BtVS Club

[Dannichu]

Psssh, it's 4am and I have a 9am lecture, but who cares?!

Joss knows how to make everything he does hurt as much as possible, which is, I think, why Tara ends up getting hurt so much; I read somewhere that "PWIP", an acronym for "Put Willow In Peril", was a device the writers used in the early seasons whenever they wanted a big emotional reaction from the audience, and, in later seasons, I'm convinced they moved onto Tara.
While I'm quite obviously not a fan of the Tara-abuse, I must give props to the writers for being able to inflict more or less every kind of horrible treatment possible onto the poor girl and not make her seem useless and "princess in need of rescuing"-y.

Ah, okay. I feel marginally less guilty now.

Spoiler: Tabula Rasa

Stupid Giles leaving )< I kinda get why it had to happen for plot reasons (though I'm sure they could have worked their way around it), but I've tried and tried and just can't understand it from a character perspective. I miss Giles when he's not around, too ;~;

You can have Oz and I'll have Tara :D

Spoiler: Final 4 episodes of S6

I never liked the Trio as villians; their descent into actual evilness was well-done, but I just hated them so much (well, mostly Warren), I just didn't like them on the screen. Grr.
I really hate Mutant Enemy et al for putting Amber in the credits only in her final episode; partly because it was just cruel to the viewers; I'd been spoiled and knew what was coming, but if I hadn't, I'd've just assumed that since she and Willow had gotten back together she'd be more of a main character and then having her killed after getting all my hopes up would have actually killed me, and also because having Amber as a "special guest star" all the time and not crediting her as a proper cast member (especially in episodes like OMWF and Family) seemed so stupid.

But in addition to the fact they killed Tara in the first place, I (and others) have major issues with how they killed her, and (my love of the character aside) the fact that they killed one of the two positive gay characters in the show and had the other go crazy and evil as a direct result. I make everyone read this.

Yup, they actually are dating. Amber goes to fan conventions and stuff all the time, and Adam comes with her some of the time, and often fans who come to see Amber are really cold towards him, because they share my inability to separate the actors from their characters and are all "You killed Tara )<".
I'll admit that when I rewatched the episode of House where Adam Busch was a clinic patient, I was very much "Hah! You should be sexually attracted to cows and/or your stepmother, it serves you right!" because I am a very messed-up individual.

Actually, quite a few Buffy alumni have appeared in House in one way or another; Warren's a clinic patient, Doc (the creepy tongue man, aka The Wonderful Wizard - that's still funny) was the main patient in Informed Consent (the old guy who nearly got eaten by his own rats), Michelle Trachtenberg plays a main patient; an immunocompromised girl who is a little whiny and annoying and pretty much exactly like Dawn, and one of the four guys in Beer Bad was played by Kal Penn, aka Kutner. And I think there's someone else I'm forgetting.

Spoiler: Okay, back to spoiling the end of S6

Giles' entrance in what I think was Two To Go was SO EPIC. I think it's actually impossible to watch that scene and not cheer - I did, and I was still emotionally dead from seeing Tara get killed. And the writers were awesome for keeping his name out of the credits at the beginning because he was absolutely the last person I expected to see right then. Apparently the writers can use actors names in the credits for both good and evil and okay I'll give it a rest now.

Haha, your slowing down the video-thingy is hilarious XD I really enjoyed the laughing scene, too; it gave the episode just enough levity to stop it actually being physically soul-crushing.

The attempted rape scene was absolutely horrible. Cirrus and I discussed earlier in the thread how just acting out the scene really freaked poor James Marsters out, and he has since vowed to never do anything like that again.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of all the hurting of one another that goes on in S6. It's like the Scooby breakup of S4 only way, way worse. I can assure you that S6 is as dark as Buffy ever gets and that S7 is a bit more happy, but obviously with everything left over from S6, it's not exactly hugs and puppies.

 

[Minish]

OMG onslaught of sudden posts! I have 9000 of my NaNoWriMo to very urgently write, so I'm sort of just replying to the first few posts since my last reply, but I'm sure I'll have more to say in response to the other posts, so yeah >_> Will do that later if I finish my Nano soon, don't want to fall out of the discussion XD;

Buffy's speech in "Family" kind of annoyed me. It seemed rather corny and I agree with Butterfree on it seeming kind of out of the blue. I like it if it was like the Scoobies had a chance to either take Tara in fully or leave her out, and just chose the first route, because otherwise... it was so spontaneous. They wouldn't have called Oz family in that way and they knew him way longer, he was never a fully accepted Scooby and they were all closer to him than they were with Tara at that point. Maybe it's just because I really liked Oz (except when Veruca came along, dear God she was aggravating in so many ways) that I think that last part. XD But argh, the Family speech (hehe, the name of the episode and the speech subject... um, I'll shut up now) is something that probably influences my liking of Tara or lack thereof.

Her family did not help. I agree with the things you said, Dannichu, and hadn't thought of them before, but even so, they weren't even that scary to me. They were so, so stand-alone. I know that they were indeed only there for one episode, but come on, they were the family of a major character. They're also never mentioned again, and Tara seems like she adapted way too fast to not ever seeing them again. Plus, they just made her feel even weaker than she already was. I know that Tara was supposed to be a more feminine, 'believable' character or whatever, but I just can't admire her like I can Buffy.

I also marathoned 6 and 7, so they seem like one big massive plot thing. I don't think I'll rewatch any episodes from late 6 or any of 7 unless I really feel the need to; they were paced rather weirdly even without being marathoned, and when you compare it to say, seasons 2 and 5 which imo were paced really, really well, it's just hard to rewatch them.

5 feels more split up for me because I watched each as an episode, rather than as a massive big season, so that's probably another reason why I love it so much.

Amber Benson. Is dating. Warren's actor. Oh dear God. Is it wrong to just find that very, very creepy? ...D:

I never really hated Riley, I'm just like you Dannichu, in finding him boring. All of Buffy's random boyfriends (Parker, I sort of count Ford who was the most annoying guy ever especially as I didn't like "Lie to Me", and a few other random dudes, I think) and Riley was just like another one of those, except that... he stayed. For ages. And was nicer.

Rewatching S2 is making me realise that Angel is actually not as boring as I remembered. He has a lot of very awesome dialogue -- I think I started to actually dislike him when he randomly showed up in Pangs and Chosen, and since I haven't seen any of AtS, when he was there it was very much 'WTF?' from me. But he was very fun in S2, especially in episodes like "Halloween", which I watched last night. Fwee, fun times <3 Except Buffy's very lol-worthy accent, that is.

I don't hate S4! While I was watching it, I very much thought it would be my favourite season (5 booted it, and then 2 went up to second place after a re-evaluation) because it is very very funny. I never found Pangs all that funny myself, but Spike was hilarious. I just love watching him run around under a blanket from the sun (oh God when Riley finds him knicking Buffy's clothes in... I dunno, the episode after Fool for Love maybe? And he just pushes him outside, and Spike is all like "Pull me back in you sod, I'm starting to sizzle!" in the best way EVER oh God I love him <3)

And any scene with Giles and Spike together is just... ultimate love. Maaaaybe because they're my favourite characters. XD (I find it amusing how they're both male, both British, both singers, both left-handed...) Tabula Rasa and Something Blue will never stop being funny because of them. Never.

I actually like Dawn. A bit, anyway. She did annoy me with being all centre-of-the-universe all of the time, but she and Xander are adorable together, so yeah. That probably means I ship them, but I suck at finding good fic so I'll never persue it. X3

Spoiler

The attempted rape scene was horrifying and is very, very difficult to watch, but it did add a lot of depth, which I felt Spike/Buffy needed very much. It proved that yes, Spike was still dangerous and yes, was still soulless at that point, and I loved (loved as in, thought it was a good idea while watching, rather than actually... you know, liked it happening. I'm sure you know what I mean) and it made me like Spike/Buffy again. Which sounds very, very weird. I know, I know. But it just redeemed it and proved that it wasn't just *wince* getting overly fanservicey. But I still think that the sex scenes were intentionally uncomfortable to prevent it being fanservicey (even so, the amount of sex scenes there were, argh...)

Principal Wood really did annoy me. I found his character both boring and a little dislikeable, to be honest; his vendetta was really irritating after a while. And OMG Spike didn't kill him, I think I actually squeed at that point (in the same way Butterfree squeed for Giles killing Ben, I have no idea why I found it so squeeful, but I certainly did squee!).

I looove the idea of Willow being addicted to power, not to magic. Especially when the answer given to her was 'stop magic for a while' to make it stop, because it totally wasn't about magic being the only harmful aspect of that. What if she replaced magic with actual drugs? I don't think I'll ever really get the whole S6 magic thing.

That's why I didn't like the Wiccan groups, Dannichu -- it was so unlike the show to use a minority of a group (the people that are stupidly inclusive) as representing the whole group, especially as most people watching won't have had a clue what Wicca is. It was so disappointing to see it just backing up yet another stereotype, and then not explaining the use of Wicca like, ever. The only thing I'll ever like is that Jenny was a technopagan (though, wtf gypsies. That was so contrived, why couldn't Jenny just be a normal person who taught at Sunnydale?).

(super big spoiler for S7)Yeah, I know about Spike coming back. When I get to watch S5, that BETTER be explained really, really well...

Yaaaaay Butterfree practically agrees with me on everything about S5 :D It makes me so happy when other people like that season so much! It really doesn't get the love it deserves, 2 and 3 seem to really overshadow 4 and 5, which were really awesome in their own way. GILES KILLING BEN I loved that so, so much. And I love how Giles wasn't personally affected by it afterwards, he knew he had to do it and I've always loved him for being that way.

Tabula Rasa love, whoo! Once again, Giles and Spike totally made that episode. And is it totally wrong that I... kind of liked the idea of Giles/Anya? Anya in TR, anyway, maybe not normal Anya and especially not S5 Anya. I knew it would happen (though I got misinformed that Giles/Anya would be an actual couple later on in like S7 or something) and it horrified me, but I kind of enjoyed seeing it. They were adorable together! ...even if ASH found it uncomfortable to do X3

I didn't dislike Hells Bells so much as I disliked Anya's reaction and recovery from it (until Selfless). And I already knew Xander would leave her at the altar D:

I adored Normal Again. I thought it was very, very clever and I'm so glad they kept the ending ambiguous. I like the idea that Sunnydale could be all a figment of Buffy's imagination. In a... kind of weird way.

Phew. Kind of a dumb post, because I still have to read the three last posts. >_>

Oh, and my top 10 would go something like this:

1. Fool for Love
2. Graduation Day, Pt. 2
3. Once More, With Feeling
4. Something Blue
5. Tabula Rasa
6. The Body
7. The Wish
8. The Gift
9. Hush
10. Who Are You?

Though to be honest, ignore the order. I don't really think Fool for Love is favourite episode material, but then again, there's nothing I could replace it with and feel right. Something Blue and Tabula Rasa are sort of beloved favourites rather than 'best episodes', but whatever, I love them too much for them to go. X3

Special mentions go to Innocence, Becoming Pt. 2, Sleeper, Lies My Parents Told Me, School Hard, The Dark Age, Restless and a ton of others that would make up the rest of my Top 25. XD

 

[Butterfree]

Somehow I managed to have a dream last night about working in the costume department for Buffy where we were having Amber Benson try on this Tara dress and she looked ridiculously pretty in it and I spent about ten minutes just standing there going "YOU ARE SO RIDICULOUSLY PRETTY RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD." Yes, I swear this was my dream, not yours. I have no idea.

Spoiler: season six

Yeah, it's silly how Amber Benson never got properly into the opening credits, even though she was around for half of the fourth season, all of the fifth, and almost all of the sixth. Season five should at least have made her a regular, and putting her there in the episode she dies is just mean. D:

I sort of half-agree with that article - it is annoying to see the lesbian couple be the one torn apart by a death and going evil, but at the same time, they had clearly been setting up for Willow to go evil or at least power-hungry from way before Tara even came into the picture, and the sheer tragic, heartbreaking pointlessness of Tara's death (Warren wasn't trying to kill her or hurt her, wasn't aiming at her, probably didn't even know she existed) was an important part of the process of making Willow snap. I can come up with the possibility of Willow thinking Tara was dead even though she somehow wasn't and therefore going on a rampage only to be subsequently stopped by the still-alive Tara, and I'm sure it could have been pulled off without Tara's death in other ways (though I doubt any of them could have the same amount of emotional impact), but I can't really agree with the idea that Willow shouldn't have gone bad - it's an important and integrated enough part of the overall story of the series that if I were Joss Whedon and wanted to eliminate the evil lesbian cliché from a basic draft of the story, I'd sooner ditch the lesbian part than the evil part. :/

So, in short, in my mind there are alternatives (if not as effective) to dead lesbian Tara, but the only real alternative to evil lesbian Willow would have been evil straight Willow, which would have deprived us of Willow/Tara altogether. And the dying-just-after-lesbian-sex bit just strikes me as way post hoc ergo propter hoc. Lying to fans about it is just cruel, though.

and one of the four guys in Beer Bad was played by Kal Penn, aka Kutner

Hee, we giggled so much at that. In my headcanon, Kutner started out with beer, then moved on to weed, befriended Harold and changed his name to Kumar, finally went to med school after being enlightened by their adventures with Neil Patrick Harris, heard of Gregory House, and eventually got onto his team.

Spoiler: House season 5

And... then it was all too much for him and he committed suicide. I admit I still haven't figured that one out.

There are definitely others; half of the time when some one-off character appears on Buffy, Shadey goes "Wait! Where have I seen that person before?" and we look them up on IMDb and usually it turns out they were a patient on House sometime.

Cirrus and I discussed earlier in the thread how just acting out the scene really freaked poor James Marsters out, and he has since vowed to never do anything like that again.

Aww, really? That's adorable. I want to hug him now.

 

[Dannichu]

Yaaay Cirrus I've missed you here :D

Guh, I haed Vercua, too. I missed Wild at Heart when I watched S4 for the first time; my friends' disc was all messed up, so I had to come back and watch Wild at Heart, The Initiative, Beer Bad and Pangs after I'd bought the DVD boxset (so I think I was partway through S5), so I was really confused about how Oz actually left at the time (I mean, I'd gathered enough to have New Moon Rising make sense, but didn't really know who Veruca was, etc.), and I really, really didn't like her. Still, props to the writers for coming up with a semi-plausible way to write Seth out in just one (two, if you count NMR) episode.

Spoiler: Family

I didn't find Tara's family particularly scary in themselves (well, Donnie threatening her made me feel a bit uncomfortable), but it was Tara's reaction to them that made it for me; the almost frightened "Yes sir" and the clearly uncomfortable hug and the return of her stutter tells us lots about them without them actually having to do anything. But I'll also admit that them actually doing something probably would've made the episode flow better and probably make more sense.

Yup, I can't really see myself rewatching the end of S6/most of S7 either; I've seen Chosen a few times, and Selfless and Storyteller, but that's about it. Compared to half the episodes in S4 which I've seen so many times I just about know them by heart. I'm glad I watched them so I know what happens in terms of Buffy canon, but in my head, Buffy the series ended with The Gift (even if it does mean no musical ep D:).

I think most of the resentment towards Riley comes from either a) hatred of The Initiative in general, which, let's be honest, wasn't the most interesting story arc, or b) because some people are hardcore Buffy/Angel or Buffy/Spike fans.
I never really liked Angel much in Buffy (I agree that him in Pangs was a bit WTFish, but I adored him in Chosen), but he's so much fun in AtS, mostly because he's not being all broody over Buffy because she's not there.

Buffy's accent in Halloween was LOL-worthy. XD Nearly as good as Angel's Irish one.

Hehe, my favourite Spike moment in Pangs is definitely "You made a BEAR?!", but I think that's because it's reached inside-joke status with me and some friends.

Hm. You're right; nobody writes Dawn/Xander. I had a quick look at the Buffy fanfiction sites I freqeunt, and the only one I could find was, uh, NC-17-rated (here). Thanks to Buffy, my fic-finding skills have improved, and I keep finding W/T fics I haven't read before, which is awesome because I've been finding and reading them for over a year now, and I get through a lot of fic. There are whole sites dedicated to exclusively W/T fic; finished fics, uber fics, even (haha) D/s fics.

Spoiler: Seeing Red

The AR scene just scared me so much I didn't understand how Buffy could stand to be in the same room as him afterwards, soul or no soul. I think the way Buffy coped with it (just getting on with life and not letting it consume her) was really awesome, but, for me, the idea of her being willing to be close to him afterwards is... creepy.

Spoiler: S7

Nah, I don't think anyone really likes Principal Wood. Though it was nice to see a minority character not get killed/go evil! I was just waiting for him to die horribly, and when it didn't happen, I was thrilled. Again, a shame I didn't actually care about the character at all (past it being hilarious that it was President Palmer).
I did love his "I hope that's not a student" line, though X3

You're right; it was weird that Wicca was never explained and then basically never mentioned again. And, again, the reinforcing for stereotypes is just not cool.

I think the main reason people love S2 and 3 generally so much is because it's the core four and their library and stuff, which I have to admit I miss in the later seasons. I'm a huge S4 fan, and I miss the closeness of the group from the early days terribly, and while they reconnect well enough in S5, everything goes completely pear-shaped in S6 and never fully recovers.

I think it is a little wrong that you liked Giles/Anya, especially since their kiss was, I thought, pretty much supposed to be intentionally cringeworthy to the audience; pretty much everyone I've watched it with has either laughed or gone "eeeew" at the A/G kiss.
Giles and Spike's British!hug was so much love <33 I wouldn't go so far as to say they made the episode; "Joan the Vampire Slayer" alone is just fantastic, and you have to admit Willow and Tara were adorable. It's just annoying they still made Dawn useless, though :/

Aww, I thought Anya's reaction to the events in Hell's Bells was believable. I can't actually remember it too much, but I don't remember thinking anything was odd (except the one obvious event), and her trying to get everyone to wish ill on Xander was awsome.

I agree with most of your list! And your runner-ups (though I'll admit I couldn't even remember anything that happened in Sleeper XD). I should do a top-10 best list and see how different it is to my favourites. And I want to do something akin to the top-100 moments list; maybe a bunch of top 10 moments by category; funniest, saddest... I've already done most romantic/squeeworthy.
(it has just occured to me how pathetic this is. I love it.)

EDIT: Aaaah Butterfree posts faster than me!

Hahaha, okay I laughed way, way too much at your dream. That's absolutely excellent XD

So I have this thing where I like to think that Amber Benson and the Buffy wardrobe department had this massive ongoing war, in which she did something to annoy the head-wardrobe-person and then they took their revenge by making Tara wear the weirdest, most unflattering clothes they could think of in some episodes. Some of the stuff she wears is absolutely adorable, but others (the outfit in This Year's Girl where she and Willow are looking for Faith, the dress at the end of Family - and there's huge discord over whether the OMWF dress is the greatest or worst thing ever made) are just terrible. And there are a few episodes where whoever did Amber's makeup should have been shot. There's a huge W/T forum that's actually named "The Kitten, the Witches and the Bad Wardrobe", in part after the bizzare clothing choices for poor Tara (and, to a lesser extent, Willow).

I utterly adore your Kutner headcanon. Except he plays a terrorist in a whole bunch of episodes in 24 season 6 (I know! He's in House, Buffy and 24 <3), so at some point he has to convert to complete extremism, too. XD

 

[Minish]

Spoiler

I totally thought they might be about to kill Giles near the end of S6 as well as Butterfree. D: For a moment I realised how much one of the characters on the show dying -- that I didn't know about -- would affect me. Every single death I was spoilt for, and as such I just wasn't affected in the same way I knew I would have been without being spoilt.

...granted, a moment later I realised I had seen a screencap of the final scene in Chosen and knew he would survive, but still. For a moment, I was like... D:

Okay, I see that Butterfree brought up something that I was hoping would be brought up -- the nature of Spike going to Africa or wherever it was. Did I totally miss something, because I was seriously under the impression that he went to get his chip out. Everyone, it seems, just talks as if he went to get his soul, and I didn't get that from the show at all. Maybe it was supposed to be ambiguous and I just chose the less popular interpretation, but still, I'm pretty sure it was never mentioned on-screen that Spike went to specifically get his soul. I don't think it would be in character for him to do that, not even 'for Buffy', because by being soulless he just wouldn't do that in the first place. He went to be how he 'used to be' again, and to him that meant without his chip -- but to the demon bloke thing, it meant his soul. Which was why it was such a cliffhanger when it was like "We will give you back... YOUR SOUL!" and I was like :O even though I already knew he'd get his soul back at some point.

...eh. Maybe it's just me. I definitely prefer my interpretation, that it was to get his chip out. Much as I love Spike, I can not see him regretting the attempted rape on Buffy in that way, he's never -- nor has any vampire on the show, ever -- shown any inclination in even associating themselves with their old soulled-up self. I don't see why they would suddenly make him all OOC and atone-y (that is so not a word even by Buffy standards...)

I'm not a fan of the Trio either. Their descent into evil was well-done, I agree on that too, but I also just hate them too much. I was able to be much angrier with Angelus after Jenny than I was with Warren after Tara, because... well, first, there was a massive difference in believability (wtf was with that bullet going up into the bedroom? I like how it was so unrelated to what was going on down in the garden and I also liked, in a very sad way, how Warren probably didn't even know Tara existed, but... it really could have been done better) and Angelus was just... any villain apart from the Trio, in fact... I can't put my finger on it. The Trio just lacked something, and maybe it's just because I hated them so much. I only kind of liked Andrew and Jonathan a bit when they were really dorkey, from then on it was just like... :|

And Jonathan, why'd they have to make him evil? XD I liked him...

I cheered at that Giles coming in bit too -- annoyingly, I had been spoilt AGAIN for his exact line after reading the Crowning Moment of Awesome page on TV Tropes (I have no idea how I convinced myself that was a good idea), but even so...

Although, in my opinion, there were a few other Giles moments where I actually have to constantly rewind just because I cheer and squee too much: when Jenny dies and he just goes to Angelus to beat the crap out of him with a flaming baseball bat. And this is Angelus we're talking about. And also when he just completely punches Ethan in the face in Halloween. I think I actually died the first time, in a very good way. I love how Ethan basically exists to let Giles be kick-ass and beat him up. XD

Okay, going back to the actual recent posts...

Yeah, it was good that they thought of a reason for Seth Green to leave -- and to be honest, there probably wouldn't have been many other plausible ways to do it without involving another werewolf. But God, Veruca was just... ugh and I totally didn't like seeing Oz behave that way to Willow, it was even worse than when he and Cordelia saw Willow and Xander kissing.

I would have liked Angel more in Chosen, since he was being all omg-he-has-a-sense-of-humour!?, but his arrival also seemd WTFish. Maybe not his arrival, but the way he and Buffy just kissed like that. Considering the way they had last left eachother, I just didn't like how they were all touchy-feely so suddenly. I know the circumstances made it make sense, but I still didn't like it. Still. Totally worth it if only because we got the cookie-dough speech. <3

Argh, I wish I liked Willow/Tara because there is just SO MUCH FANFICTION for it. D: And I don't want to go reading Spike/Buffy because it'll ruin my headcanon and I just know what most Spike/Buffy fans will be like. Or maybe I'm just being judgemental, but eh.

Just reminded myself; are there any ships that you saw right at the start of the show, but then gave up? I really didn't expect it to happen, because normally if I see a ship I'll keep it for a good while. I saw extraordinary Buffy/Giles in the first season, but then it very quickly completely vanished. And now I can adore their lovely platonic relationship without being reminded uncomfortably of the ship, which is good.

Then again, the only ship I'm really interested in is Buffy/Spike, so I guess that's my OTP without much competition at all. I so, so wish I were more of a shipper.

Still, at least I can see nearly every common ship as possible, I'm just not interested in it. Buffy/Xander, Dawn/Xander, Xander/Willow, Xander/Cordelia, Willow/Tara, I'd be interested in reading pretty much anything (that isn't cracky or disturbing) if it was good, which is really rare for me.

On Giles/Anya, I did find their kiss very cringeworthy and was like nooo as I looked at it, but then I thought back later and thought that TR!Anya really suited Giles. Maybe it's just because EC is such a good actress though.

And Sleeper was just another Spike-centric episode, so you'll probably feel like you're not missing anything X3 I don't think I asked this before; what did you think of Lies My Parents Told Me?

By the way, sorry if I repeated anything I'd already said look like a moron, 'cause I went back and scanned the posts I'd missed and may have gotten confused. X3

Sorry for the massive spoiler thing, I think most of it isn't actually spoiler material but I messed up the tags and just did whatever. I don't think there's anything that should spoil anyone who hasn't seen S7... but there might be.

 

[Dannichu]

(I had so much fun with these spoiler tags)

Spoiler: S6

Yeah, I knew Giles would live, too, which was annoying, because the idea of Willow killing Giles is just... woah. Too much; too much!

Spoiler: early S7

Yeah, I thought Spike was just going to get his chip taken out too, rather than have his soul returned, so I voiced my throughts aloud and my friend said how he was gonna get his soul back.

Spike's development confuses me. I had an epically long conversation with another Buffy-friend about this and I think I've already talked about it a bit, but if I have, just pretend I haven't. Right. So. In S1 it's established pretty much from day 1 that vampires are evil, evil creatures. As Giles (I think) says, "It's not your friend, it's the monster that killed your friend", and the gang feel absolutely no remorse for killing vampires because they have no souls and are just plain evil.
Then, I'm fairly sure this is brought up in S2 by Dru, that vampires have the ability to love one another, but this doesn't make the gang feel any remorse in killing vamps either, because they're still totally evil killing machines; Angel and Angelus prove that the vamp-with-a-soul and vamp-without-a-soul incarnations are totally different.
Then, with S3, we have Doppelgangland, where Giles' claim about vampires is refuted in the form of Vamp Willow being "kinda gay"; Buffy assures Willow that a vampire has nothing to do with the person it was, to which Angel responds "Well, actually... uh, that's a good point.". Buffy et al can't bring themselves to kill Vamp Willow, probably due to her physical resemblance to Actual Will, but also probably in part because VW is still a little like AW (as nearly-stated by Angel).
S4 and Spike gets his chip. Spike can no longer kill people, but is still dangerous (see: his attack on Willow), and the Buffy gang keep him around "purely" for information about the Initative. Interestingly, Spike loses all of his vampireyness while under Willow's spell in Something Blue, though that could be because that's Willow's idea of what being married is like?? And the whole episode was done entirely for laughs and wasn't really meant to be taken seriously.
S5 and Spike is no longer needed, but they keep him around anyway; I can't remember it being explicitly stated, but I assume it's because they know him so well, they can't bring themselves to kill him, vamp or not. Spike falls in love with Buffy and does very un-vampy things for her (get tortured for Dawn's sake).
In S6 Spike helps out the gang here and there (even while Buffy's gone), and he and Buffy end up using one another and there's little thought of staking him, but other vamps are still evilevilevil. Then the AR happens, so Spike goes away.
And then, in S7, you've got Spike with a soul. Who is identical in personality to Spike with a chip. And this I just don’t understand. He doesn’t have any regret for killing all his past victims, yet still has a soul and such. What difference did the soul make?

Spoiler: Mid-S7

I was sad with Jonathan being evil/killed, too; if you go back and watch Buffy from the beginning, Jonathan is in so many episodes before he’s actually given a name and stuff; the other day we watched What’s My Line (I forget which part, but it’s the one with the fake policewoman who ends up shooting Oz) and he’s in the credits under “Hostage Boy” or something so we had a good giggle at that.

Giles has more than his share of CMoAs, though; I think it’s because he’s usually so stuffy and British that it makes even more of an impact when he does go out and attack people with flaming baseball bats and whatnot. I mean, he didn’t really do much with his Fear Itself chainsaw (just cut a hole in the door), but the fact he had one in the first place is just epic.

I was discussing cheating in Buffy with another friend the other day, and pretty much everyone cheats on their SO’s in some way at some point: Xander, Willow, Oz, Riley, Anya, Spike, Dru... I forget, but I think Buffy goes out with one of her randomers while technically dating Angel… pretty much the only people who don’t are Giles (who only goes out with Jenny anyway; who really cares about Olivia?), Cordy (she might on Angel, though), Dawn (who never goes out with anyone anyway) and Tara (who has been described as “Not so much a lesbian as Willowsexual”).

Spoiler: Chosen

I didn’t think Angel and Buffy in Chosen was too OOC; she wanted to tell him to be the second line of attack, so him showing up wasn’t too surprising, and given she was very much aware that she could die in the final battle, the kiss wasn’t too unexpected; they do have that whole true-love-that-can-never-be thing going on. I forget; how was the last time they’d left each other? Was it Forever, or am I forgetting something really obvious?
I can’t decide if I love the cookie dough speech or hate it. Get back to me on that one.

Spoiler: Seeing Red

I dunno; I haven’t read any, but you should give Buffy/Spike fanfiction a go. In my experience, Buffy fans are an angsty lot, so you might be pleasantly surprised.
While watching the early seasons, I really wanted to ‘ship Willow and Buffy; I knew Willow came out later, and I knew her girlfriend was someone called Tara who would eventually die (and I didn’t want to like her because I didn’t want it to hurt when she died – hah.), but it’s just too friendshippy for me. I’ve read a few good fics, but within canon as it is, it’s just squicky. I was intrigued by Buffy/Faith, but gave up because all the fanfiction for it is terrible (well, the stuff I’ve read), and Faith’s later appearances don’t support it at all.
No gay loving for Buffy ):

Spoiler: Tabula Rasa

Hehe, TR!Anya was hilarious. “I feel compelled to take some vegence on you!”. The only thing I don’t like about TR (well, except obvious sad things at the end) was how Dawn was rubbish even with her memory gone. The whole “please don’t hurt me” bit was awful. I like the “Umad” bit, though.

Spoiler: Lies My Parents Told Me

I wasn’t too fussed about Lies My Parents Told Me. I’d heard that it was brilliant (forget who said that), but I didn’t enjoy it too much, mostly because it focused on Spike and Wood, neither of whom I cared overly about. It was well-done, though.

 

[Minish]

Haha, I love all your quotiness but I'm lazy. XD

(Spoilers for S7/everything)

Spoiler

I do get what you mean with Spike. His vampirism was... really weird, but I think by taking what I want to from S7 stuff, I've come to see it making more sense.

Like when he was 'crazy' in the basement, in early S7. I loved loved loved it. I think it was the Critically Touched guy who said that Spike's inane mumblings of 'it' and 'him' were 'it' being the First, and 'him', possibly, being God, which I thought was very interesting. I absolutely adored all the things Spike said because they can be analysed so much, like Restless. Like that episode where... I can't remember much, since I haven't rewatched anything in S7, but... it was something like Buffy and Willow were split up and couldn't see eachother because of some spell in the school or something, and we saw through one of their POVs that Spike was just rambling crazily again and it seemed to make no sense, but then when we saw that exact scene from the other's point of view, who was right there in the room as well, we saw the ramblings again and they made total sense because he was talking about the other person there, and it was just all confusing him.

...or something, I can't remember it that clearly. XD But I loved it. With him talking about how 'he' was there -- I just got what he said on Critically Touched: "When Spike says, "and now everyone's in here, talking, everything I did, everyone I... and him [Spike's concience manifesting as his perception of God's punishment]... and it [the First] ... they all just tell me to go... go, to hell." When Buffy asks him why he'd go get his soul, Spike rightfully snaps back: "Buffy, shame on you. What must a man do what he mustn't for her, to be hers. To be the kind of man, who would never... to be a kind of man. And she shall look at him with forgiveness, and everyone will forgive, and love. And he will be loved. So, everything's okay, right? Can we rest now? Buffy, can we rest?" It's these final words, overlayed with Spike wrapping his now scorching body around (hugging) a large cross, that the episode ends."

I think when he was all insane in the basement, it was a mix of the First and how much his soul was affecting him. I think he did show an awful lot of guilt, and was seeking redemption in his head, and it was all just totally confusing him. Spike said at one point that Angel should have told him it (getting a soul) would be like this.

He shows hints of this all the time, and him seeming 'normal' again when he gets his unkempt hair back to how it usually was, was totally creepy. It was like he was like you say, completely the same as when he had his chip, but I think there was an underlying Oh my god he's still crazed that kept freaking me out during the episode. We didn't see how much getting a soul would have affected Angel, we only see how he wanted redemption later.

I think it's different for every vampire, how they deal with getting a soul. In Lies My Parents Told Me, he didn't kill Wood, which I am 100% he would have done had he not had his soul. In that same episode, it seems very much like he can only live by abandoning his guilt, denying the responsibility for killing Wood's mother. Angel sought redemption, but Spike believes that as a vampire, it was what he had to do. He abandons his responsibility because he knows that a vampire is a de-souled victim of a demon. In that way, he can live, and Spike has always been one to sort of move on (well... not when Buffy's concerned, but yeah) and deal.

Angel did seek redemption, but Spike didn't feel plagued with guilt after the First stopped messing with his brain (though, I think, part of his craziness was that he had just gotten his soul back, I think it did affect him a lot and make him feel guilt then). We've only really seen, in-depth, two vampires with a soul, and I liked how they were so, so different. Angel was extreme -- without a soul, he was a complete and utter monster; with a soul, he feels extreme redemption and the desire to help for the sake of helping. With Spike, it's very much that with a soul, with a chip and without a soul all overlapped and crossed over. I liked that an outright reason was given for this, just hints of possible reasons, and the possibility that getting a soul is just totally different for all vampires, and how different vampires can be from eachother. Spike's always been an anomaly in the vampire world, that's what a writer said in the Lies My Parents Told Me commentary, I believe. I don't think it's as clear-cut as 'getting a soul does this', and that's something I really, really like about the show.

If they hadn't had all that about Spike, S7 would have sucked so, so much. In my opinion. X3

I do get that Angel and Buffy kissing wasn't too OOC, because like you say, it's all that everlasting love stuff. Which annoyed me, because Spike/Buffy was always gritty and more realistic, whereas Angel was kind of just 'oh, he still exists?' and their random kiss and interaction just sort of ignored all the development their relationship had gone through. But yeah, I know it was kind of a no-guarantees-on-living thing. Maybe I'm just looking too far into it. XD And I remember their last meeting as when Buffy went and met him somewhere, but given as we don't really know what happened, I consider the last time to be... I want to say Pangs, but I'm sure there was another time after that when he did a random pointless visit.

Ahh, I toootally did the same thing about wanting to see Buffy/Willow. I knew she'd turn gay and get a girlfriend that wasn't Buffy, but I still saw it in the first episode. They were so cute! But then I completely lost it, like I did with Buffy/Giles later in S1. Which is nice, because like Buffy/Giles the platonic friendshippiness is totally enough to be awesome.

 

[Butterfree]

So! We finished the series! And I read aaaaall the spoilers! :D

The way I see the vampire thing is that they can feel love, passion and other base emotions just fine, soul or no soul, but always in a fundamentally selfish way - Spike feels good when he's with Drusilla, and he will take pains to help her, but ultimately it's because of the way she makes him feel and want. Likewise, with Buffy, he

Spoiler: season five

lets himself be tortured, but it's only because he knows that Buffy would never forgive him if he gave her away as the Key and thus he would lose that shred of a chance he has to be with her; it's this basic selfishness of his love that makes him do things like chain her up in Crush to try to force her to admit there is something "between them", because it's not that he cares about her so much as caring about the future possibility of making himself feel better by being with Buffy

. Spike is unusually driven by "love" because he had a very romantic personality as a human and thus how good he feels is very connected to his "romantic" feelings, but ultimately, because he is a soulless vampire, he cannot love selflessly; it's all about seeking comfort for himself.

Spoiler: end of season six

Of course, then the thing is that the borders start to get blurry, because the way his emotions work very closely resemble something like a conscience. He attempts to rape Buffy, unable to comprehend the inherent wrongness of it, but afterwards, realizing how much he hurt her and thus his chances of ever being with her, his love for her makes him feel horrible about it in a selfish way. (As he is agonizing over it, we see him both horrified by what he's done and horrified that he is so horrified.) Ultimately, his seeking to reclaim his soul is also selfish, because Buffy has been telling him she cannot be with him because he has no soul, and now he finds himself inadvertently hurting her (and by extension himself) exactly because he can't understand these things on his own. Thus, he wants a soul - yet again, in the hope that it will ultimately lead to Buffy loving him and himself feeling better. Ultimately, as a vampire he functions pretty similar to how he functions with a soul, because he has his dependence on love as a 'faux conscience'. Meanwhile, somebody like Angel, who as a human was never that concerned with love or what other people thought of him, truly needs a selfless soul to be good, and without it he is a complete monster.

I actually thought the remove chip/get soul thing was a very deliberate, cleverly done fake-out. I knew he would get his soul back, and so as I watched his scenes with the demon in the cave I noticed how everything was carefully worded so that it could mean either removing the chip or returning the soul. (It actually reminded me of Justice for All case 2-4 - when I first played through the cross-examination of De Killer, I didn't notice anything off about the way they never mentioned Adrian Andrews' gender until the key part, but when I replayed it and knew about the set-up, the way everything was worded around it, with "my client" used when any normal person would have said "he" or "she", felt really obvious.) He talks about "returning to the way he was", and we're supposed to think he means before he got the chip, but in fact he means before he became a vampire. He talks about "giving me what I want", and again, we're meant to think he's referring to getting the chip removed, but he's actually referring to the soul. The entire conversation is set up to sound like it's about the chip, but at the same time it is clearly actually about his soul if you know what to look for.

Spoiler: season seven

Of course, once he has the soul, he suddenly starts to feel selfless feelings, is riddled with guilt about everybody he's killed and so on; before he actually got it, he never realized it would be like that because he couldn't understand what selfless feelings were like anymore. When it happens, he goes mad with guilt and confusion over his own feelings; later, he learns to deal with it by distancing himself from it, as in Lies My Parents Told Me where he justifies killing Wood's mother as just being what vampires do and what slayers sign up for.

Now, on to other thoughts about season seven!

Spoiler

I actually really liked it as a whole. I enjoyed having the First as the main villain; it's fitting for the last season to take on this fundamental force of evil, instead of being just another evil demon of some sort, plus that it was nice to see it brought up again after it had been set up there in season three. Admittedly, it was set up (especially in Conversations with Dead People) as a lot scarier than it ended up being in the second half of the season, but I liked the way it works by manipulating people anyway. I also really, really enjoyed Spike's arc; I had hoped it would deal well with his getting a soul thing, and in my opinion it really did. And Andrew was positively adorable and Storyteller is one of my favorite episodes. And Conversations with Dead People was really good, too, and I loved Lies My Parents Told Me, and all those Spike episodes really, and Him was hilarious. And I kind of enjoyed the potentials; they weren't exactly interesting, but they were developed enough to make it really satisfying to see them all getting their powers in Chosen and start kicking ass. I actually liked Kennedy, though not with Willow because they set up this whole thing with Willow not feeling ready to let Tara go but then she did anyway for some stupid reason, plus that Kennedy was always just kind of pushy and annoying to her and she really doesn't feel like Willow's type because both Oz and Tara were these quiet, ultra-nice, considerate people and suddenly along comes this bratty, pushy girl who is like the very antithesis of both Oz and Tara and yet Willow magically loves her without any setup whatsoever. And okay, maybe I don't really like Kennedy, but I liked her just fine first after she came in. <_<

About the dealing with death thing,

Spoiler: various points in the series

yeah, I agree on how nobody really seemed to care when Tara and Anya died. And Spike too; I mean, most of them wouldn't really be too devastated that he'd died, but I'd expect there to be at least some sort of a reaction. And Anya really should have elicited more than just Xander going "Yeah, that's my girl." There could at least have been a bit of mourning in that final scene. I like to pretend that the grieving over Tara just went on mostly during the summer between seasons six and seven, though, and that they were just all too busy stopping Willow in the last few episodes of season six.

Speaking in spoiler tags is annoying.

 

[Harlequin]

Spoiler: season seven

Well, I really liked the potentials and Chosen was a brilliant episode for me. I've said it before, I know, but I think Chosen was one of the best episodes of the series. For me, Chosen was everything that Buffy is: fighting against evil, yes, but also about empowerment and friendship and family and and and I loved it. Yeah.

Kennedy. Well. She was different from both Tara and Oz, but maybe that's the attraction for Willow. I don't know, though. I thought it happened kind of fast but I don't think it was fundamentally wrong.

 

[Minish]

I didn't see much wrong with Kennedy; I didn't think she was a bad match for Willow. There aren't many people who can only go out with one type of person -- Angel, Spike and Riley were all very different people, and yet Buffy had relationships with all of them. I don't exactly ship them, but I thought the wild difference in personality between Tara and Kennedy made sense.

When Oz left, Willow went out with Tara -- granted, they had relatively similar personalities, but... well, Tara was a girl and Willow had clearly never realised she was not straight before that. Maybe Willow just goes for a totally different type of person to try and move on. And I know (S6) Tara died, but I think after everything that had happened, Willow needed to have a new relationship and really start to carry on with her life.

Eh. My take on it. I never really realised how many Willow/Tara shippers there were before finding out that Willow/Kennedy was universally hated. X3 One thing that I think is a bit weird is how Kennedy wanted the relationship. I can see why Willow would be interested in Kennedy; not the other way around though. But maybe she's had loads of relationships.

As long as Willow and Kennedy aren't supposed to be omg true loves (which is a hideous thought to me, so maybe I don't like Kennedy that much after all) I thought it was a perfectly natural relationship. I didn't like it when Kennedy was all 'magic is all weird to me' or something to that effect, like she wasn't even interested, I was like >| at that point. XP

I've actually been liking Willow/Tara more recently. And I know I've said that I find Tara boring, but in real life I'd probably love her to pieces, she's like one of the nicest people ever, if a little too under-confident for my liking (which makes her a little bit of a pushover). Also, one of my friends told me that my slight stammer/falling over words is very similar to Tara's, which I had to begrudgingly agree with. X3 Tara was always just so genuinely nice... ;_; Looking at her as a person rather than her place as a character... well, yeah. That makes me respect and adore her.

 

[Dannichu]

Spoiler: everything in the world, ever

I didn't like The First. I thought it was really well done in Conversations with Dead People, with Joyce/not!Tara and all, but then Caleb came along and stuff, and while I agree in part it was cool for the final big bad to not be some random monster, having them fight the very essence of evil itself was a little heavy-handed, especially after S6 (actually, every season building up gradually) had gone to such great lengths to blur the lines between what it means to be good and evil, and then to have it put back into complete black and white was disappointing.

I like your idea about Spike accepting what he did as a vampire is just what vampires do and he shouldn't feel guilty about it. I can see Spike doing that very easily. And I like Butterfree's thing about vampires being purely selfishly motivated. I like all this Spike insight; it's making me like him a bit more.

I think the last meeting between Buffy and Angel (at least, in Buffy, I dunno about AtS) was in Forever, the episode after The Body. I really liked Buffy staying after the funeral and Angel coming along to comfort her; it's a bit foreshadowy of S6 if you think about it; she can't deal with her loss on her own, and she can't tell her friends, so she "uses" someone she knows loves her to cope with her pain.
Speaking of Forever, what the hell was Willow thinking, giving Dawn that book? I don't understand it; I don't think Willow's silly enough to encourage Dawn to try and raise the dead (she seemed to agree with Tara about it being a magic user's responsibility, and she proved earlier in the episode that she absolutely cannot lie convincingly), but I also don't get how she thought reading about magic would help Dawn cope with her loss in any way.
In some ways, I think Forever is just as sad as The Body, especially because a lot of the numbness that The Body had has worn off and it's more raw and real. The scene where Dawn accuses Buffy of not caring and Buffy breaks down saying that as soon as she stops doing mundane things it all becomes real just about breaks my heart ):
Though I love the episode purely for Willow's eggs "wiggling at me like little boobs"; it makes me laugh so, so hard. "Sassy eggs" indeed XD

I loved Andrew in S7 so much; he was so refreshing against all the angst that was going on with everyone else. Such a shame I was still full of residual hate from S6 D:

Bleh, I didn't like the Potentials. They took up too much screentime and it just ended up that there were so many we didn't know much about any of them. We know Kennedy because of Willow. We know Rona because she complains about things. We know Penny (okay, her name wasn't Penny but we called her that because she was in Dr Horrible) because of her hat. We know Molly because of her horrible, horrible accent.

I'd have liked Kennedy a lot more if they hadn't tried to pair her with Willow. It was far, far too soon and they didn't work as a couple (I thought) at all. As a character in her own right, she's marginally annoying but coped pretty well with all the stuff thrown at her, which was cool.
I guess it just felt too much to me that the writers were a) trying to make some more character connections and make us become attached to at least one potential, and b) trying and make up for killing/turning evil their lesbian characters in the previous season by having a new lesbian relationship and not killing them. I think they purposefully made Kennedy the anti-Tara to show they weren't simply replacing her, but it pretty much backfired because the most ardent Kennedy-haters are Tara fans. And the vast majority of gay Buffy fans are Tara fans.

Haha, I'd never seen how odd Kennedy/Willow is from Kennedy's POV, actually. Willow doesn't seem her type, either. The only thing I can think of is that she saw Willow as a kind of conquest - she was in mourning and didn't want a relationship, so it was more of a challenge to try and push her into one... and that just makes me hate Kennedy more.

Chosen and The Gift are both epic and brilliant because, like Harle said, they encapsulate everything that makes Buffy brilliant, drawing together all the themes of the series, with some wonderful character moments, Joss-humour, lots of painful loss and all that other stuff that makes it my favourite show :D

And yaaaaay on you (kinda-sorta) liking W/T. I've mentioned to a few people "So I have this friend online and I've made her watch Buffy and she loves it but she doesn't like Tara" and pretty much everyone's reaction was "And you still talk to her?". I didn't realize everyone thinks I'm such a rabid fan D:

Well, Tara's introduced as very under-confident, but she grows so much, especially in S6, to the point where you really can't say she's anything resembling a pushover; I refer you here to Older and Far Away, where she keeps poking fun at Spike, is a pillar of support for Buffy and threatens Anya for tempting Willow. Plus, there's a kind of irony (what is it with me, Tara and irony?) in that even though Tara appears to be the underconfident one, Willow's actually way more nervous and self-loathing than Tara ever was. Look at Restless; Tara is totally calm, open (she appears naked (ie. not hiding anything), while Willow "wearing a costume" is a theme in her dream) and self-assured (granted, this is Willow's perception of her rather than her own, but I think Tara's more open; when we see her lack confidence, she lacks confidence, but when she accepts who she is and grows more confident, that's who she becomes; there's no pretense or bravado), while Willow is constantly hiding behind a mask, convinced she's still the geek she was in high school. And thus begins everything in S6.

ETA: It's somewhat related; Cirrus, I adore your avvie and title-thingy. I have that picture in non-avatar form saved (under the filename "The Nancy Tribe" X3), and the "Someone wasn't worthy!" scene is one of my absolute favourites <3

 

[Keltena]

...Spike's backstory. He was a bloody horrible poet. Oh my god that is awesome. And a hopeless romantic; man, that explains so much!

Loved the episode Fool For Love; I always thought the Buffy/Spike 'shippers were crazy but now I see where they're coming from. Also, Willow/Tara are adorable as always <333

And Anya. She is still amazing. Also the part in Family where Dawn stepped up to stand in front of Tara with Buffy... so amazing!

 

[Dannichu]

Hehe, I'm so glad you're enjoying it :D And YAY someone else who loves that scene in Family! <33 "She's a hair-puller" - so cute! And I would actually pay good money to watch Dawn pull Mr. Maclay's hair.
Spike's backstory's pretty funny, yeah; remember what the woman Spikes loved (Cecily?) looks like; you might recognize her in later episodes X3

Edit:
Also, I feel compelled to plug my newest TV love: Torchwood. Imagine if Buffy were made by the BBC, had older characters and was set in Wales. It's not as funny (although it does have its share of Joss-humour-y moments) and the characters aren't as lovable (except Ianto <3 And Tosh), but it's just as nonsensical and generally fabulous.
And it has Spike in X3 Only for a couple of episodes, but still. If you've got a spare couple of minutes, watch this. You haven't lived until you've heard James Marsters proclaim "But I was a good wife!"

 

[PK]

FINISHED THE WHOLE SERIES. DANNI, GET ONLINE SO WE CAN DISCUSS EVERY LAST LITTLE THING.

 

[Harlequin]

Hehe, I'm so glad you're enjoying it :D And YAY someone else who loves that scene in Family! <33 "She's a hair-puller" - so cute! And I would actually pay good money to watch Dawn pull Mr. Maclay's hair.
Spike's backstory's pretty funny, yeah; remember what the woman Spikes loved (Cecily?) looks like; you might recognize her in later episodes X3

Edit:
Also, I feel compelled to plug my newest TV love: Torchwood. Imagine if Buffy were made by the BBC, had older characters and was set in Wales. It's not as funny (although it does have its share of Joss-humour-y moments) and the characters aren't as lovable (except Ianto <3 And Tosh), but it's just as nonsensical and generally fabulous.
And it has Spike in X3 Only for a couple of episodes, but still. If you've got a spare couple of minutes, watch this. You haven't lived until you've heard James Marsters proclaim "But I was a good wife!"

Don't tell me you're just now getting to Torchwood?! It's like, great. And gay! Very gay! And brilliant! Ianto's a good character, too. :D

 

[Dannichu]

Hey, it's me we're talking about. I get into everything years late! D:
So far I've watched all of S1 and 2 and I love it to bits. I utterly adore Ianto, he's adorable <3

Also: YAY PK! :DDD

 

[Harlequin]

Hey, it's me we're talking about. I get into everything years late! D:
So far I've watched all of S1 and 2 and I love it to bits. I utterly adore Ianto, he's adorable <3

Also: YAY PK! :DDD

Oh, God, I got to Buffy nearly a decade late. Like, seriously.

Watch Children of Earth now. Do it. If you don't want it I'll hunt you down and and and remove your lesbian centre in your brain. Then you'll have to be heterosexual, and who wants that?

 

[Dannichu]

Yeah, I only got into Buffy last year thanks to an already-obsessed friend at uni. I think I'm glad I watched it as an adult rather than a teenager/kid, though; I understand it more and think I can appreciate the characters and stuff better than if I'd watched it when I was 13 or whatever.
Actually, I think part of the reason I love series 4 so much was that one of its main themes was going away to university for the first time and adjusting to such a big life change, both in terms of meeting new people and growing away from old friends, and given that I watched it during my first year of university, it just felt a bit more real and personal than if I'd've watched it at any other time in my life. So, who knows? Maybe if I'd watched S2 or 3 while in my last few years of secondary school, I'd relate to them more and like them best :)

Okay, the commenting and such here has died down a little, so I'm going to ask some open questions:

1. Which Buffy episode (or moment within an episode) made you realise that BtVS was actually a really good show?

2. Which was the moment (I assume you have one) where you fell in love with your favourite character?

3. What was, for you, the most emotional scene in the entire series?

Just to, y'know, get some discussion going or something?

My friend who has the first two seasons of Torchwood is getting the Children of Earth for Christmas, so I'll be watching it in January when we go back to uni - is that soon enough? Please, I beg you, don't take my powers of lesbianism away! They're all I have! D:

Happyhappy sidenote: Last page, I mentioned, in passing, "There’s a wonderful (eternally unfinished; last updated in ‘03) fic called Working Out The Kinks" ...it updated! :DDD This is another thing about Buffy fics; so many of them have been left unfinished for years, but then, very occasionally, the author comes back and finishes/updates them! The same thing happened with another fic I'm utterly in love with, called Creation Myth, which hadn't been updated in years. God, I love fic.
...now, if only someone would update Neverland. That fic kills me.><

 

[Keltena]

Hm, okay...

1. The third episode; the one where Amy's trapped inside her mom's body and all. With the cheerleading. That was very cleverly pulled off. The first episode was meh and the second was decent and they just got better~

2. Oh gee... Willow, Willow, Willow... ohIknow. In season one, that part where Cordelia's all "how do I finish this?" and Willow says "press 'deliver'" and Cordelia hits "DEL". <3.14 Epic.

3. Pretty tough tie between the end of Lie to Me and New Moon Rising, but I'll say the latter. I mean, I'm a really big W/T shipper, but the part where she said goodbye to Oz... I was crying my eyes out. ;_;

Hm... my favorite Buffyfic is still that cracky one I linked you to, but then I haven't read many. Must do so after finishing series. n_n

 

[PK]

1. Uh... let's see... When I realized I was actually concerned when bad things happened to Willow.

2. Dopplegangland. Vamp willow <3

3. The Body. Or maybe when xander and willow are together after xander gets de-eyed.