btvsobsessed

[btvsobsessed]

Check out this new photo http://dlvr.it/TLDGTM

[btvsobsessed]

As for how she's dressed, at the very least Xander has never seen Buffy dolled up for a date at this point so blame that for the outfit. That is 100% his subconscious but he isn't exactly guilty in that. He has nothing to work with yet

I think Xander thinks it's awesome that Buffy can save the world and himself as a side effect. He's less enthused about her saving him specifically.

If Buffy is a superhero like Batman or Superman, Xander would prefer to be her Catwoman than her Lois Lane. And if love interest is off the table he'd prefer to be her Robin than her Jimmy Olsen.

People often over think Buffy messages but sometimes they underthink. For example this message at the end doesn't have to be about Blayne also being a loser but it could easily be about the danger of masculine posturing

OK, one last post about Teacher's Pet and then I promise I'll shut up about it.

I want to talk a little bit more about that opening scene again. It's certainly not the most egregious part of the episode, but I do find it pretty annoying and it certainly didn't incline me to be particularly sympathetic to the rest of Teacher's Pet during my rewatch.

Yes, the episode intends Xander's extended fantasy sequence to be ludicrously over the top, as @thesearemycurrentobsessions points out. We're certainly not meant to think Xander actually is cool or suave or heroic; the sequence literally ends by cutting away to reveal that he's fallen asleep in class and the girl he has a crush on has noticed that he's drooling. As @badwolfwho1 notes, this scene is in some ways an early take on Jonathan's power fantasy from Season 4's Superstar. The writers of the episode are inviting us to laugh at Xander.

So, what's the problem? Basically I think there are four somewhat interlinked issues here.

First, the fantasy sequence itself is just too long. It's obvious very quickly, at least to somebody familiar with the characters, that this isn't really happening, but the scene just keeps going on and on for over a minute more. Maybe that's because the episode was running short in early drafts and needed some padding (as I've seen speculated). Maybe it's because the writers knew this was only the fourth ever episode of the show and most potential viewers wouldn't be familiar with the characters, and didn't trust the audience to figure it out unless it was this over the top. Maybe they just thought it was much funnier than it is.

But that leads us to the second point, which is that it's ... honestly not very funny? The scene is over a minute long, and there's ... one joke? Two, if you count the real Buffy breaking through the dream and telling Xander that he's drooling. I think the problem is that we don't know these characters well enough yet. Part of the reason Superstar works as an episode is that the audience can be trusted to know that the idea of Buffy struggling with fighting vampires and so having to go meekly to (universally beloved and admired) Jonathan Levinson to beg for his help is absurd. But, again, this was only the fourth ever episode of the show. It was only two weeks ago that Buffy did need Xander to help her push a heavy door shut to keep out some vampires, and then to pull her to safety as she tried to escape them. Buffy itself was famously pitched as a subversion of the trope of the blonde cheerleader character being lured into an alley and killed by a monster, and the show isn't developed enough yet that the writers should be trying to subvert that subversion. The result is that the show has to have dream!Buffy and dream!Xander act very, very out of character to make the fantasy obvious to the original audience, which in turn leads to the next problem.

The third point is that, I think largely unintentionally, this fantasy sequence makes it feel like Xander isn't attracted to Buffy on anything but a physical level. As @probably-hyperfixated points out, dream!Buffy doesn't act or even dress like the real Buffy. So who exactly does Xander have a crush on, anyway? When Xander first saw Buffy back in Welcome to the Hellmouth his reaction was to immediately fall off his skateboard (so badly he'd never be seen with one again) because she was "pretty much a hottie" although he quickly admitted to his friends that didn't know anything about her. And this scene -- along with some of Xander's behaviour so far these four episodes -- just makes it feel like Xander still doesn't really know (or care about) Buffy as a human being at all. The girl he has a crush on in this dream sequence could be replaced with any of the cheerleaders he repeatedly drools over and the scene would play out just the same.

This is something I actually think the show will handle somewhat better in later seasons. For instance, Faith, Hope & Trick implies that Xander is attracted to Faith at least in part because she is a Slayer (his reaction to Cordelia threatening to dress up like one and "put a stake to your throat" is a fervent "please don't let that be sarcasm"); and by The Freshmen he'll tell Buffy that "when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?'  You're my hero."

And I think playing his Season 1 crush on Buffy as, in part, a kind of hero worship -- in which he is attracted to her in part because she is much stronger than him, or anyone else he knows, and she does regularly fight and defeat monsters -- would both make a lot of sense and make his feelings much more sympathetic. Have his fantasy be that he's strong enough to fight alongside Buffy, or have him watch admiringly while she slays three or four vampires before he casually stakes one she missed and jumps into his guitar solo. But the show is instead positioning Buffy's calling as a Slayer as something which makes Xander uncomfortable and insecure and something that his fantasy of her deliberately plays down. He doesn't just want to impress her or save her life, he wants her to be somebody who needs saving. And that just isn't who Buffy is! Maybe the audience can't be trusted to know that, but Xander himself should.

(As a quick aside: there's a bit of fanon I've seen on here before that suggests that Xander is terrified of becoming his own father, who is heavily implied to be abusive, and that is at least subconsciously part of why he is attracted to Buffy and not Willow. He is specifically drawn to somebody who is physically much stronger than him because (subconsciously) he thinks they are safe around him in a way that Willow would not be. I think that's a really interesting take on his character and it does tie nicely into things like the fake vision of his future he'll be shown in Hell's Bells ("is she okay? what did I do?") but it's obviously not compatible at all with how Xander has been written in these first four episodes.)

And that leads me to my fourth and final problem with this scene, which is that, as @btvsfemslashenjoyer put it: "the show thinks Xander’s dumb macho posturing is more relatable than it is". And this is something that goes back to The Harvest, and Xander's response to Buffy matter-of-factly reminding him that she has supowerpowers and he doesn't: "I knew you'd throw that back in my face ... I'm inadequate [...] I'm less than a man". The fact that there is literally a single woman in the world who can do something dangerous that Xander can't do himself is treated as inherently an insult, as a challenge to Xander's entire concept of masculinity, something she could only possibly bring up to deliberately offend him. And that's not a cute look? Xander having a crush on Buffy is fine -- Buffy is pretty and brave and strong and smart and funny -- but Xander having interchangeable fantasies about every teenage girl he knows (except Willow) in which they are reduced to just being A Hot Girl is not.

We're being invited to laugh at Xander in this scene, sure. But it rather feels like we're being asked to laugh at him for the wrong reasons, or with a lot more tolerance of his worldview than I think is entitled. I mean, it feels like the joke is "Xander fantasises about being a Real Man who Buffy would swoon over, but [ho ho!] he's actually a loser virgin who we should all being laughing at". But the actually risible thing here isn't Xander's failure to live up to this macho image; it's the fact he's so uncritically wedded to that ridiculous ideal at all. (See also, the punchline of the episode itself being that Blayne is also a virgin and thus, implicitly, as much of a sad loser as Xander. Rather than, you know, both of them being children who are the victims of a horrific sexual assault by an adult teacher, which is what the episode actually show us is what happened.)

And that's why I think this opening scene -- and so much of the Xander-having-a-crush-on-Buffy arc this season -- just doesn't work for me. It goes on for too long, it isn't very funny, it implies (I believe unintentionally) that Xander doesn't really see Buffy as a person in her own right, and it feels like the writers have far, far more sympathy for Xander's view of the world than any reasonable adult possibly could.

[btvsobsessed]

I've had an idea for a season 6 fic where Willow rebuilds the Buffybot to help Buffy, by having it work for her and everyone is gathered around talking about it as they're getting ready to reactivate her and Anya mentions that the Bot actually could only be built around a crack in reality like a Hellmouth

And this leads them to wonder if that means she would shut down away from the Hellmouth. But Anya assures them that she wouldn't. Because this thing that has been acting like a human, at least mostly, suddenly sputtering and dying potentially in front of other people is actually WORSE for reality than the alternative

And from that, everyone especially Xander is upset to realize that their reality is basically decided by the weakest, most flexible, most breakable point.

It wouldn't be too serious a moment and they'd quickly move on

Thoughts on Rewatching "Teacher's Pet" (2/3)

So I rather like the she-mantis as a monster, and I’m going to try to figure out why. A lot if it is just that I like bugs, and mantises in particular, so there’s that. Partly it’s that the various little build-up moments (vampire being scared of her, eating a bug sandwich, head rotating 180 degrees, the screams from downstairs during Xander’s seduction) work for me to give the sense of something weird and creepy even by Sunnydale standards. Admittedly the final reveal is… well, the special effects maybe benefit from the scene being shot in darkness.

But I think I also appreciate this monster because it’s…just a creature. It’s never referred to as a demon on screen, and although you sometimes see it referred to that way in some commentaries, it doesn’t feel like “a demon”. It feels like this is something anomalous and supernatural but still biological and belonging to this dimension. The crucial source is an entomologist, not an occultist! It feels halfway between a cryptid (an animal that’s just not known to science yet) and a demon (a being from beyond with a completely non-biological, or even non-corporeal, nature).

This is for a few reasons. One is that its imperatives are so biological-feeling: it needs sperm to fertilise its eggs. Of course it’s a bit weird that it needs virgin sperm: biologically, having sex doesn’t reach up into the balls to change all the sperm produced going forward. But that just solidifies that it’s not just a animal, but something supernatural.

(And if I were going back to the drawing board entirely, I would probably say not to reify virginity as a metaphysically real property… I did wonder when Giles mentions sirens and sea maidens eating sailors if male sailors who have only had sex with each other count as “virgins” for these creatures…)

(Post-chosen storyline idea: Willow becomes incandescent with rage when some virgin-specific magic works on her current lover because the spell employs a heteronormative definition of “virgin”…)

Another factor is the prominence of earthly biology in fighting the she-mantis: there’s no suggestion that you could make progress by using the right sigils and incantations, but studying insect life-cycles and ecology does help.

And just to go off on a tangent, the show makes the rather weird claim that bat sonar paralyses insects, which I’ve never heard anywhere else, and which doesn't make a lot of sense… why would you evolve a nervous system that goes haywire when your predator perceives you? But from what I can tell the kernel of truth is that some mantises, and other insects, can detect bat sonar and tend to respond by suddenly altering their flight paths, sometimes by freezing and dropping out of the sky. So I think the best interpretation here is that this is an involuntary response that is adaptive for regular mantises, but has become a weakness for this giant version because of course it doesn’t have to fear bats but would have to fear plummeting to the ground. Using the sonar against it is like finding a way to induce an involuntary startle or freeze response in a human at an advantageous moment.

Which I think reinforces the sense that this is a supernatural-but-still earthly creature. A demon that just happened to look mantis-like wouldn’t have this quirk; nor would a naturally evolved animal, if the quirk was maladaptive. But a being formed suddenly from some sort of bizarre spell or supernatural fusion of human and mantis might!

(And also the she-mantis doesn’t feel like a demon partly just because the show hasn’t expanded the concept “demon” into being a catch-all category for every weird monster. The gribbly beings that appear in, e.g., S5E09 “Listening to fear”, S5E17 “Forever”, S6E15 “As you were”, are all described as demons but I feel like if they appeared in seasons 1 or 2 they might not be.)

Anyway that’s a long tangent about the creaturiness of this creature. And the point is just that I appreciate that because we don’t actually get many other creatures, compared to the amount of undead, demons, and black magic we get. This is basically the only one this season, and then season 2 has the bezoars, the swim team, and I guess Oz as a werewolf. Maybe Norman Pfister the man who was bugs. I’m not sure if seasons 3 and 4 have any? And I think having some creatures in the mix helps a lot with making the world feel large and interesting and mysterious. They’re an important food group in the monster diet!

I mean yes, there is an opposite risk: too many radically different monsters can break immersion, by making the world feel disjointed. I often feel that way about the robots! It’s completely unclear why a world of demons and magic that are “vestiges of the old ones” would also be a world where multiple Californians can just build Turing-test-passing robots in their basement. And I don’t really have a recipe for when a given category of monster is going to be too disparate vs. a necessary food group. Mileages may just vary. But all of this has been my very long ramble about why the she-mantis sticks in my head so much.

[btvsobsessed]

well, she didn't seem to be hanging with anyone in Doppelgangland. And I'm not sure Cordelia wouldn't talk her out of asking Xander out.

Anya was originally conceived of only as a non-recurring antagonist (for Season 3's The Wish). It wasn't planned from the beginning that she'd stick around longer than that, but it just so happened that she got to make a couple of follow-up appearances later that season. She then had her role massively expanded and her character fairly noticeably rewritten for Season 4, at least partly to repurpose her as a replacement on the show for Cordelia Chase, who was leaving for the Angel spin-off.

Cordelia herself is only mentioned again by name on Buffy four times. In Living Conditions (just two episodes after Cordelia last appeared on the show) Willow describes an oddly-acting and possibly 'evil' Buffy's behaviour as "bordering on Cordelia-esque". In Pangs (eight episodes after her last appearance on Buffy) Willow asks a returning Angel in tones of disbelief whether Cordelia is really working for him. In Season 5's Family (twenty-eight episodes after her last appearance) Buffy describes that season's arc villain Glory as being "kinda like Cordelia". And in the same season's Triangle (thirty-three episodes after Cordelia last appeared on Buffy), Anya herself tells Willow that she knows that Cordelia discovering Xander and Willow kissing is the reason Cordelia and Xander broke up.

(This is -- with some notable exceptions -- how the show tended to deal with characters who'd been written out and weren't expected to make any future cameos. Oz only gets mentioned twice after Seth Green appears in Restless, for example, while Jenny is never mentioned again after the First takes on her appearance in Amends. Despite becoming a regular on Angel, Wesley is only mentioned once on Buffy after Season 3, by Faith-as-Buffy in Season 4's Who Are You?. And Faith herself is only mentioned once -- in Season 5's Checkpoint -- over both of the two seasons after her debut that she doesn't appear in. And in Buffy's last two seasons the shows aired on different networks, which presumably meant references between the shows were even more discouraged than before.)

So, all told, it's not a mystery why, even though:

Anya appears in Season 3 and is at least vaguely implied to be hanging around with Cordelia all that year. (Yes, we only actually see them together in The Wish, but practically the first thing Anya says to Willow in Doppelgangland by way of introducing herself is that she knows Cordelia, and that episode aired -- and is presumably set? -- almost three months after Anya first arrived as a new student. Perhaps it was even Cordelia itself who told Anya that Willow was a witch: I'm not sure who else might have done.)

and

After her first appearance, Anya acquires several personality traits that might well remind the casual viewer of Cordelia. (Compare her "strangely literal" nature and difficulty understanding social cues with Cordelia's very literally speaking of her mind in Earshot or quotes like "tact is just not saying true stuff" and "I can take a hint ... what's the hint?"; or compare Anya's often-mentioned love of money with Cordelia's "I like the smell of a little money once in a while"; or compare Anya's suggestion in Season 6 that Buffy should "cash in" on being a Slayer because she's providing "a valuable service to the community" with Cordelia joining Angel Investigations and immediately suggesting that "if we're going to help people, maybe a small charge?"; or compare the fact that they are both inexplicably attracted to Xander Harris.)

... somehow the show never suggests that these are traits Anya might have -- consciously or not -- picked up from her time hanging around with Cordelia Chase, the woman she came to Sunnydale and first became human for.

Instead it either just pretends against all evidence that these have always been aspects of Anya's personality or that these are new traits that she spontaneously acquires in an attempt to become more convincingly human. The idea that Anya spent her first few months as a human socializing with Cordelia Chase and the idea that, as a human, she oten acts quite a bit like Cordelia Chase are just never connected. They can't be: the structure of the show doesn't permit it.

It is kind of weird though, isn't it?

[btvsobsessed]

she's important because having people close to her gives Buffy a richer interior life. Not having a parent as a high school sophmore would have been a rejection of sensible world building that leads to that kind of stuff

My planned Witch inspired Joyce Summers post continues, irritatingly, not to write itself. But here's something I cut from it which I figure makes sense as its own post. Again, not tagging it as part of the group rewatch because it's basically a huge tangent.

Joyce doesn't appear in the original unaired pilot episode of Buffy and, from what I've read, in early plans for the show neither of Buffy's parents were going to be significant characters at all. That's reflected to some extent in Season 1 itself, where Joyce doesn't appear (and her absence goes entirely unremarked) in as many as five of the season's twelve episodes.

The show's initial three episodes give a slightly misleading impression here: these are actually the only three consecutive episodes Joyce will appear in until halfway through Season 2 (when she appears in Ted, Bad Eggs and Surprise). For the remainder of this season, Joyce will appear in fewer episodes than she does not appear in, and in the ones she doesn't appear in nobody will say anything that acknowledges her existence. She will only talk to anybody other than Buffy in one episode all season (something I'll try to talk about more when we get to that episode).

In context, I think it's interesting if you look at the proportion of episodes Joyce appears in / is directly mentioned in each season. [I'm mostly relying on the wiki for these numbers, but I'll make a note whenever I think that site gets something wrong.]

Season 1. Joyce goes unmentioned in five of twelve episodes, about 41.7% of the total

Season 2. Joyce goes unmentioned in six of twenty-two episodes, about 27.3% of the total.

Season 3. Joyce goes unmentioned in five of twenty-two episodes, about 22.7% of the total.

Season 4. Joyce goes unmentioned in fourteen of twenty-two episodes, about 63.6% of the total.

Season 5 Joyce does not go unmentioned in a single episode [for some reason the wiki claims she isn't mentioned in Family but she definitely is: Buffy mentions her being sick twice, both while talking about her dad not being in the country and as a reason for moving out of her dorm rooms]. That's ... well, not to show off my math skills but that's 0%.

Season 6: Joyce goes unmentioned in nine of twenty-two episodes, about 40.9% of the total.

Season 7: Joyce goes unmentioned in sixteen of twenty-two episodes [I'm not counting her appearance via archive footage during Him, because ... well, I just don't think it counts?]. That's 72.7% of the total.

Why do I claim this is interesting? Well, if you sort the seasons by what proportions of episode Joyce does get mentioned in (most to least), you end up with an ordering of:

Season 5 > Season 3 > Season 2 > Season 6 > Season 1 > Season 4 > Season 7

And I think that's also pretty close to how I'd rank the seasons overall. Which means ... well, it means absolutely nothing at all. I just thought it was a funny coincidence.

I guess you could argue that it's why I tend to think of Joyce as being more important to Buffy's overall story than a lot of people do: I care about and pay more attention to the seasons where Joyce (or her absence) does play a more central role, and I tend not to enjoy -- and therefore not spend as much time thinking about -- the seasons in which Joyce just isn't that important.

You could argue that, but I wouldn't: I actually think Joyce is important because I'm right and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong, end of discussion.

[btvsobsessed]

y'all I used to be normal about xander harris. I used to go yeah y'know I like him he's just a totally normal guy. I think he's really sweet actually, but hey I completely understand why some people may not like him

but the way the fandom treats him has pushed me SO far into defense it's like rewired my brain or something. actually he's done nothing wrong ever. I don't even care anymore. I take back every critique I've ever made of him. you don't Get Him like I do. he's written as terribly inconceivably ooc sometimes and you're all treating it like it's NORMAL!!!! when other characters are NOT subject to the same bullshit even when they're sometimes written even worse. we can wave away SO much shit for others, but xander? no, no, no. and when he IS in character, does ANYONE care to perhaps I dunno EXAMINE WHY HE'S ACTING LIKE THAT? oh? no? we're just gonna take it at face value, when we would not do that for any other character??? when he's written off and sometimes even intentionally off, then that's perfectly in line and just Who He Is Actually

I need to talk about the pack specifically because I have GRIEVANCES with the fandom here. what in the actual hell is going on. why are we acting like the possession was who he really is deep down??? it's clear that the hyena spirit is simply taking him at his base sort of thoughts I suppose (e.g., him having a hard crush on buffy, being jealous of angel, secretly knowing about willow but not requiting) and amplifying them to be HORRIBLE. at the end, he's visibly guilty over what he's done despite it being out of his control. he doesn't say anything because how COULD he? what would he even say? these are the most important people in his life, and he was forced to hurt them. and they obviously forgive him and don't blame him for what happened, because he's not exactly subtle about remembering, and I sincerely doubt they'd just let what he did slide if they thought he truly was responsible. these guys are all with the silent communication, and it's not always good, but it's how they roll. also, GUYS. THINK OF SPIKE'S MOTHER!!!! THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMILAR SITUATION!!!!! he has never in the entire time we've known him actively go out of his way to hurt people the way he does in this episode. because that's not who he is or who he ever wants to be

I also want to talk about how brave he is. I keep seeing people calling him a coward and it genuinely baffles me. are we watching the same show? what are you ON about?? even the show points it out: he's completely and utterly human, and standing up to fight evil on the front lines with everyone else anyways. there two absolute standout moments I especially adore and want to point out. and there ARE more moments, but these are my favourite. the first is when xander decides that if no one else will, he'll go help buffy fight the master, and alone if he has to. and he saves buffy, because he TRIED. I honestly don't think anyone else would've tried to save her once they saw she'd died like they were all told she would, but he did. because that's who he is. and the second is one my friend pointed out to me that is just so good, where xander stands up to angelus in the hospital. angelus could snap him in half within a blink of an eye, and xander tells him to leave. he's terrified, because he KNOWS if angelus wanted to then he'd be dead without being able to fight back, but he guards buffy like a little dog facing up against a lion. he wouldn't win, but maybe he could buy her just a little more time, maybe someone would notice and help her, maybe angelus will decide it's too much effort and leave like he desperately hopes, maybe maybe maybe. he's gambling with his life here, just like before by walking into the master's nest, and he'd do it again without a second thought to protect his loved ones. he DOES do it, again and again and again over the course of the show

this isn't to say xander doesn't have his flaws. he's not the best boyfriend for sure, and while those are mostly out of his own insecurities and trauma, it's still not a great. I don't give any of the other characters that excuse to let bad relationship behaviour slide and I won't give him it either, but it is at the least an explanation. that is just a real flaw that he struggles with throughout the whole show outside of anything else. he can also be very snippy and mean when he's feeling defensive, and he's got a bit of a possessive, jealous streak that isn't fantastic, but he's the heart for a reason. in fact I honestly think those traits work really well as cons for the heart

the xander we see in the show is someone who wants to be good and do good. he cares so, so immensely for everyone. EVERYONE who sticks around in this show, does xander latch onto to as one of his own people to look out for. he tries and tries and tries to do the right thing, to protect and take care of the ones he loves in any way he can, and he kind of sucks at it sometimes. he makes the wrong choices even when he means well, and sometimes when he doesn't. but god is he trying harder than almost anyone else on that show to just be A Good Friend. I'm going to go so far as to say I think he is actually a better person than almost every other character on this show (other than buffy and tara of course)

why isn't he enough when there are other characters who are SO much worse than him in this show?

[btvsobsessed]

I've heard a lot of things about season 1

The entire season was in the can by the time it aired

The Witch was the first episode actually filmed

The hadn't decided on Angels deal till they actually wrote the script for Angel

The final scene shot was actually a reshoot of Buffy's It's my first day scene in Welcome to the Hellmouth

So it seems like they didn't know Angel's deal when originally filming the first two eps but if they felt the need to change anything about the scenes he was in they likely would have

And Harmony may not have been named at the time of filming but they went back when they decided she was going to be a regular for the Cordettes and named her in the credits

Ok so thoughts on The Harvest! I’m always interested in worldbuilding so it’s hard not to focus on two key pieces of lore which are hammered home in this episode and then… sort of maintained for the rest of the show without ever really being explained that much more. I am referring, of course, the origins of demons and Vampire-Human Non-Identity Thesis.

So: the episode opens with Giles doing a little exposition speech about how demons used to rule the world and will try to take it back and… I have mixed feelings. What I really like is that it efficiently communicates two big things that the show is not going to do. First, it’s not a Christian show. Despite the fact that crosses and holy water seem to work against vampires, and (in S2E1) consecrated ground burns them, this is not a setting where angels, God, or Jesus are going to save you. And the show mostly sticks to this! There’s even a semi-explicit swipe at genesis: “contrary to popular mythology, [the world] did not begin as a paradise.” Second, it’s not going to try for some tenuous “scientific” explanation where vampirism is a virus or a fungus or something like that. It’s going in between: clearly supernatural, but basically agnostic. Science and religion are both wildly off-base.

What I don’t like is… how vague and uninformative it is? Giles says “this world is older than any of you know” like what do you MEANNN? How old do you think we think it is? Older than 6,000 years of biblical stuff or older than 4,000,000,000 years of geological records? “For untold eons demons walked the Earth […] in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man.” Which mortal animals? All of them? Am I supposed to interpret this as saying that demons ruled the world 550,000,000 years ago and then their disappearance caused the Cambrian explosion? First demons, then trilobites? Or is it that demons ruled the earth until a couple million years ago, when humans in particular somehow drove them away? So demons co-existed with dinosaurs? Or am I supposed to conclude that the whole evolutionary story about the evolution of life is false (which, I’m sorry Mr. Rupert, I refuse to do, you will need more than a really old book and an English accent to persuade me of that)?

In particular, I don’t think we ever get a clear account of how or why demons left this reality… which is actually pretty important, given that the prospect of them taking it back is so frequently raised as a great big threat? Whatever it is that drove them out, if it’s still present then why would they be able to recolonise the world just from a portal being opened?

But also: I know that really I should be grateful, because if they had really committed to a specific origin story… it would probably be bad? Maybe it is better that I can stick with my Cambrian explosion headcanons?

Ok and: this episode really commits to “the person you knew is already dead, there’s just a demon piloting their body around.” It’s a bit ironic that they use Jesse for this, since Jesse’s personality, read uncharitably, is basically vampire-in-waiting: all we know is that he desires this person (Cordelia) and doesn’t seem to care what she wants. So it’s hardly surprising that he expresses no sense of loss or remorse about becoming a more purely predatory being. I dunno. Probably in his own head there’s a rich and sensitive interiority but we never see it so… anyway it is too late to start arguing about Buffy soul lore so I won’t…

One other random thought: I loved “They’re close.” “How can you tell?” “No more rats.”

Sometimes I think when Amy got returned to human form she should have retained more rat-affinity (can turn into a rat at will? because her body remembers? natural rapport with other rats?) and become a major asset, given how there are rats all over town and they seemingly don’t like vampires. But of course wanting Amy to have something to show for spending years as a mostly-forgotten joke would presuppose the more basic level of caring about Amy as a character and we know the writers don’t…

[btvsobsessed]

honestly why not Joyce to Willow and Cassie to Dawn. Willow and Tara both liked Joyce. Her acting as a go between, if one is necessary for some reason, is believable

But if you want to drop the friendly at first thing, just have it appear to her as Buffy. After the previous year seeing it wear Buffy's face and hearing Buffy's voice condemning her would mess her up

🔥 Cassie Newton? Never hear much about her wondering your thoughts

I like Cassie a lot. (I hope that's not an unpopular take.)

I think I've written a bit on here before about how much I like Help. I'm not sure it's objectively quite the best Season 7 episode, but it's exactly the direction I think Season 7 should have committed more seriously to going in. We get all these fun nods and references back to previous episodes from the high school seasons -- Beauty and the Beasts and Reptile Boy and Prophecy Girl being the obvious ones -- only this time from a more adult perspective, with Buffy in the role that Giles or Joyce or Season 3's school counsellor Mr Platt or Season 1's supportive teacher Dr Gregory would have had. It would have been great to see more of the kids Buffy's trying to mentor down the line (I know we do see Amanda again), or to bring back Kit and Carlos from Lessons, but even in isolation Help stands up.

Cassie herself is very, very strongly coded as a proto-Buffy, from the way Buffy describes her as "special"to the circumstances of her parents divorce. The way she talks to Buffy on first meeting her echoes the way Buffy talked to Joyce about her own (lack of) future when she was trying to get out of facing the Master. The way she turns down her friend Mike's invitation to the Winter Formal mirrors the way Buffy turns down Xander when he asked her to go the Spring Fling. Her second speech to Buffy and Xander outside her dad's house ("You think I want this? You think I don't care?") calls to mind Becoming and Buffy being outed as a Slayer to her mom ("Do you think I chose to be like this?"). And of course there's the fact that when Buffy goes to Spike for help saving "a girl" who's in danger, Spike assumes she's talking about herself, and she has to correct him and explain that "It's not me, it's a different girl".

So, yeah, I like Cassie. I'm primed to like her, of course, but I think she's written well for a one-shot (sort of?) character and I think Azura Skye gives a good performance in the role. I'm not surprised that the writers had her come back when they needed somebody to play the role of The First Evil in Conversations With Dead People.

That being said, my hot take -- or at least a somewhat warmer than room temperature take, anyway -- is that Cassie is kind of misused in that second episode. I get that she is there because the writers couldn't get Amber Benson to come back and play Tara, but ... well. I actually went back to watch Help the other day, and it's noticeable that -- although she helps out a little with research -- Willow never even sees Cassie in person. She's the only one of the group who doesn't ("it's kind of weird because we never really met", as the episode has Cassie herself put it). So her appearing on behalf of Tara seems a little off in ways that I don't quite buy, even ignoring that she isn't really doing that.

There isn't any good in-universe reason given for the First not to be able to take Tara's form, or at least use the form of somebody dead Willow actually knew, so -- given that Amber Benson wasn't coming back -- I think probably they should have just dropped Willow's meeting the First on screen altogether. Have Halfrek appear to Anya instead, or have Jesse (or Larry!) come back to talk to Xander. Or, if you do decide you need the Willow scenes for the information it gives the audience about the First, pick ... well, Season 4's Veruca, maybe? Harmony? Somebody Willow had an actual connection with while they were alive. (I know none of those options are great either, if you want the First to try to pretend to be friendly at first, but you don't need to do that. ) Jenny Calendar would have worked, of course, but obviously that was even less likely to happen than Tara coming back.

No, Cassie should have appeared to Dawn instead. Cassie was Dawn's friend, after all, and Dawn was affected by her death more than anybody else we see. Cassie (as the First) could have been the one to tell Dawn that Buffy wouldn't "choose her", if that's the angle you really want to go with. (I know I am a big Joyce Summers defender, but I don't think Kristine Sutherland needed to be in this episode; and I think the fake-out that this might not be the First at all but instead be the 'real' Joyce somehow is needlessly confusing and doesn't add much to the show).

It's only barely tangentially related to your ask, but perhaps my real hot take here is that, while I do think Conversations... is a very good episode, I think it's good almost entirely because of the Buffy and Holden Webster scenes. Not only the Willow and Cassie parts but also the Dawn and Joyce scenes aren't really at the same level, in my view. Dawn and Cassie would have worked better.

[btvsobsessed]

why is she anti-vengeance? Because she calls him, herself and them fools when he declares they serve vengeance not justice.

Jenny: Buffy loves him.

Enyos: And now she will have to k*ll him.

Jenny: (stands up) Unless he kills her first! Uncle, this is insanity!

People are going to die.

Enyos: Yes. It is not justice we serve. It is vengeance.

Jenny: (exhales and grabs her coat and bag) You are a fool. We're all fools.

You don't say that to people you respect or their ideals. So she comes down as anti-vengeance basically the first time the subject is brought up to her in the show, whether she's been listening to people who are pro vengeance or not

Also of the people you list all of them went for their vengeance very quickly, and it was portrayed as wrongheaded because of how destructive it would have been or that they would have gotten the wrong person. So Jenny still clinging to vengeance weeks later when she called them fools for serving vengeance doesn't seem likely

Also when Jenny talks to Angelus. Well, she's pretty dumb for being surprised he's in the building, but the way she's talking to him is like a reasoning tone. Which is obviously not going to work and he's going to be super pissed off no matter why she's doing it

But also, on the whole non vengeance front it feels like she'd get the thing of Angelus is not the one suffering, Angel's soul who wasn't there was. I mean, at least no one on the good guys hears that Angel disliked being stuck beneath the soul as it was suffering, but really everything Angel is feeling is second hand for him

I think Joss actually always comes down on being against actions based on passionate feelings. Even the ep Passion where the voice over extolls the virtues of passion is done by the villain of the story

As to the curse breaking I've often wondered if they knew full details of wht would happen if he got a moment of happiness. I think the massacre that was added in makes good sense and that the whole magical stuff was not universally shared and Darla, Spike and Dru wiped out the people with the majority of the skill and knowledge.

So, all they might haver known was that happiness for him was a bad thing. As to Enyos dying because the curse is broken? The curse can't break if it isn't cast. And while Angelus would have killed plenty more people than he did, the Kalderash would not have been particular targets anymore than anyone else. Enyos and Jenny would not likely have been in Sunnydale at that time. The Kalderash curse ends up saving a lot of general people and screwing over them in particular

And a possibility for not telling him is he'd try to go out to find a moment of happiness to end it. One of the many flaws of this spell is they don't know the man he was so they don't know how effective it would be. He could have been a serial killer as a person

oh, and part of the reason why people think of Jenny the way they do is because stories with her end up painting her as key to solving the problem, so the audience is primed to see her as a problem solver. She's the one who figures out how to deal with Moloch. She tries to get Angel out of town to deal with the Buffy/Angel relationship. She figures out the resouling even if she doesn't get to enact it. Also in addition to criticizing her family's relationship with vengeance, in season 1 she doesn't just accept Giles stance on tech. When she sees something she dislikes generally she says something or tries to do something about it

I'm imagining an alternate take on Becoming where Jenny Calendar survived Passion -- let's say that Kendra came back to Sunnydale much earlier than in canon and managed to save her, perhaps -- and so she gets to be involved in the big group argument about whether or not restore Angel's soul (which now happens a lot sooner, of course).

I think the other Scoobies fall into much the same camp as in canon. Xander, Cordelia and Kendra are still against doing it while Buffy and Willow are drawn to the idea that Angel might somehow be saved (and if Oz has an opinion that isn't in complete agreement with Willow he doesn't offer it). The only character I think who might change sides here is Giles. In canon he's in favor of the plan, at least in part because "curing Angel seems to have been Jenny's last wish". But in a world where Jenny didn't die (but Angel still tried his best to kill her), I think he's probably a lot less forgiving.

Not wanting to risk giving Angel another opportunity to hurt the people Giles cares about -- and thinking that Buffy herself has a tendency to be too willing to give people second chances, especially when said people are attractive and occasionally soulless vampires -- just seems a lot closer to the way Giles is written in most of his appearances.

Giles has always, up to this point, been one of the biggest advocates for the idea that vampires are nothing like people ("a vampire isn't a person at all ... it's still a demon at the core"). He knows more than anyone (except possibly Jenny) the details of what Angelus has done, and (from his own youthful experiments) how magic can go wrong if improperly used. He murdered Ben behind Buffy's back, and tried to have Spike killed against Buffy's express wishes, because he thought both of them were dangerous and didn't think Buffy was right to show them mercy.

Of course you can make the argument that the Giles we see on the show post-Passion acts the way he does precisely because he's lost Jenny, and that he wouldn't possibly have done any of that if she'd been alive. But, well, the version on screen is the only version of Giles we actually get to see: anything else is just speculation. And it really feels to me that, without that sense of honoring Jenny's dying wish, Giles is probably a lot more willing to agree with Kendra when she makes the case that "Angel is a vampire ... he should die".

In this AU I imagine, Jenny herself is the one to bring the idea of restoring Angel's soul to the group, and she's mostly quiet during the ensuing arguments. Maybe she looks a bit nonplussed when Buffy talks about "curing" Angel, but I think she only speaks up when Xander tries to directly appeal to her instead of shouting at Buffy and Willow. Maybe he says something about being surprised she'd take Angel's side after he tried to kill her. Giles shoots an apologetic look at Buffy and starts to say something about it not being so simple as taking sides.

Then Jenny interrupts and says matter-of-factly "oh, of course it's about taking sides, Rupert. I'm on the side that wants Angel to pay for what he's done. My family sent me to Sunnydale to make sure he was still in pain, and maybe if I'd done a better job none of this would have happened. I felt sorry for Angel once, and I'm glad he saved my life last year, but I'll never forgive him for what he did to my uncle and I don't think he should ever stop feeling bad about it either. That's why I'm going to curse him again. I want him to suffer."

And then when there's a slightly uncomfortable pause she looks around the room and says "... you do all remember how he murdered my uncle last month, right? Why did you think I was doing this?"

[btvsobsessed]

Considering Jenny was firmly anit-vengeance before that it's hard to believe. I mean the Kalderash had their camp slaughtered for cursing Angelus and then Enyos only dies because they cursed Angelus.

Jenny doesn't seem the sort of person to repeat others mistakes

but even if she did, well outside of the anger this would produce I can imagine the response to this fomr Giles, once he's over the shock, would be something like "I would think all the events of the past few months would make clear that you don't have the power to make him suffer forever, and when he stops then others start

I'm imagining an alternate take on Becoming where Jenny Calendar survived Passion -- let's say that Kendra came back to Sunnydale much earlier than in canon and managed to save her, perhaps -- and so she gets to be involved in the big group argument about whether or not restore Angel's soul (which now happens a lot sooner, of course).

I think the other Scoobies fall into much the same camp as in canon. Xander, Cordelia and Kendra are still against doing it while Buffy and Willow are drawn to the idea that Angel might somehow be saved (and if Oz has an opinion that isn't in complete agreement with Willow he doesn't offer it). The only character I think who might change sides here is Giles. In canon he's in favor of the plan, at least in part because "curing Angel seems to have been Jenny's last wish". But in a world where Jenny didn't die (but Angel still tried his best to kill her), I think he's probably a lot less forgiving.

Not wanting to risk giving Angel another opportunity to hurt the people Giles cares about -- and thinking that Buffy herself has a tendency to be too willing to give people second chances, especially when said people are attractive and occasionally soulless vampires -- just seems a lot closer to the way Giles is written in most of his appearances.

Giles has always, up to this point, been one of the biggest advocates for the idea that vampires are nothing like people ("a vampire isn't a person at all ... it's still a demon at the core"). He knows more than anyone (except possibly Jenny) the details of what Angelus has done, and (from his own youthful experiments) how magic can go wrong if improperly used. He murdered Ben behind Buffy's back, and tried to have Spike killed against Buffy's express wishes, because he thought both of them were dangerous and didn't think Buffy was right to show them mercy.

Of course you can make the argument that the Giles we see on the show post-Passion acts the way he does precisely because he's lost Jenny, and that he wouldn't possibly have done any of that if she'd been alive. But, well, the version on screen is the only version of Giles we actually get to see: anything else is just speculation. And it really feels to me that, without that sense of honoring Jenny's dying wish, Giles is probably a lot more willing to agree with Kendra when she makes the case that "Angel is a vampire ... he should die".

In this AU I imagine, Jenny herself is the one to bring the idea of restoring Angel's soul to the group, and she's mostly quiet during the ensuing arguments. Maybe she looks a bit nonplussed when Buffy talks about "curing" Angel, but I think she only speaks up when Xander tries to directly appeal to her instead of shouting at Buffy and Willow. Maybe he says something about being surprised she'd take Angel's side after he tried to kill her. Giles shoots an apologetic look at Buffy and starts to say something about it not being so simple as taking sides.

Then Jenny interrupts and says matter-of-factly "oh, of course it's about taking sides, Rupert. I'm on the side that wants Angel to pay for what he's done. My family sent me to Sunnydale to make sure he was still in pain, and maybe if I'd done a better job none of this would have happened. I felt sorry for Angel once, and I'm glad he saved my life last year, but I'll never forgive him for what he did to my uncle and I don't think he should ever stop feeling bad about it either. That's why I'm going to curse him again. I want him to suffer."

And then when there's a slightly uncomfortable pause she looks around the room and says "... you do all remember how he murdered my uncle last month, right? Why did you think I was doing this?"

[btvsobsessed]

on the other hand there is that alternate reality where Batman is allowed to go back in time and he saves his parents, but seeing his family saved by a superhero inspires him to become Batman. So that is possible.

The Batkids should try that first. Set up one of them as trying to rob the Waynes, have another put on the batsuit and stop them

Time Travel Batfamily fic idea, but instead of your typical "the world is worse" or "something is still missing" tropes, a world where Bruce's parents don't die and he doesn't become Batman is an objectively happier, better world -- at least, for Bruce it is.

Bruce Wayne is a charming, intelligent young 20-something who went to Yale or Harvard or somewhere equally impressive. He works for his father at Wayne Enterprises and has taken over as the "face" of their charity work. His parents are alive and well. Alfred is the head of a happy, busy household.

Bruce Wayne himself isn't missing a mission. He is fulfilled by the work he does at WE and for the Wayne Foundation. He has a deep sense of justice and fairness, and he uses it day to day. He isn't "missing" anything, in that sense.

But Gotham is missing Batman. The philanthropy isn't enough, because it never was. But Bruce Wayne might not realize that, or maybe he doesn't realize his ability to alter that balance. He hasn't seen that violence and pain close-up. He hasn't been driven to the edge of grief, hasn't boiled in his own pain to the point of desperation. He has his family. He has Alfred. He has meaning.

Gotham still suffers. And the Batkids have to grapple with the realization that for their city to be saved, it needs Batman. And you don't get Batman without crippling this Bruce Wayne's life and happiness. Gotham improves when Bruce Wayne's life falls apart. And you have to be the one to do that to your father, to right the timelines. You have to reach out for this happy, lighter version of your father and tell him to sacrifice more. To lose even more, and still it's not enough.

This is the man they always wanted as a father. He isn't laden by grief or anger. He is so light, so beautiful, so beloved by this city. And yet, it isn't enough.

[btvsobsessed]

I've always had a lot of thoughts about season 6, none of them good.

I'm not sure how many of the things you list as Willow's flaws they actually wanted to id as flaws, since those were the thing that also drove her to help people.

But overall, it does do something for the overall plot. For one there' a string of eps where Willow needed to be depowered. Otherwise she would have to be absent, doing even less for the Scoobies than she was or suddenly incompetent

If Willow has magic and she's the one who gets Buffy visible again? Then when the Trio reveal themselves she's magic tking them into the nearest wall and leaving them to the police. A shame the show never touched on Willow realizing that

The demons Riley is tracking get hunted down quicker with a tracking spell

When Halfrek traps them all in the house, Willow might not be able to solve the problem but she might make dealing with the demon easier and everyone would expect there to be magical supplies in there

In Normal Again Buffy would have a harder time taking down magic using Willow.

But also, assuming Tara dies the same way, they needed a messed up Willow. Cause really, do you think Willow post Bargaining up to Smashed is going to feel the need to power herself up to take on Warren Meers? And if she's not absorbing magic then she has to either decide to end the world on her own, or suddenly change tactics

it's really funny how quick btvs went from 'magic is a metaphor for lesbian sex' to 'magic is a temptation that must be resisted because it goes against the natural order of things'

It's really jarring, isn't it? It's not even a change that happens between seasons: it happens over the course of a couple of episodes.

In Once More With Feeling the show is still very clearly following the Season 4 and Season 5 metaphor: Xander instantly shoots down his own suggestion of "evil witches" being behind the trouble affecting the town as something inherently ridiculous. And we get the "you make me complete" scene with Tara and Willow (which is surely in the running for the most explicit the show has ever been about what Willow and Tara "doing spells together" actually means).

And then the very next episode Tara is accusing Willow of "doing too much magic" and Willow is promising to go cold turkey for a month, and then the next Amy comes back (or, let's be honest: Elizabeth Anne Allen comes back playing a character who shares a name and very very little else with the character of Amy from the first three seasons of the show), and the episode after that we meet Rack (who is, I think, a strong contender for the worst recurring character on Buffy) and ... well, now suddenly the idea of an "evil witch" being something we're meant to see as obviously absurd seems a long time ago. But it really wasn't.

Of course, to be fair to Marti Noxon (whose idea I believe this subplot was and who was certainly showrunner that season) it's not as though witchcraft had never been anything but a metaphor for lesbian sex before. The first witch we ever met on the show was, in fact, exactly the stereotypical "evil witch" Once More With Feeling would later scoff at, and while you certainly can read Ethan and Giles past dabbling in magic as a gay sex metaphor (even before Jane Espenson joined the show and really started playing that up), it seems obviously intended to be as least as much a metaphor for drug abuse as anything else when it's introduced in Season 2.

But yeah, however much precedent for the magic=drugs reading there might be in earlier seasons, there's really no attempt at all to reconcile these two very conflicting metaphors in Season 6. Or any obvious sign of concern on the show's part that maybe -- after having spent years using Willow's burgeoning interest in magic as a way of talking about her attraction to women -- there might be some mixed signals in suggesting that Willow might be doing "too much" magic; that magic might be addictive or dangerous or harmful and maybe Willow would be better off quitting and going back to computers.

I really do think this whole arc was such a disappointing unforced error. Not just because of the confused competing metaphors, but because it undermines Willow's character arc so aggressively. And because of the fact the drug addiction idea is pivoted to in such a lazy and unmotivated way. Willow herself is such a fun and interestingly flawed character [even if I do feel, at times, that the modern Buffy fandom rather overstates her early season issues], but the actual flaws that she'd been shown to have up to this point -- and which should have been used as the catalyst for the whole Dark Willow arc -- had so little to do with her being an addict.

Throughout the first five seasons of the show we see that Willow thinks of herself as a problem solver ("I want to help", she tells Buffy in The Harvest, "I need to") and that she uses whatever tools she has to hand to fix problems (she was hacking into the city council computers before she even met Buffy). We see that she doesn't think the rules that everyone else should follow apply to her (because she's "always thought of herself as a good person") and she has trouble relating to people who have been through unpleasant experiences she hasn't (the way she talks to/about Faith, the way she talks to Buffy in Dead Man's Party, the way she sympathizes more with grave-robbing science nerd Chris in Some Assembly Required that his victims). We see that she hates any hint of conflict in her relationships while being incredibly possessive of "her" people, and we see that means that sometimes she sees her loved ones as problems that she should just be allowed to fix (see: her plan to avoid cheating on her boyfriend with Xander by casting a "delusting" spell on him without his knowledge or consent, or "I don't know how to make Oz trust me", as she tells Buffy in Amends after cheating on him).

What does being addicted to magic have to do with that? What does it have to do with anything? It just robs her of so much agency, and for what? To let Marti Noxon awkwardly work out her own personal issues about a friend going through drug addiction? Yes, obviously Willow could have become a (literal or metaphorical) drug addict, nothing about her character means she couldn't ... but as a story choice it's just so much less interesting that what we might have had instead. It just doesn't fit into the world the show had previously established: sure, this season is about making the characters grow up and experience a less magical and romantic version of the world; but Buffy's struggles with depression and Xander and Anya's relationship problems make sense as a way of viewing their previous experiences in a way that Willow's addiction subplot doesn't.

It doesn't even serve the long-term Willow plot this season very well -- it can't even be excused as a crude way of getting from point A to point B. It gives us a few (pretty absurdly silly) scenes of Tara standing up for WIllow's right not to use magic to help save her friends' lives (because, uh .., it's bad and selfish to expect your friends to save your life if doing so might temporarily inconvenience them in any way, I guess?) and Willow goes back to kill Rack later (yay!), but you can do the whole final five episodes of the season more or less without it. Willow doesn't become "Dark Willow" because of her magic addiction, and the fallout of Grave ends up giving us an entirely unrelated reason why Willow can't casually solve problems with magic next season. So what was the point of any of this?

Season 6 gets a lot of criticism that I don't accept at all (in particular, fans of the first five seasons of the show -- the ones who think The Gift should have been the last episode [and lie about it being intended to be; it never was] -- sometimes talk as if Buffy having to get a food service job for a few months is some sort of beyond-the-pale humiliation that is literally worse than death, which I can't help but think reveals something about them they might want to keep hidden).

But, whenever I think about the "WIllow becomes a magical drug addict" subplot, I think ... okay, the haters do have a point, actually. This stinks.

[btvsobsessed]

when I say that, I mean when they started conceiving foreshadowing for it in season 3 they were thinking of it as the end. That's enough for me

Though I sometimes feel like a few things they set up may have been conceived when it was supposed to be the end, and they didn't change it up

Actually the Original Plan was for Buffy to end in Season 5, but sinister External Forces [the production company that made it and Buffy's creator and showrunner] randomly stopped that from happening [by engaging in a protracted and very public bidding war over which network would host future seasons of the show while Season 5 was still being written, which WB lost and UPN won, as a result of which the production company earned significantly more money than they had for previous seasons].

[btvsobsessed]

other rich people have a problem with Bruce Wayne because he actually puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to charity. sure, he might be shiny and perfectly styled, sure it might just be a PR stunt for the cameras, but he is actually out there handing our food at the shelters, breaking ground at the new water treatment plant, meeting with Narrows residents and hearing them out. people might not believe that he means it, or think that he’s just doing it for the cameras, but he is doing it. that’s more than can be said for a lot of the Gotham elite, who write a check and expect the same level of reverence.

[btvsobsessed]

of course another problem is like imagine if a potential that was missed like Buffy were to be called at 17. You think they're going to have the kind of trust toward the Watcher Buffy had for Giles in a year. Hell, it's not even much of a test for the Watcher at that point.

I couldn't remember which episode it was so I decided to look through the scripts until I found it (luckily it was in Showtime the first one I checked) where Kennedy is talking with the other Potentials about which one of them could become the Slayer if Buffy dies where Kennedy says "Doesn't work that way. In fact, the younger, the better. In fact, I'm starting to think it might be too late for me." which I always took as Kennedy is already over 18 if she thinks she's too old to be the Slayer but that might just be because I already knew her and Willow were going to be a thing going into it so I just assumed yeah she must be that old. Honestly though aside from that I guess yeah I can't remember if they do ever even vaguely talk about how old she is.

Yeah, there are a few implications that Kennedy is older than the other Potentials. She certainly acts as their unofficial leader and seems to be much more experienced and self-confident than they are. There's the line you quote, the relationship with Willow (I'd certainly hope the writers didn't intend for Kennedy to be young enough to be a high school student) and apparently the shooting script for Bring On The Night describes Kennedy as nineteen explicitly [but there's nothing like that in the actual episode that aired and I can't find a copy of that shooting script online].

On the other hand, there's a line in Potential that suggests she's much younger (Buffy takes Kennedy, Vi and Rona to a demon bar and Rona describes the three of them as "a bunch of fifteen-year-olds") and (though I hate to keep coming back to it) I don't see how the Cruciamentum can be (as Quentin Travers called in back in Helpless) a "rite of passage" that happens "whenever a Slayer turns eighteen" if there have ever been Slayers called who were already eighteen or older. What, do they just skip the test? Why would eighteen be the cut-off for the test unless all Slayers were called earlier than that? In reply to my reblog, @wefeedthemwithglitter suggested eighteen could be "the minimum age" to receive the Cruciamentum, and I agree that's the simplest way to fix this bit of lore, but it's not what Helpless implies the rule is. And we know Kennedy suggests she "might be" too old to be called, but we know she isn't actually too old, since she gets activated in Chosen along with all the other Potenials.

I do think Kennedy is meant to be nineteen (or maybe a year younger or older) and you can just assume Rona doesn't know how old Kennedy is yet and ignore the Cruciamentum entirely (just like the show did the minute after Helpless finished). But it just feels neater, to me, to make Kennedy a Slayer and shortcut that whole discussion.

[btvsobsessed]

I'm pretty sure Kennedy said she'd thought she'd aged out

I really think Season 7 would have worked so much better if Kennedy was a Slayer from the start, not a Potential.

The show is already very clear that Kennedy is, narratively, the most important of the Potentials. She gets almost as much speaking time in Season 7 as all the other Potentials combined (as well as having far more speaking time and appearing in more episodes than Kendra ever did in Season 2).  She's the only one who has any meaningful connection to any other character in the show (except for, maybe, Amanda and Dawn).  The writing already positions her as the main voice of opposition to Buffy within the group -- she's already the one most likely to question what Buffy's doing and suggest she could do better -- so why not formalize that?  Put her on a more equal footing with Buffy to start with.  Make it credible that Kennedy really could take charge and ignore Buffy entirely. Make Kennedy the Slayer who was called when Buffy died at the end of "The Gift".  

Yes, I know that the official canon is that no Slayer was called when Buffy died for a second time because Faith was the "active" Slayer at this point, but I think it's important to note that that was only something the writers came up with between Season 5 and 6.  It didn't have to be that way: there's nothing at all in the show's lore to suggest it's canon before then, and in fact people in the show openly talk about Buffy's death possibly activating a new Slayer even after her first death in "Prophecy Girl". And even in Season 6, I don't think we're told definitively that a new Slayer wasn't called (and wouldn't a new Slayer explain why the Watcher's Council aren't around this season?).  If you look online, the writers were even being vague about Kendra's death calling a new Slayer during the Season 2/Season 3 gap: none of how this works was ever planned out in detail in advance.  More importantly, it's pretty central to the show's mythology that Buffy is "the" Slayer and "the" Chosen One, and it's honestly a pretty silly bit of worldbuilding to accidentally retcon that she was actually only the "real" Slayer for 12 episodes (or even for 56, if you further retcon that Willow's resurrection spell somehow made Buffy the unique active Slayer again).

The idea of Buffy's second death not calling a new Slayer was a mistake, in my opinion.  Yes, I get that they didn't want another Slayer showing up in Sunnydale in Season 6.  That wasn't part of the story that season was trying to tell.  But why would she have to?  The world's a big place, and until the last few episodes there's nothing particularly apocalyptic happening in Sunnydale that season.  Why couldn't you just have the new Slayer off somewhere else, minding her own business?  (In fact, if Faith is the only "active" Slayer, then not resurrecting Buffy means condemning the world to no new Slayer at all until Faith dies, which -- given where she is -- probably wouldn't happen for years if not decades.  It's much better, I think, for Buffy's friends to bring her back because they miss her than because the world objectively needs her to continue the Slayer line and the only other Slayer is serving time in prison for murder.)

And imagine how Season 7 plays out with Kennedy as a Slayer from the start.  The focus of a lot of the second half of the season is on Buffy teaching the Potentials how to fight, which is perfectly fine as a bit of symbolism and helps set up the events of “Chosen” but doesn't really make much sense in-universe.  Potentials just aren't meant to fight vampires. There's never been any indication in the show before this that that was a good idea.  "She alone can stand against the demons" and so on, not "she and a bunch of other people who don't have superpowers yet".  But make Kennedy a young Slayer -- one who's been prepared 'properly' by the Watchers' Council, taught to follow their rules and procedures, the way Kendra was, but who still lacks much practical experience -- and make the focus of the second half of the season be Buffy  (and Faith) trying to teach her what that means ... doesn't that work a lot better?

(And sure, I'd bring the rest of Potentials in a few episodes before “Chosen”, I'd still end the season the same way -- but we really didn't need to see quite as much of them, did we?  Let Robin and Kennedy be the big two new characters this season -- let them represent our links to the past and future of the Slayer line -- and don't let the show get overwhelmed by so many other new faces.)

Also, this would let my inner world-building-obsessed pedant stop asking how old Kennedy is meant to be, given that Season 3's “Helpless” establishes that every Slayer undergoes the Cruciamentum on their eighteenth birthday (something that can logically only happen if every Slayer is called at seventeen or younger).  Which is not at all a good reason in itself, but ... look, it does irritate me, I'd be lying if I said it didn't.  Why does this season include “Help”, an episode highlighting how weird it would be for any of the now adult cast to have a romantic relationship with a high school student, only to then pair WIllow off with a girl who -- by the established rules of the show's own world-building -- has to be younger than eighteen?  I mean, the answer is that the show largely pretends Kennedy is older than that, or doesn't address her age at all, but this does contradict what we're told in “Helpless”.

And it doesn't have to. There's an easy fix. I'm not saying that the show shouldn't have had Willow and Kennedy get together. I like Kennedy as a character. I just think she'd make a lot more sense -- both as a character in her own right, and in terms of her place in the broader narrative -- if she was a Slayer from the moment we met her.

[btvsobsessed]

and the thing about "I think your head is the one things would roll off of"? It's about something supernatural but not about Willow' magic. It shows a fundamental disconnect in how they view the world

honestly one of the best character mirrors on this show is willow and giles. especially around late season three and early season four, because they have some of their tamest but most indicative arguments around that time. like i love the "rank arrogant amateur" speech as much as the next person, but the understated "i read your secret stash of books you forbade me read" and "you shouldn't be casting with your spirit so unstable" and the "i think your head is the one things would roll off of" all quietly indicate the beginnings of a much much larger issue that is rapidly spiraling out of control - and has been for some time.