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Rewatching Season 3 Of Buffy...

and I think I have to re-evaluate my most hated character. For years it has been Xander, and I suspect it will always be Xander. However, Mr. Trick is up there for an entirely different reason. I know the 90s and early 2000s were basically the wild, wild, west, but I really want to know who sat in the writers room and said to themselves, "this Mr. Trick guy is a good character." Aside from him being corny, he is completely problematic. I know what you're thinking, "stop looking at early media with a 2024 gaze." Trust me, I hate that shit with a passion. No, I've always had a problem with Mr. Trick. The fact is that as a teenager, I didn't have the lexicon to describe why I disliked the character. As a teenager watching Buffy in the 90s, all I knew was that there was something skeevy about Mr. Trick, and he made my skin crawl.

Before I go any further, let me preface this by saying. I'm an Afro-Latina who grew up in Harlem, New York. Not exactly your target audience for shows like Buffy other than being a teenage girl. In all honesty, I couldn't relate to the more mundane aspects of the show, but I loved it because somehow I saw myself in Buffy. She was strong. She didn't take crap from anyone (except her friends, but that's another topic of discussion), and she was 16 like me.

Growing up, representation for people who look like me was scarce. There certainly weren't any teen dramas on the WB with a black girl as a main character, so I took what I could get. With that being said, back then, I feel like a lot of people in the writers room thought characters like Mr. Trick were acceptable. It was like they took every negative stereotype of black people--particularly black men, and said, let's create this modern day Sambo for television.

If you're unaware of the history of the Sambo character, please look it up. It's disturbing, and I didn't plan on going into a history lesson.

I wonder what might have been the outcome if they had some POC in the writers room to say, "hey, no, don't do that." Conversely, I loved Charles Gunn when I watched the show. I think I could relate to the black boy from the "hood." But upon subsequent watches, I also see moments when the hood kid got over played. I did admire how he didn't code switch to fit in with his friends, so that's refreshing. I have become a master at code switching, and it is second nature to me. Though there are times when I get second hand embarrassment watching him because he comes off as a cartoon character---over done.

Out of the two of them, Mr. Trick is the absolute worse. I think Principal Wood was a good representation of a black character on the show, but I'm not there yet in my rewatch, and I wanted to get this out before I forgot.

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Angel the Series | 5x07 "Lineage"

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I will stan Kendra forever.

Made a list of some various ways in which Kendra could have continued to appear in the show after Faith. Sorted roughly both in order of increasing impact on the plot and increasing suspension of disbelief required on the part of the audience:

Kendra stays dead, but somebody (ideally somebody who actually met her, but failing that just about anybody) brings her name up, in any context, after her last canonical mention on the show (by Cordelia in Faith, Hope & Trick). This is ... the baseline, surely. (Do you know nobody but Cordelia mentions her by name at all after Season 2? Or that there are multiple conversations in early Season 3 in which it's discussed that Buffy was wanted for murder but has since been cleared, but not one in which it is acknowledged that the person she was wrongly accused of murdering was her friend and fellow Slayer?)

Kendra stays dead, but the First takes on her appearance at any point (either in Amends or in Season 7). There's a lot of talk about how the writers were hoping to bring back Xander's friend Jesse for Conversations With Dead People, but I've never seen anything about them doing the same for Kendra, despite the fact that Kendra appeared more times on the show (and more recently) and clearly mattered far more to Buffy. And given that the writers insisted on recasting Nikki Wood this season (despite her original actor wanting to come back!), I'm not exactly inclinced to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Kendra stays dead, but for some reason only known to the writers, Amy Madison casts a spell to make one of the Potentials look just like her for an episode. It is never made clear why Amy would do this beyond a vague desire to mess with Buffy, how she knew about Kendra in the first place, or what consequences -- if any - Amy ever faces after casting this spell. Somehow it's still only very slightly less stupid than the actual canon plot of Season 7's The Killer In Me (which, to be clear, this would not replace in my vision; randomy-evil!Amy does two very similar spells back to back, ideally in consecutive episodes).

Kendra stays dead, but -- in classic Star Trek Mirrorverse fashion -- the writers use some sort of magical contrivance to allow the Kendra from the Wishverse (who was, presumably, Called as a Slayer the moment that the Master killed that reality's Buffy Summers) to visit 'our' reality. (This isn't really within the rules as presented in The Wish, but if Vampire Willow can do it....). Imagine a version of Season 6's As You Were when Buffy doesn't have to try to justify herself to her shitty ex -- the man who left her to fight a god and die so that he could go and make Belize safe for missionaries -- but instead she has to come face to face with the perfect, by-the-book Slayer who died as a direct result of Buffy's last relationship with a vampire.

Kendra stays dead ... until Bargaining. Willow messes up her resurrection spell a little bit and accidentally brings back more than one dead Slayer. Kendra hangs around for the rest of the show and is understandably very confused throughout (in particular, she could have sworn that Buffy didn't have a little sister four years ago...). Maybe the Watchers show up again, after Kendra tries contacting Sam Zabuto for advice. Maybe Kendra reacts just as badly to being brought back from the dead as Buffy initially does (and, look, if she wants to follow Buffy's example and start a relationship with one of the monsters she's meant to be Slaying, Anya will be newly single in just a few months' time...)

Kendra stays mostly dead, but a certain academic at UC Sunnydale with ties to the US military has been hearing rumours and myths about "Slayers" from captured demons and vampires for a while now. Long enough to become curious, and to pull a few strings at the local morgue when the rumour mill tells her a vampire somehow managed to kill a Slayer. Said academic has been funneling government money to work on her own "perfect soldier" project for a long time, and what better test subject to demonstrate this work on than a Slayer of her own? It turns out that most of Kendra's memories are still intact, after a little bit of not-exactly-ethical post-mortem surgery gets her heart working again, and as luck would have it she's even been trained for years to follow orders and never question authority. She's perfect. Realizing that the name "Adam" was a bit on the nose anyway, Professor Walsh starts a new project in Room 314...

Kendra was left for dead by Drusilla, bleeding out and unconcious on the floor of Sunnydale High School library, but it turns out that modern medicine is a bit better than it was in Drusilla's day and Slayers have this whole enhanced healing deal that the canon show sometimes forgets about. Yeah, her heart stops a couple of times in the ER, which is enough for a third Slayer to be called as in canon (and Buffy might not know that Kendra is going to make it when she goes to fight Angelus or when she leaves town), but by the time Willow is up and walking around again, so is Kendra.

Kendra is alive at the beginning of Season 3, filling in for Buffy in Sunnydale while the other Slayer is living as 'Anne' in LA. After Buffy comes back, Kendra leaves town for another Hellmouth but still regularly makes cameo appearances every season. Faith is also there, just like in canon, and the fact that Faith should only have been activated as a Slayer if Kendra died is simply never addressed. (I mean, let's be honest, it's not like the show particularly cares about continuity anyway.)

[allchoseny]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) “The Yoko Factor”

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Can—can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?

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Angel the Series | 5x06 "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco"

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Spike/Buffy  

aesthetic+quote

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I stan Kendra. When I used to Roleplay, she was the first character I ever roleplayed as.

BIANCA LAWSON as KENDRA YOUNG Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 2.09 | 2.10 | 2.21

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Gah, I love these two geeks.

spuffy + pop culture references.

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ANGEL | 3.11

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Great Observation. This is why we stan Spike.

Never not thinking about how Buffy has to beg and plead for Angel to not let the sun kill him when the first was tormenting him with what he’s done and that fact that soul or no soul he still wants to hurt Buffy and he concludes the only way he won’t is to kill himself….. and the only reason he didn’t dust was the storm and he was fully gonna let her watch him die again because he couldn’t face what a worthless piece of shit and a monster even with the soul he really is (and then suddenly they’re back together even though Buffy said they couldn’t be together anymore like RIGHT before all this so essentially Angel threatens to kill himself and then suddenly he and Buffy are back together 🙃 i hate it here)

Riley was gonna let himself die rather than become even weaker than Buffy while she again begs for him to stop being a whiny attention seeking toddler and grow the fuck up and do what he needs to do so he won’t DIE (my words not hers obviously lol) and when that doesn’t work and she still doesn’t “pay enough attention to him or need him enough” in his eyes while she’s ya know being the slayer, raising her sister and taking care of her sick mother…. He cheats on her in a way that again threatens his own life and the lives of everyone he could easily kill in her life if he were to be turned and when THAT doesn’t work he threatens to leave forever unless she forgives him IMMEDIATELY

And Spike who is the only one to actually die after she again is pleading you don’t have to do this “no there’s still time you’ve done enough” because Spike knows Buffy doesn’t deserve “good enough” Buffy deserves everything, she deserves to be free of the hellmouth even though that means they can’t be together and he’ll die

Two man-children who threaten to kill themselves because they can’t handle what they’ve done or that they’re not as strong as they think they are and drag an overburdened and traumatized young woman they had no business even dating in the first place along for their self-destructive ride vs a man who literally already sacrificed everything he was to become someone she could love without guilt, sacrificing everything he fought to become, for her and her beloved world she loves so much and fights so hard to protect.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MEN WHO THREATEN DEATH VS THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY DIED AND THE VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THESE THREE EVENTS 😭😭😭

Spike dying BECAUSE he was worthy of Buffy’s love rather than because he wasn’t like the two who came before him

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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

5.05 | No Place Like Home

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These are beautiful!

5K CELEBRATION ♡ for @salvatoreselena ↳ buffy summers + THE HERO'S JOURNEY (in/sp)

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This is a banner I made for today's update of my fic "Early One Morning."

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I was discussing the Season two episode"Ted," recently, and even while I watched the show as a teenager during the original airing, there was always something about this episode that made me uncomfortable.

For those who recently started following me, I'm a social worker within the child welfare system. So, I have a habit of viewing things through my "social worker lense." Everytime I watch this episode, I find myself disappointed at the writers for the missed opportunities in addressing some of the more serious themes presented to the audience.

Sure, "mom's dating again," here are some feelings you might associate with that new element (isolation, feeling left out, boyfriend is an idiot), and that is all good, BUT the episode took a complete turn toward wrong when Joyce refused to believe Buffy.

Hear me out. I've seen too many situations of little girls coming into foster care after being removed from their homes because mom's boyfriend abused them in some way. In most of these scenario, the child has informed their mom about the abuse and it went ignored. The mom would claim the child is lying because of her delinquent behaviors and continue on with the relationship.

Sound familiar? It might, because that's what Joyce did in the episode. The writers may have tried to nullify Joyce's actions by having Ted drug her, but you see that's also a grave mistake. Sometimes drugs are present in these real life scenarios as well. It's still no excuse.

This is what happens when parents introduce people (who maybe they havent fully vetted) into their children's lives, opening them up to all kinds of dangers. If your child tells you your SO makes them feel uncomfortable. BELIEVE THEM.

The writers missed the mark on this one.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, it is television after all, but I feel like how the show addressed the subject matter was irresponsible. When the conflict was "resolved," there should have been some assurance from Joyce that as her mother, she's her protector (regardless if Buffy is the Slayer). We didn't get that.

We got bad boyfriend robot story.

Verdict: Parents who neglect their children and people who abuse children are the real monsters.

P.S. I love Buffy. Sometimes I get thinky thoughts about the episodes that haven't aged well with me since my frontal lobe has fully developed.

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Preach.

I think one of the worst moments in buffy history is them framing xander's speech about riley in into the woods as like... correct in any way. it makes you really dislike Xander (even more). Buffy's boyfriend literally cheats on her with vampire prostitutes lol and then tells her that if she doesn't forgive him on the spot he's leaving forever. and then we're supposed to buy that Xander is correct in saying that it's all Buffy's fault and that she should run after Riley to beg him to stay?

It's sooo infuriating how Riley is framed as 'the one who got away' when really he's 'the one who was so cripplingly insecure that he couldn't handle his girlfriend being stronger than him and having her own problems because he's made his entire identity about his girlfriend instead of getting the fuck over himself'

the real reason why xander doesn't want buffy to dump riley's ass as she should is so clearly because he projects onto riley. subconsciously he thinks that if someone 'normal' like riley can be with buffy then he also has a shot. newsflash it wasn't riley being 'normal' it was riley being an insecure condescending freak just like u

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✩ favorite outfits meme ✩ ↳ spike (buffy the vampire slayer)