.
Anya, the ex demon who loves capitalism.
Buffy. The show's about her.
Cordelia, my idol.
Dawn, Buffy's sister. The less said, the better.
Dru and Spike. Vampires.
Faith, the not-so-stable slayer.
Giles, tweed-wearing, eventually hard-drinking Watcher.
Riley. No comment.
Tara. Witch, Willow's girl.
Willow, witch, sidekick.
Xander, demon-magnet, sidekick.
**
The show lasted for seven years, and attempting to sum up the myriad plot arcs in an abbreviated version that you'd want to stick around to read would be impossible. Instead, I'll give you a very short intro to each season's major arcs and hope that you don't jam a spork in your eye before the end.
**
S1: Buffy moves to Sunnydale, Ca. from L.A. after burning her high school to the ground in The Movie. Her parents are newly split, and Buffy lives with her mom, Joyce, who has big hair and no clue. We meet Buffy's Watcher, Giles, the librarian at her new school, Sunnydale High (school mascot: the Razorbacks, hey, I didn't make that up, Joss did…
Sidebar: oh, meet Joss Whedon, Buffy creator and the whipping boy of the fandom. You may have heard of him in the still extant term "Jossed", meaning: to write a fic and later have canon make your fic look stupid in retrospect since Joss reads fanfic and loves to do the opposite of what fans are writing. Or so the story was told to me.)
Giles wears tweed and glasses and comes from England. He enjoys tea, dusty books and every American stereotype of English people you can cook up while on a crank high. At this point in the show, he works for The Watcher's Council, a shady body of men and women in suits who instruct and abuse slayers.
Buffy also meets her new best friends, Xander and Willow. Xander is a wisecracking, lovable dork from a neglectful family who manages to get himself into wacky, life-threatening situations on a regular basis. Willow is a redheaded nerd with no self-esteem who's been friends with Xander since childhood. They latch on to Buffy, and when they learn Buffy's sekkrit identity, they're in for the long haul.
We also meet: Cordelia, the bitch cheerleader who rules the school and somehow falls into Buffy's inner group of do-gooding rejects; Angel (a vampire with a soul…other vampires do not have souls, but they do have personalities…do not look for sense) who will become the thorn in my ass, I mean Buffy's love interest, and a bunch of other people that if you watched the show you know about and if you didn't then you won't care about.
Big Bad of the season: The Master. My favorite. The Master is an ancient vampire who's trapped in a church underground in Sunnydale. I know, wtf? There was an earthquake. Don't worry about it. The Master wants to get loose. He tries to kill Buffy. He succeeds! But he's still thwarted when Xander brings Buffy back to life with CPR. Luckily he stayed awake in Health class just in case the teacher brought out the breast exam dummies.
Most important thing about Sunnydale high aside from the fact that it's way newer than any public school I've seen? The Hellmouth (take that literally, the mouth of hell) is situated right under the library. Demony hijinks ensue.
**
S2: Buffy and Angel keep up their torturous, for me and for them, relationship.
Meet Oz, he's a rockin' kinda guy with black fingernail polish, hair that changes color almost every episode, and he just happens to be a werewolf. He and Willow date.
Big Bad: Spike and Drusilla. Meet Spike, he's a cocky bleach blond vampire with a bad cockney accent and a long, leather coat. Meet Dru: she's his girlfriend with a better cockney accent and no touch on reality, plus she's a psychic. They wreak mayhem in excellent style and, oh, btw, used to be Angel's sidekicks in the good old days when Angel was Angelus.
What, I didn't mention the whole Angelus thing? Right, so Angel is a vampire with a soul. He used to be v v bad, but then he killed a gypsy girl and was cursed with a soul. The curse works like this: he's tormented for eternity (or until George Bush causes the end of the world) to live with the guilt of all the lives he took as a soulless vampire. The one kink (and even though we’re talking about vampires, it's not bloodsports) is that if he has 'one moment of happiness' he loses his soul again and becomes evil Angelus. There is no goatee involved when he turns evil, just leather pants. Doesn't make a lick of sense? There are years and years' worth of fic trying to puzzle this all out, don't you worry.
No wait, the Big Bad is Angel who goes evil after he has sex with Buffy! Enter leather pants of evil, Angelus scorching up my television, and Buffy getting her ass kicked left and right. Good times. Eventually, Buffy stakes Angelus when he gets too uppity and tries to drag the world to hell. Through the mouth of a stone troll. Couldn't make that up if you paid me. Ok, maybe I could. Angel goes to hell, Buffy flips her nut, and the season ends with Buffy running away from home like any stupid, white kid from the 'burbs.
**
S3: Buffy comes home. But remember when I mentioned she'd died before? Well, apparently in that short span of time another Slayer was called (we're talking a couple minutes here). Work with me. It doesn't have to make sense.
The new Slayer's name is Faith. She's from Boston, has serious issues, a swagger in her step, and likes sex! Whoo!
Big Bads: Mr. Trick, a free-lance, pimp-daddy vampire for hire, and the Mayor and Faith working as a snarkarific team of bitchery.
Faith's had a v sucky life. Buffy's a bitch to her; Xander boinks her, and the Major is a really fun villain who treats Faith like his daughter and convinces her to go bad in exchange for some genuine, fatherly affection and the pat on the back she's been searching for all her life. The Mayor tries to turn himself into a giant snake demon thing; Faith ends up in coma, and the Mayor is trounced by The Gang and Angel. Sunnydale High also gets demolished in some v v bad CGI activities.
Exit Angel to his spin off (and it wasn't too soon for me…wait, did I mention that Angel inexplicably comes back from hell naked and completely intact, including his tattoo? Well he did. Don't ask, and I won't try to tell. Just mark this down as the entrance of The First Evil.)
**
S4: Buffy and Willow go to college; Xander has a string of craptastic jobs; Giles searches for meaning since the school was completely destroyed by the Mayor/Snake, and he's unemployed, Willow goes gay, and we meet back up with some people.
Let me introduce Anya. We met her a while back, but you didn't since it was when you were on that bender after you broke up with that freak who stole all your c.d.s. Anya was a vengeance demon. She lost her powers when she granted Cordelia a wish: that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale. Reality shifted, and Cordelia ended up in a bleak world where the Master ('member him?) actually managed to escape from his underground prison and take over the town. Cordelia dies pretty rapidly in this reality, Xander and Willow are vampires, Buffy winds up on the scene only to end up killed by the Master (again), and eventually Giles figures out kinda what's happening and destroys Anya's talisman. Her necklace being destroyed traps her as a teenaged (yeah, right!), human girl. I just abbreviated ONE show there, folks, you see what I'm up against in this review? So, Anya ended up attending school with the Gang, and fled when she was sure the Mayor was gonna gobble everyone up. She's often the only one with sense from here on out in the show. She ends up as Xander's girlfriend.
Willow gets a girlfriend named Tara who is also a witch. Have I mentioned that Willow is a witch? Well, she is. They're in love. It's sweet and cute in that way where the actresses have no chemistry. Willow gets way more powerful as a witch setting up later plotlines.
Meet Riley Finn: He's the strapping, blond T.A in Buffy's Psyche 101 class who turns out to actually be a secret agent for an even more secret military program called The Initiative. He goes around in camo a lot carrying weird tazors and chasing demons and vampires. I could make a lot of really harsh comments about how much I hate Riley, but Lar gets testy with me.
Enter the most ill-advised plot device of the show besides Spuffy. The Initiative plot line sucked so much that crack-hos everywhere were afraid they were going to be made obsolete. These fool GIs run around capturing demons and vampires and implanting them with chips and doing all kinds of tests on them. Just no.
Re-enter Spike. Spike gets caught by The Initiative and gets implanted with a chip that causes him to experience severe pain when he tries to commit violence against humans. Do you smell a plot device? Yeah, smells like rancid puke.
Spike gets 'saved' by the Gang and ends up first chained in Giles' tub and then living in Xander's basement apartment, area, place, whatever at his parents' house. Spike tries to kill himself, as would you.
Buffy finds out about The Initiative. They try to kill her. What's new? The Initiative gets blown up by the Gang and Riley (a whole helluva lot more happened here, see the links below to read the episode recaps somewhere, Riley annoyed the fuck out of me, so I try to block all of this out of my memory).
**
S5: The season where Joyce died and Willow has a long-term lesbian relationship. That pretty much covers it.
Joyce, Buffy's mom, goes through a whole illness thing and eventually croaks from an aneurysm.
Ah yes, and we meet Dawn, Buffy's sister who was formed from pure energy by weird monks because she is the Key to unlocking some rift in reality. Yeah, that's really what happened. Dawn appears and everyone accepts her because they've had the voodoo smackdown done on their memories magically. Everyone on the *show*, I still reject her even now.
Big Bad: Glory, the ubercool goddess who wants to kill Dawn and unleash untold torment upon all known worlds. She's very cute. Way cuter than Buffy. That's why she has to go.
This entire season felt like filler.
Buffy dies at the end of this season saving Dawn from being sacrificed by Glory. It's all very dramatic, including speeches and swan-diving into oblivion and dragons popping out of the abyss.
**
S6: Buffy comes back from the dead, depressed and angsty,;Willow goes evil; Xander and Anya make everyone puke with their on-going lovefest; there's a musical.
The entire season feels like it leads up to Anya and Xander's wedding that never happens, because Xander punks out at the v v last minute (left at the altar much?).
Willow and Tara break up, because Willow uses magic on Tara to make her forget a really silly fight that she would have forgotten anyway.
Spike and Buffy have a disastrous relationship based on sex and beating each other up. It ends when they get into one of their usual tussles, and this time Buffy *really* means no! Spike scampers off to get a soul. The fandom falls apart in clattering groups of people screaming 'it was rape' and 'it looked normal to me'. People are still not over this. Be careful what you say about it to people you don't know, you'll make enemies.
Big Bad: Most of the season, it's Andrew, Jonathan and Warren, a group of three silly boys who perpetrate even sillier pranks on Buffy in the quest to be her 'Archnemises'. They mainly make asses of themselves. That is until Warren gets down to b'ness, busts out a gun (how was he the first person to ever come up with this plan?), and shoots Buffy in her own backyard. Tara gets caught by a stray bullet. She croaks.
Enter: Blackhaired Willow. This isn't just Bad Willow that you read about a lot in fic. Bad Willow was the Willow of S2, 'Dopplegangland' and 'The Wish'; vampire!Willow was into kinky sex and whining. Blackhaired Willow decides to pull the world into hell because of losing Tara. *sigh* Didn't she learn from Angelus that that plan won't work? She should have written some bad verse and tried to buy absinthe off of Ebay like any self-respecting goth.
Xander saves the world with a yellow crayon. Buffy decides to choose life.
**
S7 (or this pain is almost over): The show ends, we meet a ton of people you don't care about, Willow overcomes her magic 'addiction', Xander loses an eye, Spike sacrifices himself for the 'Happy Meals With Legs', Faith is redeemed, Dawn does *not* die, Spike catches Angel and Buffy k-i-s-s-i-n-g, and don't look now, but *you* could be a Slayer, too.
Way back when Angel came back from hell, we heard tell of The First Evil. Then that ball dropped for a couple years only to be resurrected to torment us for a whole season. The First Evil has it out for Slayers. I am STILL not clear as to what The First thought would happen when the Slayer and all the Potential Slayers were offed. Something truly eeeeeeeeevaaaaaaaaaaal, I assume from all of the effort It put into killing everyone.
They wrap the show up for the most part in this season, reuniting Willow, Xander, Buffy and Giles as a family unit, they deal with Xander and Anya's relationship woes, Spike goes insane(r) and then has his chip taken out and proves that he really does mean all that Angely redemption shit, but mainly there is The First trying to kill all the Potential Slayers in the world. All the ones that live end up at Buffy's house (or so we're lead to believe until the finale episode). That's the season right there.
In the end, Willow uses her neglected magic to turn all the Potential Slayers in the world into full on Slayers. So, you see, Buffy isn't alone anymore but is just a normal girl like she always wanted to be!
Like I said, Spike dies in a fiery blaze. Anya dies. Everyone else lives. If you broke the handle off your car door, I got news for you; you're a slayer!
fini
~~
LINKS:
This is all very arbitrary. Honestly, I can't imagine someone getting into this fandom cold now that it's over, but I what do I know?
I have to thank several of my friends for their help with these links. I asked; they coughed them up. I really ripped this chick Minitrog! off. Go there, you will find way more than what I'm bringing.
Buffy Guide
I think that name is pretty self-explanitory, no, poptart?
The Cross and Stake
I didn't even know this site still existed; I thought it had gone down a long time ago. Hokay, I'm a moron. Resources, info, famous.
Buffy Vids
Thank you,bonibaru, for this link. Go watch vids since there is no more show! (Watch her vids, btw. She good.)
Philosophy On Buffy!
Couldn't resist.
Now, as far as fic sites go, there is a problem. This fandom is MASSIVE. Sometimes it seems that every single fan has her own site and her own niche in fandom. Therefore this list will be slanted to my own experience in fandom and my own attempts to be even handed. [disclaimer: as you shall see, I know a lot of people with websites. It just works that way when you're in a fandom a long time. I might be biased, but only in that if you stay around long enough, you eventually know everyone. I'm sure some people just clicked this link because they hate me and wanted to see if I only linked to my friends. Ah, fandom, how I love thee!] If you don't see what you're after (like Xander/Spike, wtf happened to Nummy Treats?) go to the links areas on the sites I offer you. You can spend about a year jumping from site to site. Have fun.
The Guild
Many many sites covering just about every pairing and/or character on the show. It's ruled by committee and intends to bring the level of discourse and writing up a couple notches in the fandom. [disclaimer: people I know have sites linked off of here]
The Darkerside of Sunnydale
Darkfic. That's my personal gig in this fandom. Since this is an invitation only archive, the quality is superior. [*sigh* disclaimer: I know the chick who owns this site, but this is not nepotism.]
Breaking The Girl
The obligatory Spuffy archive. Everyone else on the planet but me loves it, so I bring the people what they want. [Yah! I don't know any Spuffyshippers!]
Sunlight and Shadow
Equal time to the other pairing that makes me gag: Buffy/Angel. (Also, gotta give her props for shouting out to Danny Boy with the name of the site.) [I only know one B/A fan, and she's on crack.*Criss, that's you*]
Eterniata
Invitation only archive, heavy on the slash but not limited to it. [disclaimer: this site rules, and I can't help it that it's run by my best friend. What can I say? I know how to pick 'em.]
Slashing The Angel
You want to read porn about Angel, I know it. [disclaimer: guess what? Know her, too.]
Dymphna
Kate Bolin's portal. If you don't know who she is, you ain't been around long. Silverlake, Uncomventional Shippers list and archive, Cordyslash, Challenge in A Can, and oh so much more. [friend of a friend, but ain't everyone?]
Sonja Marie
This is a for old time's sake link here. She's been around forever, and the site itself is just so badly put together it makes your eyes bleed, but this is the meta list of all meta lists in BTVS fandom. [Never ever have I known Sonja Marie.]
This list could go on exhaustively. However, it's time for me to watch my A:tS DVDs.
obsessedmuch and hackthis for betaing my summary. Yes, I really am that neurotic.BTVS: An Overview
Uh oh, here we go, 'Nsync has got the flow…
Back up. Restart.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a television show about the one girl in this generation who was born to defend the world against vampires and demons and anything that goes bump in the night. Even drunk frat boys from time to time. Our slayer was a plucky, blond girl from California named Buffy who had severe relationship problems, came from a broken home, died in the line of duty not once but twice, was once a cheerleader, had more clothes than a supermodel, and who needed to eat a couple ham sandwiches.
Angel, the vampire with a soul. Has his own show now.
Anya, the ex demon who loves capitalism.
Buffy. The show's about her.
Cordelia, my idol.
Dawn, Buffy's sister. The less said, the better.
Dru and Spike. Vampires.
Faith, the not-so-stable slayer.
Giles, tweed-wearing, eventually hard-drinking Watcher.
Riley. No comment.
Tara. Witch, Willow's girl.
Willow, witch, sidekick.
Xander, demon-magnet, sidekick.
**
The show lasted for seven years, and attempting to sum up the myriad plot arcs in an abbreviated version that you'd want to stick around to read would be impossible. Instead, I'll give you a very short intro to each season's major arcs and hope that you don't jam a spork in your eye before the end.
**
S1: Buffy moves to Sunnydale, Ca. from L.A. after burning her high school to the ground in The Movie. Her parents are newly split, and Buffy lives with her mom, Joyce, who has big hair and no clue. We meet Buffy's Watcher, Giles, the librarian at her new school, Sunnydale High (school mascot: the Razorbacks, hey, I didn't make that up, Joss did…
Sidebar: oh, meet Joss Whedon, Buffy creator and the whipping boy of the fandom. You may have heard of him in the still extant term "Jossed", meaning: to write a fic and later have canon make your fic look stupid in retrospect since Joss reads fanfic and loves to do the opposite of what fans are writing. Or so the story was told to me.)
Giles wears tweed and glasses and comes from England. He enjoys tea, dusty books and every American stereotype of English people you can cook up while on a crank high. At this point in the show, he works for The Watcher's Council, a shady body of men and women in suits who instruct and abuse slayers.
Buffy also meets her new best friends, Xander and Willow. Xander is a wisecracking, lovable dork from a neglectful family who manages to get himself into wacky, life-threatening situations on a regular basis. Willow is a redheaded nerd with no self-esteem who's been friends with Xander since childhood. They latch on to Buffy, and when they learn Buffy's sekkrit identity, they're in for the long haul.
We also meet: Cordelia, the bitch cheerleader who rules the school and somehow falls into Buffy's inner group of do-gooding rejects; Angel (a vampire with a soul…other vampires do not have souls, but they do have personalities…do not look for sense) who will become the thorn in my ass, I mean Buffy's love interest, and a bunch of other people that if you watched the show you know about and if you didn't then you won't care about.
Big Bad of the season: The Master. My favorite. The Master is an ancient vampire who's trapped in a church underground in Sunnydale. I know, wtf? There was an earthquake. Don't worry about it. The Master wants to get loose. He tries to kill Buffy. He succeeds! But he's still thwarted when Xander brings Buffy back to life with CPR. Luckily he stayed awake in Health class just in case the teacher brought out the breast exam dummies.
Most important thing about Sunnydale high aside from the fact that it's way newer than any public school I've seen? The Hellmouth (take that literally, the mouth of hell) is situated right under the library. Demony hijinks ensue.
**
S2: Buffy and Angel keep up their torturous, for me and for them, relationship.
Meet Oz, he's a rockin' kinda guy with black fingernail polish, hair that changes color almost every episode, and he just happens to be a werewolf. He and Willow date.
Big Bad: Spike and Drusilla. Meet Spike, he's a cocky bleach blond vampire with a bad cockney accent and a long, leather coat. Meet Dru: she's his girlfriend with a better cockney accent and no touch on reality, plus she's a psychic. They wreak mayhem in excellent style and, oh, btw, used to be Angel's sidekicks in the good old days when Angel was Angelus.
What, I didn't mention the whole Angelus thing? Right, so Angel is a vampire with a soul. He used to be v v bad, but then he killed a gypsy girl and was cursed with a soul. The curse works like this: he's tormented for eternity (or until George Bush causes the end of the world) to live with the guilt of all the lives he took as a soulless vampire. The one kink (and even though we’re talking about vampires, it's not bloodsports) is that if he has 'one moment of happiness' he loses his soul again and becomes evil Angelus. There is no goatee involved when he turns evil, just leather pants. Doesn't make a lick of sense? There are years and years' worth of fic trying to puzzle this all out, don't you worry.
No wait, the Big Bad is Angel who goes evil after he has sex with Buffy! Enter leather pants of evil, Angelus scorching up my television, and Buffy getting her ass kicked left and right. Good times. Eventually, Buffy stakes Angelus when he gets too uppity and tries to drag the world to hell. Through the mouth of a stone troll. Couldn't make that up if you paid me. Ok, maybe I could. Angel goes to hell, Buffy flips her nut, and the season ends with Buffy running away from home like any stupid, white kid from the 'burbs.
**
S3: Buffy comes home. But remember when I mentioned she'd died before? Well, apparently in that short span of time another Slayer was called (we're talking a couple minutes here). Work with me. It doesn't have to make sense.
The new Slayer's name is Faith. She's from Boston, has serious issues, a swagger in her step, and likes sex! Whoo!
Big Bads: Mr. Trick, a free-lance, pimp-daddy vampire for hire, and the Mayor and Faith working as a snarkarific team of bitchery.
Faith's had a v sucky life. Buffy's a bitch to her; Xander boinks her, and the Major is a really fun villain who treats Faith like his daughter and convinces her to go bad in exchange for some genuine, fatherly affection and the pat on the back she's been searching for all her life. The Mayor tries to turn himself into a giant snake demon thing; Faith ends up in coma, and the Mayor is trounced by The Gang and Angel. Sunnydale High also gets demolished in some v v bad CGI activities.
Exit Angel to his spin off (and it wasn't too soon for me…wait, did I mention that Angel inexplicably comes back from hell naked and completely intact, including his tattoo? Well he did. Don't ask, and I won't try to tell. Just mark this down as the entrance of The First Evil.)
**
S4: Buffy and Willow go to college; Xander has a string of craptastic jobs; Giles searches for meaning since the school was completely destroyed by the Mayor/Snake, and he's unemployed, Willow goes gay, and we meet back up with some people.
Let me introduce Anya. We met her a while back, but you didn't since it was when you were on that bender after you broke up with that freak who stole all your c.d.s. Anya was a vengeance demon. She lost her powers when she granted Cordelia a wish: that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale. Reality shifted, and Cordelia ended up in a bleak world where the Master ('member him?) actually managed to escape from his underground prison and take over the town. Cordelia dies pretty rapidly in this reality, Xander and Willow are vampires, Buffy winds up on the scene only to end up killed by the Master (again), and eventually Giles figures out kinda what's happening and destroys Anya's talisman. Her necklace being destroyed traps her as a teenaged (yeah, right!), human girl. I just abbreviated ONE show there, folks, you see what I'm up against in this review? So, Anya ended up attending school with the Gang, and fled when she was sure the Mayor was gonna gobble everyone up. She's often the only one with sense from here on out in the show. She ends up as Xander's girlfriend.
Willow gets a girlfriend named Tara who is also a witch. Have I mentioned that Willow is a witch? Well, she is. They're in love. It's sweet and cute in that way where the actresses have no chemistry. Willow gets way more powerful as a witch setting up later plotlines.
Meet Riley Finn: He's the strapping, blond T.A in Buffy's Psyche 101 class who turns out to actually be a secret agent for an even more secret military program called The Initiative. He goes around in camo a lot carrying weird tazors and chasing demons and vampires. I could make a lot of really harsh comments about how much I hate Riley, but Lar gets testy with me.
Enter the most ill-advised plot device of the show besides Spuffy. The Initiative plot line sucked so much that crack-hos everywhere were afraid they were going to be made obsolete. These fool GIs run around capturing demons and vampires and implanting them with chips and doing all kinds of tests on them. Just no.
Re-enter Spike. Spike gets caught by The Initiative and gets implanted with a chip that causes him to experience severe pain when he tries to commit violence against humans. Do you smell a plot device? Yeah, smells like rancid puke.
Spike gets 'saved' by the Gang and ends up first chained in Giles' tub and then living in Xander's basement apartment, area, place, whatever at his parents' house. Spike tries to kill himself, as would you.
Buffy finds out about The Initiative. They try to kill her. What's new? The Initiative gets blown up by the Gang and Riley (a whole helluva lot more happened here, see the links below to read the episode recaps somewhere, Riley annoyed the fuck out of me, so I try to block all of this out of my memory).
**
S5: The season where Joyce died and Willow has a long-term lesbian relationship. That pretty much covers it.
Joyce, Buffy's mom, goes through a whole illness thing and eventually croaks from an aneurysm.
Ah yes, and we meet Dawn, Buffy's sister who was formed from pure energy by weird monks because she is the Key to unlocking some rift in reality. Yeah, that's really what happened. Dawn appears and everyone accepts her because they've had the voodoo smackdown done on their memories magically. Everyone on the *show*, I still reject her even now.
Big Bad: Glory, the ubercool goddess who wants to kill Dawn and unleash untold torment upon all known worlds. She's very cute. Way cuter than Buffy. That's why she has to go.
This entire season felt like filler.
Buffy dies at the end of this season saving Dawn from being sacrificed by Glory. It's all very dramatic, including speeches and swan-diving into oblivion and dragons popping out of the abyss.
**
S6: Buffy comes back from the dead, depressed and angsty,;Willow goes evil; Xander and Anya make everyone puke with their on-going lovefest; there's a musical.
The entire season feels like it leads up to Anya and Xander's wedding that never happens, because Xander punks out at the v v last minute (left at the altar much?).
Willow and Tara break up, because Willow uses magic on Tara to make her forget a really silly fight that she would have forgotten anyway.
Spike and Buffy have a disastrous relationship based on sex and beating each other up. It ends when they get into one of their usual tussles, and this time Buffy *really* means no! Spike scampers off to get a soul. The fandom falls apart in clattering groups of people screaming 'it was rape' and 'it looked normal to me'. People are still not over this. Be careful what you say about it to people you don't know, you'll make enemies.
Big Bad: Most of the season, it's Andrew, Jonathan and Warren, a group of three silly boys who perpetrate even sillier pranks on Buffy in the quest to be her 'Archnemises'. They mainly make asses of themselves. That is until Warren gets down to b'ness, busts out a gun (how was he the first person to ever come up with this plan?), and shoots Buffy in her own backyard. Tara gets caught by a stray bullet. She croaks.
Enter: Blackhaired Willow. This isn't just Bad Willow that you read about a lot in fic. Bad Willow was the Willow of S2, 'Dopplegangland' and 'The Wish'; vampire!Willow was into kinky sex and whining. Blackhaired Willow decides to pull the world into hell because of losing Tara. *sigh* Didn't she learn from Angelus that that plan won't work? She should have written some bad verse and tried to buy absinthe off of Ebay like any self-respecting goth.
Xander saves the world with a yellow crayon. Buffy decides to choose life.
**
S7 (or this pain is almost over): The show ends, we meet a ton of people you don't care about, Willow overcomes her magic 'addiction', Xander loses an eye, Spike sacrifices himself for the 'Happy Meals With Legs', Faith is redeemed, Dawn does *not* die, Spike catches Angel and Buffy k-i-s-s-i-n-g, and don't look now, but *you* could be a Slayer, too.
Way back when Angel came back from hell, we heard tell of The First Evil. Then that ball dropped for a couple years only to be resurrected to torment us for a whole season. The First Evil has it out for Slayers. I am STILL not clear as to what The First thought would happen when the Slayer and all the Potential Slayers were offed. Something truly eeeeeeeeevaaaaaaaaaaal, I assume from all of the effort It put into killing everyone.
They wrap the show up for the most part in this season, reuniting Willow, Xander, Buffy and Giles as a family unit, they deal with Xander and Anya's relationship woes, Spike goes insane(r) and then has his chip taken out and proves that he really does mean all that Angely redemption shit, but mainly there is The First trying to kill all the Potential Slayers in the world. All the ones that live end up at Buffy's house (or so we're lead to believe until the finale episode). That's the season right there.
In the end, Willow uses her neglected magic to turn all the Potential Slayers in the world into full on Slayers. So, you see, Buffy isn't alone anymore but is just a normal girl like she always wanted to be!
Like I said, Spike dies in a fiery blaze. Anya dies. Everyone else lives. If you broke the handle off your car door, I got news for you; you're a slayer!
fini
~~
LINKS:
This is all very arbitrary. Honestly, I can't imagine someone getting into this fandom cold now that it's over, but I what do I know?
I have to thank several of my friends for their help with these links. I asked; they coughed them up. I really ripped this chick Minitrog! off. Go there, you will find way more than what I'm bringing.
Buffy Guide
I think that name is pretty self-explanitory, no, poptart?
The Cross and Stake
I didn't even know this site still existed; I thought it had gone down a long time ago. Hokay, I'm a moron. Resources, info, famous.
Buffy Vids
Thank you,
bonibaru, for this link. Go watch vids since there is no more show! (Watch her vids, btw. She good.)Philosophy On Buffy!
Couldn't resist.
Now, as far as fic sites go, there is a problem. This fandom is MASSIVE. Sometimes it seems that every single fan has her own site and her own niche in fandom. Therefore this list will be slanted to my own experience in fandom and my own attempts to be even handed. [disclaimer: as you shall see, I know a lot of people with websites. It just works that way when you're in a fandom a long time. I might be biased, but only in that if you stay around long enough, you eventually know everyone. I'm sure some people just clicked this link because they hate me and wanted to see if I only linked to my friends. Ah, fandom, how I love thee!] If you don't see what you're after (like Xander/Spike, wtf happened to Nummy Treats?) go to the links areas on the sites I offer you. You can spend about a year jumping from site to site. Have fun.
The Guild
Many many sites covering just about every pairing and/or character on the show. It's ruled by committee and intends to bring the level of discourse and writing up a couple notches in the fandom. [disclaimer: people I know have sites linked off of here]
The Darkerside of Sunnydale
Darkfic. That's my personal gig in this fandom. Since this is an invitation only archive, the quality is superior. [*sigh* disclaimer: I know the chick who owns this site, but this is not nepotism.]
Breaking The Girl
The obligatory Spuffy archive. Everyone else on the planet but me loves it, so I bring the people what they want. [Yah! I don't know any Spuffyshippers!]
Sunlight and Shadow
Equal time to the other pairing that makes me gag: Buffy/Angel. (Also, gotta give her props for shouting out to Danny Boy with the name of the site.) [I only know one B/A fan, and she's on crack.*Criss, that's you*]
Eterniata
Invitation only archive, heavy on the slash but not limited to it. [disclaimer: this site rules, and I can't help it that it's run by my best friend. What can I say? I know how to pick 'em.]
Slashing The Angel
You want to read porn about Angel, I know it. [disclaimer: guess what? Know her, too.]
Dymphna
Kate Bolin's portal. If you don't know who she is, you ain't been around long. Silverlake, Uncomventional Shippers list and archive, Cordyslash, Challenge in A Can, and oh so much more. [friend of a friend, but ain't everyone?]
Sonja Marie
This is a for old time's sake link here. She's been around forever, and the site itself is just so badly put together it makes your eyes bleed, but this is the meta list of all meta lists in BTVS fandom. [Never ever have I known Sonja Marie.]
This list could go on exhaustively. However, it's time for me to watch my A:tS DVDs.
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And the season three villains were Mr. Trick until mid-season, then Faith and the Mayor. Spike was only in one episode.
And Willow went gay in season four.
Otherwise, all is goodness.
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Thank you.
Ahahahaha.
Re: Ahahahaha.
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Bitch, we were supposed to keep that between us!
*grin*
Lovely recap, darling. I keep thinking of things that aren't there, but then realizing they aren't really essential to the plot arcs, so. The only thing I might also link to would be the MBTV recaps, since they WERE awfully thorough, and helpful to us canon-impaired folk.
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but I thought people would be all 'Chris who?' and not get that I was making a random joke about Chris being both a girl or a boy's name and just the place-holder for whomever. *sigh* But since it's you, that's even funnier.
It was hard to keep it all straight, period. I wrote that shit in two sittings. Then *see above* I still got some stuff wrong.
I thought of MBTV, but those people were such haters, but I will link it here in your comment since everyone will see it: http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=12
To anyone who's reading this, MBTV has recaps of Buffy above, but be aware that the reviewer sounds like she hates the show (even if it's funny).
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(now get back to work on that Em fic!)
::hugs::
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Glad it was what you wanted.
Now I actually have to catch up on two year's worth of fic to recc. Ack!
Spike!
Re-enter Spike. Spike gets caught by The Initiative and gets implanted with a chip that causes him to experience severe pain when he tries to commit violence against humans. Do you smell a plot device? Yeah, smells like rancid puke.
Well, let's see. Spike drew ratings, Joss likes ratings, we like Spike, so bring back Spike;) And the Big Bad can't go around NOT killing the Slayer for the next 4 years, so chip him. I admit, I didn't like the chip, but it was a good alternative to having him prance around trying to kill Buffy and missing for four years.
Ah yes, and we meet Dawn, Buffy's sister who was formed from pure energy by weird monks because she is the Key to unlocking some rift in reality. Yeah, that's really what happened. Dawn appears and everyone accepts her because they've had the voodoo smackdown done on their memories magically. Everyone on the *show*, I still reject her even now.
Well, Joss DID throw in hints about Dawn's arrival all the way back to Season 3, so it wasn't like it was completely unexpected. I mean, this is Joss. He does nothing the easy way;)
Spike and Buffy have a disastrous relationship based on sex and beating each other up. It ends when they get into one of their usual tussles, and this time Buffy *really* means no! Spike scampers off to get a soul. The fandom falls apart in clattering groups of people screaming 'it was rape' and 'it looked normal to me'. People are still not over this. Be careful what you say about it to people you don't know, you'll make enemies.
Well, yeah it was attempted rape, but that was the reason Spike went to Africa to get a soul. He didn't want to do to her again what he found out he was capable of. And this means he can taunt Angel with the fact that there's TWO Vampires with a Soul now.
Spike goes insane(r) and then has his chip taken out and proves that he really does mean all that Angely redemption
CrazySouledSpike was one of the best incarnations of Spike we ever saw. Living in the basement, talking about all the voices that are screaming at him, ending up on the cross asking "Can we rest now, Buffy, can we rest?" It's astounding! And the whole "Lies My Parents Told Me" episode showed so much about Giles, Spike, Buffy...and Wood. Joss hasn't lost his touch:)
Re: Spike!
I hate good!Spike. We will have to disagree, the tent's big enough for all of us. Even people who like Riley.
The rape thing I'm not gonna touch, but you did prove my point.
You should be happy with Angel this season.
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I've got a few fic at the unconventional shippers' site.
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Don't we all. I have a monchichi/Oz xover there. IT was sheer brilliance!
Accurate is the word I like to hear *g*
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PS. It wasn't rape, and it didn't look *that* normal either! "How different from the home life of our own dear Queen."
PPS. Don't call me a chick! *g*
X
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Yeah, both their accents are horrible, but those comments were more about artistic licence than accurate commentary on their acting abilities. Please forgive me.
I agree about the 'rape' thing, but I don't want to kick up even more flames. I've been flamed three times this week!
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'Chick' is excruciating though, but as you are a chick who can spell, and you're a long way away, you can probably get away with it. My loathing for it shows my age. ::sigh::
Expect pokes, prods and pinches when you next come to London for it! *g*
A Chick. (Tweet)
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I'm doing the Angel overview, I hope you don't mind if I borrow your format a little bit...doing it by seasons I mean. I was kind of stumped as to how to get all the shows history in one summary.
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Just another link (since you did add the philosophy one) for the Buffy journal. Yes, this is all for the Buffy obsessed academics: you get to wax about your favorite show and add a line to your cv at Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies (http://www.slayage.tv).
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The philosophy link was a personal joke to myself since I studied philo in college. I adore that site, and when I used to go to conferences all my colleagues would talk about Buffy. I'll check out your link!
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As for Slayage...if you're into philosophy, I think you'll love it. Pretentious, with a good helping of ridiculous, but then what things academic aren't? *g*
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Nothing is more amusing than hearing the word 'Spuffy' come out of Rhonda Wilcox's mouth as we snicker about a lecturer from an Australian University's critical reading of the phantasy of Spike.
rhonda and the spuffy
Yes, that's the impression I've had of her myself. Thanks for sharing...that's a great image :-)
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*g* Seven years is a long time to recap in a few paragraphs.
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I was wondering what the hell was going on. Excellent re-cappage. What if I say, it looked like rape, but I don't care b/c Buffy beats him up every other day and never apologizes? Can I make both sides hate me that way?
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A-fucking-men.
I mean, a cracking punch to the face is not exactly the politest way to return an 'I love you'.
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