#and I would say that Wesley knows Cordelia a lot better than Angel does

[liam-summers]

I violently reject the entire narrative that Cordelia knew and understood Angel better than anyone else and that Angel knew and understood Cordelia better than anyone else. This is literally not true in any season of either show.

[prose-for-hire]

How ats characters would celebrate their s/o’s Birthday:

Characters include: Angel; Spike; Cordelia; Wesley; Fred; Lorne; Gunn; Doyle; Lindsey; Drusilla and Darla

A/N: Again, totally self-indulgent for my Birthday lol! They’re fluffy !! Hope you guys enjoy them, you can save them for your Birthdays or just enjoy them today !! 🖤💖

Angel:

- Money is no object

- Will ask what you wanna do

- Could literally be anything at all

- He has enough disposable income that you feasibly could do anything

- You insist that all you want is him though

- Not his money, just him

- You adore him

- And this assurance absolutely makes him melt

- All he ever wants is for you to be happy

- But he insists that you should mark the occasion

- So you suggest a party

- Just a small gathering with the team and some good music

- He grins, pressing a kiss to your lips

- He’s actually really excited

- He can get awkward at parties (and just in general)

- But he does enjoy them somewhat

- Especially since he began dating you

- Everything’s better with you

- And that’s why he wanted to celebrate your day properly

-  The hotel’s back and functioning

- And completely covered in decorations

- He appeared to have raided the entire party store

- Every occasion seemed to be represented lol

- Literally everything you could imagine stuck to the walls

- There’s even a balloon arch

- He clearly spent a really long time on it so you give him lots of kisses

- Which makes him almost blush

- He really cares and just wants you to feel good

- He would be by your side the entire time

- You would have a lot of fun

- Mostly just enjoys wrapping his arms around you

- And swaying slightly

- Whispering his love and happy birthdays

- The gift he gave you would be very meaningful and super romantic

- You would have melted right then and there

- You have a really great time, drinking and laughing

- You sit on his lap when you’re not being hauled up to dance with Cordy and Wes

- You even convince Angel to dance

- It’s equal parts dorky and adorable

- You definitely dance with him

Cordy:

- She would be so ridiculously excited

- For your birthday

- Like, ordering everyone around

- Making sure they get you the very best gifts

- And nobody is allowed to forget

- Or else

- She’s really pumped for you to be celebrated

- You’ll probably go to a bar the night before with all your friends

- Maybe Caritas if it’s up and running at the time

- (Cordy swings free drinks for you all)

- But the next day was your birthday

- You would wake up beside her

- It would honestly just be the best gift

- Just to have her this way

- You pull her into you

- Snuggling together

- Both of you sleeping off a hangover (Depending on how much/if you drank)

- Today, your actual birthday, was just for you and her

- Intimate in a way that she has always craved

- And with you she has

- Completely

- She has bought a lot of presents

- They can be assigned to two categories:

- Things you want and others that she insists you need

- All very well thought out and incredibly sweet

- She would be very cute and press lots of kisses to your lips

- Soft, sleepy kisses

- You spend a lot of the day in bed

- Just the two of you

- It’s honestly just perfect

- She wanted you to herself and you completely feel the same

- She’ll have rented movies, anything you like and you just spend it on the sofa

- Wrapped in blankets and each other

- Understated (yes, she can do understated)

- And yours

Lorne:

- The grandest plans

- You only deserved the best

- You always felt completely cherished with Lorne

- But he made sure to give you his undivided attention around your Birthday

- He wanted all the attention to be lavished upon you

- He could be so soft and so very insistent too

-He could tell you sometimes felt guilty about it but his nature made it so that he always made sure you were enjoying yourself

-  The most important thing was always that you felt good

- Caritas was basically a shrine to you

- He would source pictures of you growing up, fixing them up everywhere

- There would be themed drinks (from important points in your life)

- Not to mention the list of karaoke songs all evening were exclusively your favourites

- Absolutely no exceptions

- You would be showered in gifts

- Despite you telling him it really wasn’t necessary

- Especially if it’s one of your first birthdays with you both together

- Would go so far past overboard

- But he would be entirely too cute about it

- He would vibrate with excitement

- Waiting for you to open everything

- Just when you thought you were finished

- Another pile of presents would appear from nowhere

- All the affection too

- Through the entire day, would want to be close to you

-  Always does but especially so

- At the end of the day, would wrap you in his arms

- Already planning to outdo himself next year

Spike:

- The man is near obsessive over your birthday

- Consumes his thoughts the entire month, just like you do all of the time

- Won’t stop thinking about it

- Mentioning it

- He’s definitely more into it than you are

- He wants you to have something normal, human

- You have to have something special - he insists

- Wants to cherish you, the entire day would be yours

- You would make the decisions for the day

-  And then he would have something planned for the evening

- Will decide to take you for drinks

- But at a more high end place than he would usually take you

- Might even take you for a trip away, somewhere you used to go

- will steal Angel’s fanciest car

- he’ll take you somewhere that he knows you like

- maybe somewhere special to the both of you

- The evening will be nice, he’ll make you smile as always

- Might treat you to some human food

- A restaurant too if you like that kind of thing

- You always feel special with him

- But the evening won’t end there

- You’ll make your way back to the car

- But he’ll grab your hand with a smirk

- Dragging you in the opposite direction

- He has it all set up

- He paid off the security guard

- There are blankets and tiny little fairy lights

-  That he would have to turn off in a second, but he knew he would enjoy seeing your smile though

- He had wanted a big gesture

- Something from the movies

- Because that’s what your love was like

- Something more human but still intimate

- Just for you

- He would help you lie back, lying by your side

- Pulling you into him

- You would be stargazing as you nestled into him

- Pointing out constellations that he probably was naming completely wrong

- But you wouldn’t care because he had thought all of this up just for you

- You were happy just as long as you would be together

- He would make you laugh so hard

- And just make you feel so cherished and celebrated 😊

Wes:

- Would be so bashful about his plans

- Ridiculously anxious that you would be enjoying yourself

- That you would like whatever he came up with

- Absolutely head over heels for you

- Completely and utterly yours

- And so wants his plans to reflect this

- The gift he gives would be understated, but completely fitting

- He would be nervous to give it to you

- But once you begin gushing

- He would smile and chuckle in that way he does

- He wants to take you to a bar

- For drinks because you deserve to be celebrated

- The world’s always threatening to end

- So he wants you to have a day where it can just be you both

- Celebrating his absolute favourite person

- You ask him if he’ll dance with you

- He looks around a little embarrassed

- But he gets a burst of courage

- Takes your hand, leads you to the dancefloor

- You dance wildly, matching his moves and laughing

- A slow song started

- You loop your arms around his neck

- It was just the two of you

- For all you knew

- He whispered something

- Something he hadn’t said yet

-  “I love you”

- The sweetest, most meaningful Birthday gift

- You would press your lips to his

- Telling him just how much you appreciated this

- And he would smile into the kiss

- Chuckling slightly

- So ecstatic that you were enjoying yourself

- But you insist that it would only be with him

- He wraps his arms around you

- Leaning his head against yours

- You dance slowly in the middle of the room

- Eyes closed

- It was pure bliss

- You love each other so much

Drusilla:

- She would pull out every stop

- An extravagant event

- In your honour

- Everything would have to be just so

- Or she would start cracking skulls

- Would attempt to make it a sweet surprise

- But would begin to murmur about it one evening

- As she held you close

- You would be very used to interpreting her words

- And so realise

- But not tell her so not to upset her

- Either way it would be beautiful

- just before the day, she brings you a bunch of flowers

- they’re night blooming

- and they look a little dead

- but you of course adore them

- The night of your birthday was so pretty, she says it’s because it belongs to you

- Your night

-The event would be filled with gifts and people you vaguely knew and liked

- She would ensure you were the centre of attention

- As you were already the centre of her world

- She would smile, laying such adoring affections on you

- Her hands entwined with you

- Would be by your side for the entire day

- Soft gestures of physical affection as you both enjoyed the celebration

- Always touching you

- Would definitely have several gifts for you

- Definitely a birthday tarot reading

- You tell her that you don’t need a future reading, you see yourself with her

- For eternity

- She would adore this and get very excited

- Lots and lots of love

- And probably several trinkets

- She probably found these trinkets by purposefully targeting the owners

- And taking them for you

- (A for effort, isn’t she the sweetest? Always thinking of you)

Gunn:

-  He would be a man with a plan

- It may not be pulled off exactly as planned

- But he would have had the idea in advance

- Very caring for a s/o

- Can get wrapped up in a relationship

- Which is lucky for you

- He adores you

- Absolutely worships you

- (just as you do for him ofc)

- He gets up early, ready to set everything up

- But gets instantly interrupted

- You roll over and wake up

- He can’t resist you

- Gets caught out and slides back into bed

- Holds you for a while and you cuddle up to him

- Long story short…

- You spend most of the day in bed

- Long into the afternoon

- Which, he finds a lot better than he could have planned anyway

- He tried to get away at first but by noon he just couldn’t tear himself away

- He holds you close

- Telling you how lucky he feels to have you

- And that he wants everything to be good

- He’ll singlehandedly stop an apocalypse for you

- He insists nothing’s gonna stop celebrating your day

- But you pull him back into bed again

- Pressing kisses against him

- Insisting he’s the only gift you could ever want

- But when he presents his actual gift you of course take it

- He’s very in tune with you, always listens to what you like

- And so the gift is very thoughtful but also useful/something you will use

- Which leads to you peppering him in kisses and gushing

- Which makes him smile

- That one that makes him absolutely glow

- You’re still not quite sure what the plans were

- But they were easily cancelled, he sent a chain text and it was sorted

- he called for takeout instead

- your favourite of course

- it was simple but honestly you wouldn’t want it any other way

- just you and him

Darla:

- Probably would not have remembered

- Until you mentioned it

- Definitely isn’t used to birthday celebrations

- You had been through so much since then

- But once she realises

- Decides she wishes to dedicate the day to you

- She doesn’t show it often, but she can be so ridiculously soft for you

- The day would be intimate and just for the both of you

- She can be very possessive and wouldn’t want anyone else involved

- Anything you wanted she would get for you

- You name it, literally

- It’s yours

- She can take over entire shopping malls

- Hold up an evil law firm

- Make them do a spell or something for you

- She would lavish so much on you

- You could take your pick of anything and she would take your hand the entire day

- Such obvious affection is rare, but she does adore you

- Presses a single kiss against your temple

- With that sweet, knowing smile

- Her eyes would always be on you

- You would feel loved just by her gaze

- She truly stopped everything just to celebrate you

- Evil plots on pause, won’t even talk to Wolfram and Hart

- If that’s what you wish

- She doesn’t like to admit how much you mean to her

- But because it’s your birthday

- She would

- If she hasn’t already, she would love to sire you

- It would be a very romantic gift for her to offer

- As if she had brought you a dozen roses

- Making your death day and your birthday the same day

- She would see it as the best present she could give you

Lindsey:

- Doesn’t mention your birthday

- Always so busy at work

- You presume he’s forgotten

- And you don’t remind him

- You don’t mind

- (or I mean that’s what you tell yourself)

- But when the day rolls around you wake up

- And frown

- His work clothes are still out

- He hasn’t left today

- And someone’s in your kitchen?

- You go and see what’s going on and he’s made your favourite breakfast

- He looks at you as if you just brought the sun into the room

- A heavenly glow that only surrounded you

- You were the light in his life

- He loves so deeply, wants to cling onto this

- Wants you to know just how much he loves you

- By making this day just for you

- He chides you though cos he was trying to make breakfast in bed

- But you had woken up

- But you just wrap your arms around him and hug him close

- He pulls you in for a deep kiss

- Holding onto this moment

- Holding on to you

- He’s got a very rare day off

- And you don’t want to ask how much of his soul was sold off for the luxury

- The day’s completely yours

- You go out and do tourist-y stuff in LA

- You live there but never get a chance to do something just fun and normal

- So you go around and take cheesy pictures

- Try out different hotspots

- You have a really lovely meal at the end of the day too

- He’s comfortable, has money to blow on fancy meals

- But it means more because he appeared to have looked into the local menus and stuff

- Finding suggestions that he knew that you would like

- You go to a few bars that you really enjoy

- but he soon notices you want to go back home

- So you and he can celebrate without any prying eyes

- It was truly one of the best days, you felt so much closer

Fred:

- She would have forgotten about birthdays

- After Pylea

- But when you mentioned it casually

- She jumped into action

- Not just because it was probably only a few days away

- But because she loved you and wanted you happy

- Wouldn’t want to do anything too lavish

- It’s just not the way you both are together

- It would be something simple, but so very meaningful

- She would be so soft

- (I mean she is anyway, but this is a day celebrating you)

- And she loves you so much

- I think she’d take you for a little day out

-  A kind of adventure

- But one where you could relax plenty

- A day off from demons and one just for you?

- Perfection

- She would present you with a gift while you were out

- I think she would have made it herself I think

- Probably took a while

- But she enjoyed it so much

- Something clever and cute

- Like her

- She would blush if you made a big deal of thanking her

- But ultimately reciprocate any kisses

- She would probably cuddle up to you and ask what you would like to do that evening

- She apologises for not having grander plans but honestly her just being with you is the best

- And you ofc tell her this

- You settle for drinks at a bar you both like

- But you don’t stay long, mostly just wanting to spend time privately

- You grab some takeout on the way home

- And celebrate more intimately

- The glow of the tv, but neither of you will be watching

- Just the two of you

Doyle:

- He’d be buzzing with excitement

- You always treat him so good

- (he swears he doesn’t deserve it)

- So he makes sure that you feel the love

- Especially so because it’s your birthday

- He says you have plans for your birthday

- And you’re like ??

- That’s news to me lol

- But he absolutely won’t tell you

- And teases you about it in the weeks leading up

- His teasing smile is equal parts infuriating

- And cute

- He just wants you to enjoy yourself

- And this is part of it

- He’s sick of everything ruining your time together

- So he tries to bargain with the powers

- He just looks upwards and half-pleads for them not to bother him

- Just for your birthday weekend

- No visions, please

- Nothing he comes up with, in his own mind, will be good enough

- He wants to give you the world

- And he promises one day he will

- Does this through a cute little globe key chain

- Before giving you a few more gifts

- He truly listens to you and things you like

- Buys things through the year

- So that he has them

- Hiding them is hard

- He would have planned it all out, using his connections

- He’s bagged a weekend away for you both

- somewhere you’ve always wanted to go

- Somewhere really nice, super upmarket

- Not something you’re used to after living in LA so long

- You have the best time

- He honestly makes you feel like the only person in the world

- He’s just so sweet

-  Literally would drop anything for his s/o

- To make sure you’re enjoying yourself and happy

- It was just perfect

- You’re already planning to make it a tradition

[sandalaris]

Ship It or Not 3 Questions Game: Buffyverse ships! Thoughts on Spike/Xander, Willow/Tara, Buffy/Faith, Angel/Cordelia, and Fred/Gunn! 💖💖💖

The Buffyverse is just full of shippy goodness!

Spike/Xander: SHIP IT!!

What made you ship it? I... am not completely sure. I know I was watching the show for the first time, early seasons, and was mired deep in the fandom looking at fanvids - spoilers be damned! - and I came across a truly awful manip of them in a poorly done vid that made me stop and go “what?” Then I started thinking about them, and watching them interact (again, this was early seasons, they were probably only in the same scene together like three times), and thinking about it and sort of went “I like it!” somewhere around season three. By season four they were a top ship and by season five they were my OTP on the show. There’s a lot of potential there if you look for it, they were even played around with in the writers room for a hot minute back when Xander was still slotted to come out as gay, and there is some beautifully written fics out there that explores that potential in fun ways.

What are your favorite things about the ship? They are both just so snarky. I don’t have a lot of ships like them tbh. They are a little too alike at their cores for them to fall under my usual ship types, I’m more an opposites attract kind of gal, and they are both immature and impulsive and full of witty one-liners and sarcasm, not to mention how they both are sort of all-in from the get-go in relationships (Spike more than Xander, but it does apply to both) and how Xander often starts out thinking he dislikes someone that he’s actually attracted to. Probably my favorite thing about them is the snark and banter they both produce both towards each other and with other people.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? It’s not as big of a problem now, but for a while people had a bad habit of writing Xander as basically just a female coded male stand-in. I’m not trying to tell people how to ship, but the number of fics I’d open just to find Xander acting like a stereotypical lovelorn teenaged girl with a cool brooding leather jacket wearing boyfriend (which is also very out of character for Spike) was ridiculous. This is a problem in a lot of older slash ships actually, but it’s the number one most annoying thing I find over and over again in fics.

Willow/Tara: Ship it

What made you ship it? What’s not to love? Willow’s really easy to ship to begin with, I ship her with a lot of people (still pretty sure I’m the only Willow/Percy shipper out there lol), but her and Tara are full of canony goodness! And they’re super cute! I want to say I loved them from the get-go, but I’m pretty sure I was still waiting on Oz to return when Tara first showed up. But by the time Willow blew out that candle I was shipping them hardcore.

What are your favorite things about the ship? They’re both so soft together and they really put off this “soulmates” vibe when around each other. How much Willow helps Tara’s confidence grow until she blossoms into who she was always going to be, and how she was going to take care of Tara no matter what. I also like how their break-up was handled and the get-back-together speech where Tara says “can’t you just be kissing me now” is just *chef’s kiss*

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I don’t know that an unpopular opinion exists for them, tbh. I suppose the closest I have is more of an unpopular Willow opinion; while I see Willow as probably a lesbian in the show, I often take the bi!Willow route in fandom. Not just because I ship Willow with men too, but also because of my love of the relationship her and Oz had in canon. Apparently this can be a bit of a hot debate between people.

Buffy/Faith: Ship it

What made you ship it? Other shippers mostly. I didn’t think much of them when I first saw the show since I mostly shipped Buffy with Angel at the time. I don’t remember if it was a fic or a vid or what, but something took the events of season three and angled them with an underlining romantic/sexual tension between them that just fit so perfectly that I wondered why I never thought of them/saw it before.

What are your favorite things about the ship? The drama :P OK, not exactly the drama, but that sort of good/bad light/dark thing they have going on. They aren’t always healthy together, but there’s a wonderful balance between them and a level of understanding neither will ever be able to get with anyone else. Their relationship was treated like a romance and their falling apart in season three like a tension filled break-up and I love how that gets explored in fanworks.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I don’t think so. I suppose in that I don’t really see them as canon, but I’m not sure how popular of an opinion that is to begin with, although I know it is something people claim.

Angel/Cordelia: Don’t ship it

Why don't you ship it? It’s not a very strong “don’t ship” but in a take ‘em or leave ‘em situation, I’d leave ‘em. They just never really appealed to me and I like them both with other people so much better. They felt almost last minute too, like the writers decided they needed the title character to have a love interest in the main cast and tossed him together with the closest single female main character. 

What would have made you like it? Maybe if there was more of a hint to them being romantically drawn to each other in the early seasons of AtS. I loved their relationship at the beginning of the show, I stan their friendship completely, and had they started hinting at some romantic feelings at that point, then I might’ve gotten on board with them (although Cordy/Doyle was super cute - even if the writers f’ed up the math there - so I may have already been on board that ship) I sort of forget that they happened in show too, like they don’t feel like canon love interests to me. I feel like I could like the idea of them more than I liked the reality.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? Plenty! They are both great characters and I love their dynamic together. I love how Angel bought her clothes as an apology, and her telling him that she had her water bottle blessed every week when he went all temporary Angelus on them. I like that she was all “screw it” and kissed him before leaving because that was a very Cordy thing to do, and I love how unrepentant she was about leaving wet towels on his chair and how upset he was about said wet towel. They have a great dynamic.

Fred/Gunn: Ship it

What made you ship it? From the beginning, pretty much the moment they started interacting I thought they were cute. By the time they were dating I was so excited for them!

What are your favorite things about the ship? They fit that opposites attract that I love so much. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen the show, but I remember loving them as their relationship developed. Especially when they all thought they were teens and how different Fred and Gunn both work and yet how much they still worked as a couple.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I don’t know how unpopular it would be, but since they are competing ships, the fact that I ship both Fred/Gunn and Fred/Wesley is probably one, lol. I thought the love triangle and how everything played out with all three of them was done fairly well (Wesley’s dark path, while interesting on screen, made me severely miss nerdy Wesley from the early days) and enjoyed the way the showed managed to explore them both without making it seem like they were just flipping through couples.

[mj-spooks]

Alright, judging by how successful that last Harry Potter experimental question was, Buffy's scooby gang, as a Leverage Crew? Is it too simple to say Buffy as a hitter and Giles as a mastermind?

Which version of the gang are we talking here? Can I go across the whole series? Season 1 only? All Stars? Fuck it I’m cherry picking because THAT’S HOW WE DO.

So, Giles is absolutely on the money. He’s the Mastermind, no doubt. He’s the watcher, he trains the others (mostly Buffy and Faith, but let’s be real, he trains all of them in their own way), he’s the one that works things out, leads research parties, comes up with plans. He’s the Mastermind, at least at first. Like Nate, he graduates out of that position (although I think the others sort of share it after he steps down, rather than one person picking it up).

But Buffy’s not the hitter.

Buffy is the grifter.

Think about it. Pretty, blonde, posterchild for popularity. She’s charismatic. She’s endearing.  You like her. You’d probably do anything she asked you to. She’s an an excellent liar, a brilliant actor. She plays the part. The only reason she doesn’t have Sunnydale wrapped around her fucking finger is because all the bullshit with demons and vampires is Too Obvious for no one to ever notice how weird she is. If they could be even slightly more subtle, or pick slightly more convenient times to get up to their nonsense, no one would ever suspect she was anything but what she looks like.

No, the hitter? That’s Faith. And yes, I’m counting her as a Scooby. My girl got done dirty, alright. Granted, she did some people pretty dirty as well. But she was a teenage girl with a really shitty childhood, and I’m not one to use the shitty childhood as a get out of jail free card (get it), but dude. Dude. Every single thing that could’ve gone wrong for her, did. And every time the team had a chance to prove she could trust them, they fucked it up. Mostly Wesley fucked it up, but let’s not go there. And did I mention she was a teenage girl? Also, it helps that she was only Properly Evil for like, a few months, after which she was in a coma, and was Properly Evil for all of five minutes before deciding “Actually I just wanna be Buffy,” because guess what, she never WANTED to be the bad guy-

I’m getting off topic. The point is. Faith is the brawn, alright? Post-Faith, I guess that position goes to Spike, who let’s face it, is basically Buffy’s backup/guard dog from the moment he realizes he can still kill demons, and especially after his big “Oh shit I love the slayer” realization. For the record, bad decisions being made by an ostensibly helplessly evil soulless monster aside, no one EVER had Buffy’s back like Spike did. Not a single damn person. Fucking fight me. Every. Single. Other. Person. Let her down. Constantly. Or they were never in a positoin to properly have her back in the first place. The one time he really did screw it up, he realized how fucked up he was, and went off and got a fucking soul for her, so basically

Riley, for the record, is not a Hitter and does NOT count as a Scooby, because screw that guy. Also while I’m on the subject, screw Xander, because the episode where Riley leaves and Xander gives Buffy the “you’re the bad guy” speech sits so fucking wrong with me, and Xander goddamn Harris can get fucking bent. I’m still off topic, I know, I know. Sorry, I just. I have VERY STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT BUFFY.

ANYWAY. Willow is the hacker, big fucking shock. She’s... she’s literally a hacker, okay. Even when she stops being all computer-y and starts being all witch-y, her approach to witchcraft is... is to hack it. She hacks magic. Literally. That’s what gets her in so much trouble with it, because she’s too fucking good at cheating the system. It’s how she brought Buffy back. She’s the goddamned Hacker. Age. Of. The. Fucking. Geek. Baby.

Thief............ hmph. I don’t know?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

See, the thing is, basically all of the properly involved Scoobies had to steal something at one point or another, all with basically the same level of success, so... wait.

Okay. No. The thief is Dawn.

She’s literally a thief! She steals from everybody all the goddamned time! With varying degrees of success, sure. But if she was actually trained at it, she’d be better than all of them. She’s the only Little Sibling out of the bunch (Well, okay, Tara had an older brother, but her homelife was so fucked she has Very Different Younger Sister energy than Dawn). She has a specific talent for it that I bet would serve her well if she was actually trained. I honestly at this point have read so much fanfic that I cannot for the life or me remember if canon!Spike ever helped teach her to knick stuff or if that’s just widely accepted fanon!Spike because people love that dynamic (as they should, it’s great). I’m doing a rewatch but... uh... I kinda stopped partway through S5 because I’m like four episodes away from The Body and gods I just can’t take it. Point being, I dunno if that’s legit or not. BUT. If it were legit, and she was taught how to steal, she’d be great at it.

I guess Spike is kind of also the thief. But he’s also the only one of the scoobies that’s properly been a villain (I’m not counting Faith or Willow’s brief insanity, and Angel isn’t the villain, Angelus is, so...), so naturally he’s got the shady skills. He can kind of grift and mastermind, too, except he’s too impatient for it, which is why he ends up stuck as a hitter most of the time. Everything else is too slow for his ass. See, the entirety of S2.

For fun, under the cut, the remaining scoobies and what position they’re best suited for:

Xander: Hitter??? He’s not got the super strength and he’s kind of played for laughs, but there was that whole bit where he had the tactical training from his brief stint as GI Joe in the Halloween episode. He’s a decent tactician, which is kind of the hitter’s job. I bet that if the wasn’t so busy feeling inferior to Buffy and he actually like. Trained. He could be a decent fighter.

Cordelia: Straight fucking grifter. Which she proves plenty of times on Angel. It’s extra great because she basically IS Sophie, what with the whole “can grift like a boss but put her on stage and she’s terrible” bit. She’s also a decent mastermind, also showcased on Angel. She whips him into shape from day one, and is the only thing that keeps AI running half the time. Also not unlike Sophie. Honestly Cordelia is my favorite character from the OG cast. She deserved better.

Angel: Mastermind. He’s got all of Angelus’ brains, remember, just not necessarily any reason to use them. He’s smart, though, and definitely good at planning. He’s also really into knowing the most and keeping his cards close to his chest. The parallels with Nate are a little strong, honestly, because he also has that whole... guilty conscience spiraling downward holier than thou thing going on. And yes, I do ship him and Cordy, thanks for asking.

Oz: Hacker! Not a lot of people really remember this, since his prominent character traits were “In a band”, “Willow’s boyfriend”, and “werewolf”. Plus there’s the whole flunked-senior-year plot point which I honestly think they did just to keep him around. But the first time Oz actually properly interacted with Willow was because they’d both gotten singled out for their badass computer skills on career day. He’s very nearly as good as her.

Anya: Grifter. I mean, the whole vengeance demon schtick relies on the grift. She’s very good at it. Which, she ought to be, she’s been doing it for over a thousand years. It’s sort of hilarious though because it seems like the second she loses her powers, she also loses her ability to blend in. I think that’s likely because she’s used to short term cons, and running the long con that is being human again is more difficult. Still, this is where she shines.

Riley: He doesn’t count because I kinda hate him. But fine if you wanna go there. Hitter. He doesn’t deserve the title though because Eliot is both brains and brawn and Riley can’t think his way out of a paper sack without someone giving him directions, and even then it’s dicey.

Tara: This one is super hard for me! I can’t see her as any of the actual team positions. I suppose the one skill she displays would be grifting, since she does try to hide her identity as a supposed demon from the others for a while before her birthday comes up. But honestly I see her less as a member of the crew and more as a Maggie. Voice of reason, moral high ground, not putting up with shenanigans if she can help it... yeah. Tara’s the Maggie. Every crew needs one.

[buffster]

War Zone (ATS 1.20)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

I love Gunn, but War Zone kind of left me wondering why Alonna wasn’t the one to survive and join Angel’s team. For a moment it seems like the story is going to be about her wanting to stay out of the fight until her brother is killed. Instead her death started Gunn’s story in a strange place--what was the point of Alonna changing, exactly? He wasn’t lacking the realization of how serious this is (he’s lost people before) and the narrative clearly isn’t trying to teach him to quit loving the fight. Gunn’s backstory was already dark, so this didn’t add a much-needed tragic element. It honestly felt like killing off Alonna gave Gunn the freedom to be all in. In fact, the episode ends with him telling Angel nothing has changed. Am I forgetting how this is important later, or was it just one-episode entertainment?

Vampire!Alonna totally should have known Gunn would never join them. Maybe she overestimated his emotions for her, but she should know better than anyone how he feels about vampires. I think it would be in-character for her to want her brother still, but I feel like she should have been more clever about getting him turned. Actually, now that I think on it, Alonna being on the loose probably would have been a more interesting future storyline. Angel could have been trying to dissuade him from a vendetta while Gunn obsesses about giving his sister peace.

Anyway...Gunn is sort of the Xander of Angel--wait, wait. Don’t come for me. I only mean that he is often ignored by the narrative, his plot lines picked up and put down whenever it’s convenient. The result for Xander was a lot of fan interpretation, where his actions are either painted as reasonable or absolutely evil with circumstantial evidence. Gunn is better beloved by the fandom; I think Gunn as a stand in for disadvantaged black men was received much better than Xander’s as the every man with sexist tendencies. 

Cordelia: No - money - I like the smell of a little money once in a while. 

Angel: She's not just saying that. Hide some in the office sometime to watch her. It's uncanny.

Meanwhile, Angel Investigations has a case with a rich man who’s being blackmailed by his love of demon brothels (someone should really tell Riley about Madam Dorion’s). It all started with a bunch of guys playing D&D and wanting to carry their fantasies over into real life. 

I liked this subplot for  Cordelia. After her dreams of acting started to die it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to consider using someone like David to climb to the top. Especially since he seemed like he wouldn’t mind her honestly making an arrangement with him, and she seems to want the life of a socialite more than acting anyway. But she ends up deciding she still hopes to find real love.

Gunn: Everybody dies. I'm just trying to make sure that when we die, we stay dead.

Alonna: It shouldn't have gone down the way it did.  You're getting reckless.

Gunn: I do what I got to do.

Alonna: No, you do more than you got to do. Three weeks, G. Three weeks and no teeth and you had to ring the dinner bell like that? You just couldn't go another day without getting a little death in, could you?

Gunn: You think I like this?

Alonna: No, I think you love it. And you won't quit until you get as close to death as you possibly can.

Again, not much changed by episode’s end.

I feel like Gunn must have a lot of experience with vampires to perceive Angel saving Alonna as something a “real” vampire wouldn’t do rather than some elaborate trick. I was surprised he let him go.

The entire point of this episode was basically to introduce Gunn as a future ally, so not much else to say here. I’m excited to start getting the gang together.

Character Notes:

Angel: Angel forgetting he has a cell phone and trying to use brute strength to break out was a nice, believable character moment. He still uses the name Angelus when he wants to sound threatening. 

Gunn: He and Alonna lived in a shelter on Plummer Street. The second floor was rotted out, and he was the only one brave enough to cross. When Alonna tried he was waiting below to catch her. 

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Since I'm in a Buffyverse mood: what are your rankings of the AtS and BtVS seasons from favourite to least favourite? :) Also, could you talk a little bit more about why you like AtS more than BtVS? I have an idea that the people who prefer AtS is because they like the character Angel more than Buffy, but I could be wrong though.

Yay! Thanks for sending this in, lovely, I always love discussing these topics with you :)

Wow, this is a tricky one to answer since I like all the seasons for different reasons, but from most to least favourite seasons it goes as follows (although they are subject to change):

1. ATS season 3

2. ATS season 2

3.  BTVS season 2

4.  ATS season 1

5. BTVS season 3

6.  ATS season 5

7. BTVS season 5

8. ATS season 4

9.  BTVS season 1

10.  BTVS season 4

11.  BTVS season 6

12. BTVS season 7

Damn, that was even harder than I thought it would be haha. I wasn’t sure if you wanted a little explanation for my ranking, but for now I’ll leave it as it is and you can let me know if you want to know why I’ve chosen this order :)

As for the reason I like ATS more than BTVS, it’s for a lot of reasons that go way beyond simply preferring Angel over Buffy (although that is a tiny part of the reason for me). @sulietsexual​ has actually already written a bloomin’ amazing meta explaining why she prefers ATS over BTVS, which you can read here. In that she really explains all my thoughts about this topic, so my own explanation might parrot some of what she says a little, but here we go.

On a basic level, I prefer ATS because I enjoy watching it more than BTVS. When I first watched BTVS I stopped watching after a few episodes because I really didn’t like it. A few months later I decided to give it another try, but I still didn’t enjoy it and didn’t really get into it until part way through season 2. With ATS, I fell in love with it from the very first episode (which could be because by the time I watched ATS I was already familiar with the Buffyverse whereas when I first watched BTVS, I was trying to adapt to an entirely new show, which I’m not very good at. Hence why I watch the same shows over and over again haha). I love the style of ATS visually, the opening theme is kick ass (I prefer it to BTVS, although both have kick ass opening themes which get you so pumped for the episode), the characters are great, the premise is interesting and the dynamics/relationships are fantastic. I do think that the age I watched the shows has also influenced my opinions. I didn’t grow up watching either show (unlike most BTVS fans who have watched it as a child), so I don’t have any nostalgic attachments which lead me to favour one over the other and I’ve experienced both shows as an adult. I watched BTVS when I was 19 and ATS at 24, so I think that definitely plays a part in why I prefer ATS. ATS just speaks to me in terms of the place where I am in my life right now and is very relatable to me in a lot of ways, which I’ll come back to again later.

The characters are most definitely a significant part of the reason I prefer ATS. Liking Angel more as a lead than Buffy is only a small part of that, because I love both characters. As you may know from reading my other metas, I’m a very character-orientated person and well-written, complex and lovable characters are what makes or breaks a show for me. ATS appeals to me so much because its characters are so damn good and the character arcs are compelling. Every character on ATS has amazing development, including the minor characters. This means, that even for characters that I don’t particularly like, I’m still able to enjoy them because of how well written they are. Faith, who is a fan favourite, has incredible episodes on ATS (some might argue even better than the ones she has on BTVS), which really take her character to new places and beautifully develop her redemption arc. Similarly, Spike has an incredible season on ATS which provides him with wonderful development. And Faith and Spike are two of many Buffyverse characters who have fantastic arcs on ATS (and in most cases better than what they had on ATS, particularly in the case of Cordelia and Wesley). Although I appreciate all of the characters on BTVS I don’t actively like them or enjoy their arcs as much as I do with the characters on ATS. I think that’s mostly because ATS does a better job at giving all of its characters focus and being consistent in their characterisation. Like, there’s honestly not a single character on ATS who isn’t fully developed. In comparison, BTVS is very, very Buffy-centric often at the detriment of the other characters. For example, Willow’s characterisation is very inconsistent, and characters like Tara and Oz have very flat characterisation, although they’re both very sweet and likeable.

I also find ATS a lot more emotionally effective than BTVS, in terms of the positive and negative emotions I experience whilst watching. Both shows explore very complex and emotional themes and issues, whilst injecting a decent amount of comedy in there too, but ATS hits the nail on the head a lot more for me in all these areas (likely because I’m more emotionally invested in the characters). Arcs like Darla’s in seasons 2 and 3, Wesley’s betrayal of Angel, Connor’s kidnapping (Connor’s entire arc, for that matter) and Fred’s death are so hard-hitting and heartbreaking. The emotion involved in the relationships between the characters also speaks to my heart much more than the relationships on BTVS. Both shows have great relationships, but the complexities of relationships like Angel and Darla, Angel and Connor, Wesley and Cordelia, Wesley, Cordy and Gunn (one of my favourite threesomes) etc. are all so beautifully developed and authentic.On the flip side, ATS is also funnier to me than BTVS. Once again, both shows have their witty one-liners and comedy gold moments, but ATS has funny moments in every single episode and actually makes me laugh out loud multiple times. The delivery and timing of the comedic moments perfectly weaves into the episodes, and the combination of personalities on ATS creates a very humorous atmosphere which perfectly off-sets the more serious tones of the show.

The final main reason I prefer ATS is because I enjoy the tone and themes of the show more. There’s the general assumption that ATS is more of an adult show than BTVS, and I don’t necessarily agree with that because although BTVS is set in a high school during the first three seasons, it explores very complex issues relating to adulthood, particularly in the later seasons. However, there is something about ATS that feels more mature than BTVS, if that’s even the right word? BTVS feels like it’s primarily about good overcoming evil, which although is a good theme, is very common and overdone in television. ATS, on the other hand, is about fighting for what you believe in no matter what and choosing to fight despite knowing the odds are stacked against you and that you might not win in the end. When you watch the finales of both shows you see these two core themes shining through brighter than ever, and they sit in contrast to one another. But that core theme of ATS appeals more to me because it’s more complex and it feels more human. In reality, there is no happily ever after, there’s never an end to the fight and it’s futile to go through life with a specific end goal in sight because when does it end? Where do we set that end goal? We shouldn’t live our lives seeking a particular reward for our hard work or efforts, because that’s hollow and not really what life is about. It’s easy for me to sit here now and think, “If I work really hard one day I can buy a house” and it’ll be a good motivator for me for a number of years, it’ll encourage me to keep working when I’m at my lowest ebb. But when I have that house what next? It might feel damn good for that first day when I have the keys in my hand and all the furniture is moved in, but life won’t have changed, I’m going to be the exact same person I was before I had that house and if my only goal and drive has been to get that house, what do I do now? What’s my purpose and drive now? Life means something different for everyone, but for me, it’s not about achieving a particular vision or end goal 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line, life is an ongoing experience and journey, where I need to fight in the face of adversity, always do my best, be humble and kind and understand that there is no reward at the ‘end’. There’s ongoing rewards and moments of joys dotted in between the bad days and low moods, and it’s about not letting those bad days/low moods define your entire life and getting stuck in them. I guess this comes back around to what I mentioned near the start, about how I personally relate to ATS on a deep level, because I find that core message inspirational and it’s given me an entirely new perspective on life, that I feel has benefited me a lot.

Phew! That got really deep for a minute there, sorry! But yeah, in a nutshell (a rather nutshell lmao) that’s why I prefer ATS over BTVS. Thanks for sending this in again, I love any excuse to discuss this stuff :)

[theajaheira]

regarding honor and honesty in the workplace (27/43)

read it on ao3!

god i forgot how excruciating this slow burn is. anyway.

from the personal files of Jenny Calendar:

I’m in love with Rupert.

I like putting that down in my files. Better than “the Wolfram and Hart case was a total fucking failure,” or “no one’s seen Angel, Wesley or Fred in weeks,” or “Cordelia keeps texting me with desperate pleas for help and answers, and I have to keep texting her back that I’m taking care of Rupert,” because the detective I was before this mess of a case wouldn’t hesitate to charge recklessly in to save the people in need of saving, and she’d be really fucking disappointed in my inability to do the same.

If it were only my life on the line, I’d be willing to be reckless. Faith’s always been aware of the line of work I’m in, and of the risks I take, and she knows that I do dumb things but I do it all to make sure people stay safe. If it was only me in danger, I’d throw myself back into working on this case, but

I can’t watch him take a bullet for me again

I won’t ever

It almost hurts, how much I

there are things I can’t ever risk losing.

Rupert was discharged from the hospital with an actual multiple-page pamphlet regarding taking care of the dressings and what would and wouldn’t be safe for him to try and do over the next few weeks (“I wouldn’t recommend getting frisky in the bedroom,” the nurse had said with a significant look at Jenny, which had made Jenny blush and Rupert utterly unable to look her in the eye for fifteen minutes after the fact), and Jenny went over what she’d read in the pamphlet like fifteen times in the car with the girls, who all wanted to help out in any way possible. Jenny, who had seen Buffy spill chicken soup on Dawn, Rupert, and Faith all at once while trying to play nurse, wasn’t exactly sure if this was a good idea, but didn’t want the girls to feel left out or nervous about Rupert’s getting better.

“I’ll be changing the dressings—” she began.

“Yeah, I bet you will,” said Faith significantly. Buffy elbowed her.

“Girls,” said Rupert, gentle but still reproving.

“That was Faith!” said Dawn indignantly. “Don’t girls us, that was Faith and if you start saying girls every time Faith does something dumb then you’re going to be girlsing us for the next month or so while she’s staying with us—”

“Excuse me, shortstop,” Faith huffed, “you’re expecting me to let a perfectly good innuendo just lie there?”

“Yes,” said Buffy, “please, that’s my dad you’re talking about—”

“And that’s my mom I’m talking about, you think I really wanna think about them having sex? I would make the same dumb joke about you—”

“Is that really supposed to justify your point?”

“Mo-om,” Faith whined, “B and Dawn are on my ass about one dumb joke I made—”

“You take this one, Jenny,” said Rupert, “I’m injured,” and did his best to look sufficiently wounded, slumping somewhat dramatically against the passenger-side door while smiling tremulously (and very theatrically) up at her. He looked like he was acting in a badly staged high school play.

I love this man, Jenny thought, with no small amount of exasperation, and used the rearview mirror to peer at the girls in the back of the car. “Listen,” she said. “I know all of you are kinda keyed up after the last few days—”

“You think?” said Buffy. Faith elbowed her. Buffy elbowed Faith back.

“—but I am going to murder each and every one of you if you don’t stop acting ten years younger than you are,” said Jenny, “and Rupert won’t be able to stop me, because he’s a soft guy and he’s still very injured. Cool?”

“Jenny, that isn’t disciplinary,” said Rupert reprovingly, but went back to looking wounded when she glared at him.

“No, Dad’s right,” said Buffy. “You need to discipline us, Jenny, not just make empty threats.”

“Fine,” said Jenny. “If you all make this needlessly difficult for me, I will cut off the wifi to the house and hack all your phones so you can’t use your mobile data. Deal?”

Faith, Buffy, and Dawn all exchanged small, exhausted smiles. Then Dawn said, “I like it when we’re all arguing about dumb things. It’s kinda better than—other things to be upset about,” and her eyes darted not-that-surreptitiously to the small bump on Rupert’s chest where the padding and bandages covered up his injury.

Jenny reached her hand backwards and felt someone take it—from the index-finger ring and the neatly manicured nails, she was pretty sure it was Buffy. “Yeah,” she said. “Thing is, though, we’ve all gotta give ourselves some space to be upset about what happened, okay? Don’t just start arguments because you want to argue about something that isn’t—” She inhaled, then said, “Um, Rupert’s—injury.”

Buffy swallowed hard and Jenny felt her grip tighten. “It really sucked,” she said. “And I really liked that pink dress.”

“I’ll get you five pink dresses,” said Rupert, and there was a note in his voice that made it very clear that he meant it. “If that’s what’ll make you feel better—”

“No,” said Buffy, then, “Maybe,” then, “Can we go to the same mall and then go to that fro-yo place?”

“Absolutely,” said Rupert, and gave Jenny a small, tired smile when she looked over at him. Jenny kept on holding Buffy’s hand.

Anya and Tara had brought over a boatload of things from Jenny and Faith’s place in a large moving truck. Anya was heading back down to Sunnydale—the Magic Box needed her, and she missed a less “trigger-happy” city—but Tara had decided to forgo returning to Sunnydale in favor of transferring to UCLA and staying at Jenny and Faith’s apartment while Jenny and Faith were at Rupert’s. “I-I wouldn’t want to impose on your time to heal,” she was saying to Faith, soft and sincere, “b-but this way I get to be in the city near. Um. Near you,” and then she stood on tiptoe, kissed Faith on the cheek, and headed back to the car with Anya.

“Oooh,” Buffy and Dawn began as soon as Tara was out of earshot. Faith punched Buffy’s shoulder, ruffled Dawn’s hair, and hurried inside, grinning broadly.

Jenny was more preoccupied with the intense amount of stuff Anya and Tara had brought over, all boxed up and ready to go. If she didn’t know better—she took another look inside the truck, and saw that pretty much the entirety of what had once furnished her apartment was stuffed into boxes, wrapped in newspaper, and cushioned by bubble wrap. “What, does she think I’m moving in with him?” she muttered, then started blushing.

“Do you need any—”

“Go lie down,” said Jenny without turning around.

“I can help—”

“Did you even read the pamphlet?”

“Yes,” said Rupert matter-of-factly, “because I knew you’d fuss regardless of what it said, and I know I’m allowed to lift at least a few of the smaller things. This isn’t a job you can do alone.”

“You and the kids need to rest,” said Jenny, who was already pre-exhausted from the argument she was sure they were about to have. Rupert looked at Jenny with a small frown. “What?”

“You’ve seemed—different,” said Rupert. “Since the gala. Like there’s something bothering you.”

“You got shot,” said Jenny thinly. “It’s not exactly going to be an easy transition from holding you while you bleed out to moving in with you and your kids.”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it,” said Rupert, quiet and deliberate. “I-I don’t know exactly what it is, but—Jenny, we’re partners. I want to help you in any way I can.”

Jenny managed a smile. “I’m just tired,” she said finally.

Rupert looked extremely satisfied with this. She didn’t realize exactly why until he asked, nonchalantly but very smugly, “Tired enough to warrant some help, I’d wager?”

I love this man, a frustrated Jenny thought, and wanted to start kicking all her belongings until they fell apart and no one could take anything out of the moving truck but her. “Fine!” she said very loudly, slumping against the side of the truck. “Fine, I’ll—I’ll find a ramp or something so we can—”

“Buffy and Faith can get one from the garage,” said Rupert, walking carefully and deliberately up to her. He leaned in, then kissed her forehead; Jenny heard herself exhale in a way that sounded uncomfortably close to a sob. “I love you,” he said, “and I’m going to be fine. All right?”

It took Jenny a moment to reply. There were a lot of ways a person could mean I love you, and she didn’t feel emotionally ready to press him or process things or any of the stuff that she probably should do. “Yeah, I love you too,” she said, and reached up to curl her hands around the lapels of his comfortably scratchy tweed jacket. Then, quietly, “I’ll kick your ass if you’re not fine.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure,” said Rupert, smiling at her a little exhaustedly.

They stayed like that for a few seconds longer, Rupert resting his forehead against Jenny’s, Jenny holding tightly to Rupert’s jacket. The image of Rupert bleeding out in the alley was faded in that moment, but it still felt etched onto the inside of Jenny’s eyelids—startling her every time she blinked. She liked the physicality of him being safe and close enough to touch even when she closed her eyes.

“I’ll go lie down,” said Rupert finally, but he didn’t move, and Jenny realized that he was waiting for her to pull away. Letting her call the shots, just like it had been—before Lilah.

Jenny stepped back and smiled at him, feeling strangely hollow and sad for someone who had been so close to the guy she was in love with. After she was certain that Rupert had entered the house and was heading towards some quality bed rest, she turned back to the truck and clambered awkwardly inside, lifting a box that read Faith’s Clothes and shifting it to her hip as she jumped back down onto the street.

[kyliafanfiction]

tagged by @scienceofficer-winifredburkle

Rules: Answer these AtS questions and tag 5 people to answer them too.

1. Rank the 5 seasons.

Season 4 - I know it goes in for a lot of hate, and I hate parts of it, but oh man, the Weslah, and the Faith and Wesley scenes (and just having Faith at all) and Willow's cameo and fucking HOME? This one is excellent.

Season 5 - I know I have ranted a lot about Season 5 before, and it all holds true, but Season 5 has some of the individually best episodes of the show, and there's much I do love about it - meeting Daddy Wyndam-Pryce (ish), Illyria, deep explorations of the morality of compromise... amazing

Season 3 - Wesley's journey into darkness begins here, he gets scruffier, we see a good amount of Lilah being Queen Bitch, the show starts to shed some of the bad aspects of its campiness while keeping the good campy stuff

Season 1 - A solid crime of the week season, though much of the Noir erodes away over time.

Season 2 - overall, a good season, but worst of the five, IMO. The whole Darla and Darla and Drusilla Arcs just don't work for me, and Pylea is great but is largely tacked on. It feels... disjointed.

2. 5 favorite characters?

Wesley Wyndam Pryce - Badass, complex, tragic and just a lot of fascinating fun to watch, read and write.

Faith Lehane - Sure this is cheating, but c'mon, she's Faith

Lilah Morgan - The Queen Bitch, take no shit mistress of amazingness. Lilah Morgan is Better Than You™ and she knows it. She has an amazing wit and for being undeveloped in many ways, has a lot of depth.

Cordelia Chase - Blunt, tactless (but better about it) and amazing. She probably wouldn't have fit in Season 5 as it worked, but I still wish she'd been there. Don't agree she was assassinated though.

Angel - "Man this socializing is brutal."

Honorable mention to the amazing Kate Lockley, who would have been on the top five if she'd been in more seasons.

3. 5 favorite relationships (of any kind)?

Weslah - Right now, Weslah tops the list. Dark, and right on the edge, with delicious delicious grey morality. Also, it's just an objectively hot ship.

Faithsley - These two, permanently changed by their experiences, having essentially passed eachother on oppsite trajectories.

Lockangel (Kate Lockley x Angel) - just everything about their dynamic, even non-romantically, is amazing. And funny. And so much MISSED OPPORTUNITY!

Team Angel - just the entire team as a family. Excellently awesome.

Wesley and Angel - I do think Wesley (everyone's favorite repressed bisexual) absolutely had a thing for Angel, but also, just their dynamic in every way - Wesley fills an essential role for Angel in his heroic journey, and they complement eachother in so many excellent ways.

4. Favorite minor villain?

I'm gonna have to go with Justine. There's so much that could be done with her. She's quite an interesting character. What happens to her afterwards? Does she find some measure of peace? Does she keep hunting vampires, even if she does stay away from Angel and Co? Does she really realize just how much Holtz used her and what that says about the state she was in then?

5. Favorite location?

The W&H Offices.

6. Choose 3 episodes that are a must-watch:

Lineage, Release and Time Bomb. Honorable mention to Origin. Amazing acting and writing.

7. Choose 3 episodes that are feel-good:

Do they even exist? Uhm...

To Shanshu in L.A. Conviction. Heartthrob.

8. Choose 3 episodes that have personal significance.

There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb - "You try not to get anybody killed, you wind up getting everybody killed."

Home - "Flames Wouldn't Be Eternal If They Consumed Anything" Gets me bawling every time. Or at least tearing up.

Lonely Hearts - Such a powerful commentary on dating and relationships - why do we keep doing it when it so often goes bad or meh or just... doesn't seem worth the work?

Angel:  “It’ll be out there.  It’s got to keep trying to make a connection.” Cordy:  “Why?” Angel:  “Because that’s what lonely people do.”

I tag... @mossomness and @carry-on-my-wayward-wesley @buffster

[kyrumption]

grey's anatomy and angel!

grey’s anatomy

Top 5 favourite characters: izzie, meredith, cristina, bailey, callie

Other characters you like: alex, addison, richard, mark, lexie, george, april, jackson, jo... honestly i like most of the characters tbh!!

Least favourite characters: owen and arizona

Otps: alex/izzie and meredith/derek are the main two in my heart but also a fan of mark/lexie, alex/addison, alex/jo, jackson/april, ben/bailey

Notps: callie/arizona, cristina/owen

Favourite friendship: every combo of magic but meredith/cristina is the most important but i would still die for george/izzie, also callie/bailey, richard/meredith, callie/mark, derek/mark

Favourite family: meredith/lexie

Favourite episode: losing my religion, an iconic episode of television

Favourite season/book/movie: two! my all time favourite, absolute best, most consistent season of any show ever!

Favourite quote: “i think you can't wait for someone to fly underneath you and save your life. i think you have to save yourself.”

When it really disappointed you: ooof. the way they wrote off izzie is something i truly don’t think i will ever get past. a lot of character exit’s have been poorly handled imo. a lot of the later seasons in general is just dissapointing

Saddest moment: izzie lying in bed with denny

Most well done character death: mark

Favourite guest star: there have literally been thousands. let’s just say demi lovato cause i don’t care oops

Favourite cast member: god i’m so distanced from the grey’s fandom at this point but i’m always here to fight katherine heigl haters

Character you wish was still alive: ....george

Most shocking twist: “JOHN DOE IS GEORGE”

When did you start watching/reading: like lost, i used to watch grey’s with my mum when i was younger (way too young tbh) and i got really obsessed with it when i was 9, when s3 was airing!

Trope you wish they would stop using: just like. bad writing

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: diversity, probably. i’m very white and not one to speak with any authority on this but yeah

Funniest moments: the line "dr. yang and my wife sometimes have sleepovers, in my bed, with me in it” always kills me. also derek dancing to try and cheer meredith up is. peak physical comedy

Most boring plotline: a lot of the merger stuff in s6 is beyond me and i haven’t watched/cared enough about the bad stuff later on to remember oops

Most layered character: cristina probably

Best looking male: jackson

Best looking female: addison

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: i genuinely don’t remember a time in my life without this trash show so..

angel

Top 5 favourite characters: cordy, angel, fred, gunn, lorne

Other characters you like: lilah, darla, never really know where to put faith but she can go here, doyle

Least favourite character: spike but like. is he really an ats character? maybe it’s just that i don’t claim s5 but. i just never associate him with ats lol so in that case, wesley

Otps: angel/cordelia

Notps: fred/wesley. i don’t have the words to talk about this so all i’m gonna say is no i fucking hate it.

Favourite friendship: cordy/gunn, cordy/fred, wes/angel angel/fred, lorne/fred, angel/lorne

Favourite family: all the combos of angel investigations

Favourite episode: my cordy loving ass has seen birthday approximately 27 times. i also love the pylea arc and five by five/sanctuary

Favourite season/book/movie: three is my favourite bc of reasons but two is The Best

Favourite quote: i’m always a slut for angel’s champion speech in the s4 premiere

When it really disappointed you: uh all of s4/5 ha ha a

Saddest moment: fred breaking down to her parents in fredless is p devastating

Most well done character death: doyle

Favourite guest star: eliza dushku

Favourite cast member: charisma carpenter, the love of my life

Character you wish was still alive: hahahahaha

When did you start watching/reading: 2015 i think? idk time is fake

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: morally grey characters i guess?

Funniest moments: angel singing karaoke. always

Most boring plotline: so much of s4 and 5 rip

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: darla’s flashbacks!!

Most layered character: angel and cordy

Best looking male: gunn and wes

Best looking female: cordy and lilah

Who you’re crushing on (if any): cordy always

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: i don’t remember exactly tbh so much of me watching ats for the first time is a haze but probably s2

[we-pay-for-everything]

Not criticizing at all, just so curious: you say you’re ambivalent about Cordelia because she can be mean and arrogant, but absolutely love Lilah, who is the meanest and most arrogant character ever!

Hey anon! Forgot about you for awhile. Sorry!

Well, comparing villains to heroes isn’t exactly fair. When you like a villain, their evilness isn’t usually something you appreciate. People like villains because they can be witty, fun, intelligent, cunning, well dressed, well spoken, and also honest in a cynical way. 

I mean, that’s pretty much why I like Lilah. She is mean, but she’s a villain so she’s supposed to be evil. She’s also doing her job at W&H and doesn’t give a shit about what how imoral her actions are.

I do disagree that she’s arrogant. I don’t think she is. She’s confident in the sense that she knows she’s a smart, capable person. She’s done much in her life and knows her limits. However, she doesn’t think too much of herself. She knows she’s not one of the good guys, she knows her life isn’t wonderful. She doesn’t act as if she’s better than Angel or Wesley or even Lindsey. She’s not humble but she isn’t arrogant. She projects a sure, unflappable image of herself that she knows is mostly false. You can see some of her insecurities in her relationship to Wesley and how she reacts to Fred. 

As for Cordelia, she’s a “champion” so I judge her differently. Lilah can be mean, and even arrogant, but Cordelia isn’t supposed to be. She’s the character that judges mean people like Lilah, so she should be worthy of passing judgment. Yet, she really isn’t. She’s not selfless or kind enough to hold herself as highly as she does. She is arrogant. She believed that after 3 years of having visions she deserved to ascend and become a higher being. Lilah would never be so arrogant or foolish!

Cordelia is in love with the idea of being good because it gives her life meaning and provides more reasons for her to like herself. A lot of people are like that. And yes, Cordelia is mostly good and tries to be good and gives up her life for it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exempt her from being self-centered, hypocritical and occasionally mean. 

In a nutshell the difference is this: Lilah is mean because that’s her function in the story and she does it well. She has plenty of other qualities that I admire though. Cordelia is a hero, but she fails multiple times in that regard, which makes it hard to enjoy her character. A hero who acts like a hero but kind of isn’t is the type of character that I dislike. 

Being a good person is hard. It requires effort, and constantly being aware and open to improvement. Most people are neither good nor bad. Labeling yourself a good person is okay, but you should be aware that things aren’t always black and white and people can be good in different ways. One of the most arrogant things you can do is fool yourself into thinking that you are unequivocally a good person and that it gives you the right to judge others and their actions. You can judge a rapist, a nazi, a murderer or simply someone who is an asshole. But people are nuanced and most of the times things are trickier. I never like characters who don’t understand this, like Cordelia. Because, to me, part of being a good person is understanding that you can always be better or worse, and that everything is circumstantial. Angel and Wesley, for example, get this. Cordelia doesn’t. 

I hope that made sense? Feel free to tell me what you think. Thanks a lot for the ask! 

[randomly-random-jen]

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

an Angel the Series fanfic

It's the first Christmas for Angel Investigations, but Angel isn't really in the mood. Too bad Cordelia has other plans. Set in season one sometimes after Doyle died. This story was originally written in 2014. It’s been lightly edited for composition and clarity and reposted for the holidays.

1550 words | [PG]

“What’s all this?” Angel asked, pushing aside the cage door of the elevator.

Cordelia balanced on a chair, a string of brightly colored lights in her hand. She smiled down at him. “It’s Christmas, silly.”

“Yeah, but what are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

Angel crossed his arms. “It looks like you’re decorating my office with Christmas lights.”

“Ding, ding. Ten points for the vampire with the grasp of the obvious.”

Wesley came in before Angel could retort, lights twisted around both arms and his neck. He held out the strand, apparently looking for the ends. “I think these things came straight from Hell to torment me. Who put these away last year?”

They both glanced at Angel. “I don’t do Christmas. Take them down.”

“Angel-”

“No. Take them down.” He pushed past Wesley into the outer office. Lights twinkled from around the edge of the room with large plastic snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. He poured a cup of coffee and took a sip. He cringed, barely able to swallow. “Cordelia!”

Cordelia popped her head out of the office.

“What’s wrong with the coffee?”

She came all of the way out, hands on her hips. “It’s seasonal. It has nutmeg in it.”

Angel glared. “I don’t want seasonal coffee; I want normal coffee.” He put the cup down a little harder than necessary.

“Why are you so grumpy?”

“Because there’s a Christmas tree in my office, nutmeg in my coffee, and is that Bing Crosby?” He cocked his head at the music playing softly from a nearby radio.

Cordelia shrugged. Wesley came out of Angel’s office looking a little less tangled. “I think I have-” He yelped in surprise as he faceplanted in the doorway. Angel and Cordelia just stood there staring. “I’m okay; I’m okay,” Wesley said.

“See, they’re a tripping hazard.”

Wesley got up, dusting himself off.

“Well, traditionally they hang from the ceiling.”

“No.”

“Angel-”

“I said, ‘no.’ Take them down.” He huffed, going back into his office. “And make some real coffee.”

* * *

Cordelia flinched as the door slammed in her face. With a sigh, she began rolling up the lights on the floor. Wesley pulled the snowflakes from the ceiling with a snap of each string.

“I thought you said he wouldn’t mind,” said Wesley. “He’ll probably cut off our mutual communication-”

“He’s not going to kick you out, Wesley. It’s fine. Let’s just-” She looked around sadly. “Clean this up.”

She tossed the rolled up lights into a box on her desk then dumped the coffee. When the new pot was freshly brewed, she poured a cup to take to Angel. She slammed the cup in front of him causing him to jump back.

“Regular coffee without a hint of holiday cheer anywhere to be seen.”

Angel growled, wiping coffee from the paper he’d been reading. “Cordelia-”

“No, don’t talk to me. I want to be mad right now.”

He frowned up at her. “That’s not very Christmasey of you.”

She pulled the chair she’d been using earlier to the edge of the room and climbed onto it. “Well, apparently Christmas is canceled within the confines of this office. So-” She began undoing the lights. “I mean it’s not like our clients will miss the cheer,” she muttered. “The only thing that might make their miserable lives a little brighter as they deal with whatever it is they’re dealing with. Not like we couldn’t use a little cheer ourselves. Nah, we wouldn’t want that. Much better to glower and brood and-”

“Cordelia,” Angel yelled. “Do you have something to say to me?” He turned to face her, arms crossed.

Cordelia glared down at him. “Of course not. You’re the boss, and if you want the lights down, then the lights will come down.”

Angel huffed. “Well, can we do it without all of the passive-aggressive hostility?”

“Probably not.”

Grumbling to himself, he threw open the cage to the elevator. “I’ll be downstairs then.”

Outside, Wesley shouted, tumbling forward and landing with a loud thud. “I’m okay!”

* * *

When Angel dared go upstairs again, he found Cordelia sitting at her desk, not a decoration to be seen. She flipped the pages of a magazine.

“What happened to the tree?”

“Wesley took it home,” she said without looking up.

“Any messages?”

“Nope.”

Angel poured another cup of coffee and went back to his office. Things had been slow the last week. And slow meant he had time to think. And thinking led to more thinking. He rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t want to think. Then he’d remember everything that was missing in his life. He could really go for some action. Maybe Cordelia would have a vision.

Just then, Cordelia peeked her head in. “I’m going to go run some errands, okay? I’ll be back in a couple hours.” She didn’t wait for Angel to answer.

The office was unnaturally quiet without her around, and Angel was surprised to find out how much he didn’t miss the solitude. He picked up a penny from the floor. Holding it on end with one finger, he flicked it with his other hand. It spun around and around, dancing across his desk.

“Knock, knock.”

Angel looked up to find Wesley standing in the doorway, looking sullen. “What? Do you need help with a case? Tell me you need help.”

“Actually-” He ventured a few steps in. “I wanted to talk about Cordelia.”

“What about her?” Angel got up and started rummaging through his file cabinet.

“It’s just- I know I haven’t been here very long, but I can’t help but notice-” He trailed off, licking his kips.

“Notice what?”

“That Cordelia seems a little-”

Angel waited, back to Wesley.

“Sad. I know things happened here before I arrived with Doyle and-”

“What are you getting at, Wesley,” Angel asked, banging the drawer shut.

Wesley took a step forward. “I’m saying that I haven’t seen her as bright and excited as I did this morning when she found those decorations. She needed that cheer.”

Angel dropped back into his chair, feeling heavier than he had in a long time. He felt like crap. Crappier than normal. “Things haven’t been right since-”

“Cordelia is hurting.”

“She seems fine to me.”

Wesley sat down across the desk. “That’s because you don’t want to see it. She feels like you’ve shut her out.”

“She told you that,” Angel asked with a frown. He got back up, pacing behind his desk and feeling more than a little trapped.

“Not in so many words, no. But it’s plain to see.” Wesley got up, too. “She’s all alone here.”

Their eyes met, and Wesley gave a weak smile.

“All of us are alone here,” Angel murmured.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t have to be that way.”

* * *

Cordelia shuffled the bags and boxes between her hands as she tried to open the door to the building. Her arms hurt from carrying everything the two blocks from her car, and now the entire load threatened to topple. She finally pushed the door in, but almost tripped across the lobby and into the door of Angel Investigations.

She shoved that door open with a bang. “The parking sucks around here. I had to walk-”

The top box lifted from her pile to expose a smiling Angel. Behind him, Wesley beamed. Then she noticed it—the twinkling colored lights strung from every inch of the office.

“What’s going on?”

Wesley helped relieve her of the rest of her load. “Well, we just-”

“We just thought-” Angel broke in. “I mean, I thought maybe I was a little too-”

“Harsh?” Cordelia provided.

Angel swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Do you like it?” asked Wesley. “We put the tree back up. See?”

Cordelia pushed past Angel to sort through her bags. Supplies were put away in silence. She didn’t look at either of them.

“Um-” Angel started.

She glared at him.

“Cordelia.” Angel tried to stop her as she passed again, but she dodged out of his grip.

“No.”

“No what?”

“I’m still mad at you.”

Angel followed her into his office where she set down a box of paper reams. “I put the stuff back up.”

She turned, arms crossed over her chest. “That’s not why I’m mad.” She sighed. “You yelled at me.”

Angel stared at his feet. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you really? Or are you just saying that because it’s what I want to hear?”

“Of course, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. It’s just- I’m not really the holiday kind of person. And things have been so strained since-”

Cordelia put a hand on his arm. “I know. I miss him, too, but he wouldn’t want us moping around the office. I have a feeling Doyle would have gone all out for Christmas. He seemed like a holiday kind of person.”

A small smile spread across Angel’s face. “You’re probably right.”

“Of course I am.”

His smile widened. “I really am sorry about earlier.”

“Well,” she said with an evil grin, “you can make it up to me with multiple gifts. I like jewelry, shoes, and money.”

“Right, presents.” He grimaced.

“Multiple presents.” She patted his arm as she went into the outer office. “Merry Christmas.”

Angel sighed. “Merry Christmas.”

[tialovestelevision]

Carpe Noctem

Hello, gentle readers. I’m Tia’s dragon - I write under ruckafangirl here on tumblr, on the rare occasions I actually write anything for tumblr - and I’m going to be covering a couple of episodes for my princess while she’s in the back recovering from an overdose of gloom and misery brought on by too much grimdark. Let’s all try to get along and do our best while we sort out the seething mess that is this episode, shall we?

1. We open on the Hyperion and a jumpscare from Fred and minor social friction with Cordy. I really feel for Fred here - she’s artlessly trying for some bonding with the group particularly Cordy (the only other woman in the group) and failing at it because Pylea. There’s an interesting structural echo here - in an episode about boundaries and unwelcome intrusions, we start with Fred scaring Cordy with questionably welcome nearness. We’ll come back to that in a bit.

2. In spite of Fred’s musing about how deep Angel’s reading habits are, he’s reading the local paper’s community section and getting hyped about a Charlton Heston double feature. The thud with which it lands is notable. Fred, however, is excited. Great little subtle bit of acting from David here - the way in which he proceeds to bother everyone else about leaving has the subtle effect of suggesting he’s uncomfortable with going alone with Fred but wants the company enough to go along with her coming anyway. He also continues Angel’s habit of talking too much when he’s trying to cover for social awkwardness.

3. Switching scenes to a hot (I think? I don't really get male attractiveness) guy in bed with a couple of women who are ready to take a break from the sex we’re supposed to believe they’ve been having. Also, that’s a terrible way to treat a martini. For which he is duly punished by the realization that he has to go by way of melting everything inside his skin with a mystical incantation. Fun touch here: the vibe between the women and the guy (them hesitant for more but overall willing, him pushing) would form a nice mirror image to Angel and Fred in the previous scene if the supporting cast they hired to do this bit were better at their jobs. As it is, the corny dialogue and mediocre acting mean you have to really look for it.

4. Wes is suffering through Fred’s replay of the evening with Angel. I particularly like her observation about the popcorn - active consent in food sharing, she’s into it. Also traditional masculinity props like walking on the street side and holding doors for her. Put a pin in that, because we’re coming back to it at the end. “You know that awkward kind of quiet?” Why yes, Fred, yes he does. Now.

5. Cordy now wants to a Talk with Angel about Fred’s crush. Which is a bit that reads a little weirdly, because the script obviously wants us to treat this as an Important Moment, but David is sitting there with a look on his face that says “I know all this already and urgently don’t want to admit it to myself.” His delivery of the line “it was just a movie” on the heels of his awkwardness in the earlier scene particularly sells the idea that this is a guy who’s perfectly aware that Fred is crushing on him and is urgently trying to pretend otherwise so he doesn’t have to deal with the social awkwardness of his latest protectee’s feelings. Then Cordy launches into a list of his virtues and defects, and the scene switches tones very abruptly into a “smile, smile, object” gag that seems to be primarily about Angel feeling vulnerable about his inability to have sex. More awkward silence. Hey, look, Cordy is stomping all over his boundaries by literally walking him into the room with Fred! Yet more awkward silence. Hey, saved by the bodies hitting the floor! Angel is avoiding conflict by throwing himself at his work.

6. Hey, look, more unwelcome social contact - Gavin following Lilah around and showing off how impressive he is. She doesn’t care for him and plans to make his life more difficult. Possibly Angel. Possibly both.

7. Mooooore awkward silence during the briefing. Followed by leaving Fred standing by herself, talking to herself. Because Cordy is happy to make a big show of worrying about Fred’s feelings when she sees the possibility of something bad happening with Angel, but proactively engaging the shut-in? Nah. Too much work.

8. Cordy brings up professional/personal boundaries and drops the idea in mid-sentence to go hit on buff guys. O...kay? Where are you going with this, script? Now Angel is fast-talking his way past Phil, who is obviously not overly endowed in the brains department (stereotypes about men at gyms much, show?). More Cordy hitting on gym guys and collecting their home numbers under false pretenses. Which they are buying because apparently they don’t have two brain cells to rub between them. Meanwhile, Angel has picked up on someone watching the pilates class from a retirement community because... he’s good at identifying creepy voyeuristic behavior during the night? Awkward symbolism is awkward.

9. Creepy Marcus Roscoe is creepy. Though the business card thing doesn’t make Angel seem any less creepy. He’s pouring on the charm, but there’s something hard under that. There’s a lot of nice detective work in this scene - Angel picking up things that don’t quite fit in their context and trying to find a model that works for them - and the chemistry between the actor they have playing Marcus and Angel is pretty good. Angel’s arrogance about the body-swap spell is played pretty nicely - he’s counting on being a vampire to protect him and it doesn’t.

10. David does an interesting job of playing Marcus here - the way he’s trying to get used to the new body and enjoying it at the same time, the way he really creepily looks Cordy up and down. The gap between what he’s saying and what Cordy’s reading him as saying because she knows Angel and thinks of him a certain way resonates with the earlier conversation between Angel and Cordy about Fred - what’s actually being said and what each person thinks is being said by the other are very different, and both people are drawing their conclusions based on what they want to believe. You can actually see Cordy pick up a vibe from him and dismiss it because “that’s not what Angel could possibly mean.”

11. So we get some fun watching Marcus trip over his lack of knowledge, but he’s back on his creepy track in short order with a not-very-clever pass at Cordy. We’re paying off the conversations about workplace and personal boundaries here, though admittedly not very subtly. They do an interesting play on traditional excuses for workplace harassment here - Marcus-as-Angel says something totally inappropriate and Cordy immediately assumes he’s making fun of her for the pending Fred conversation because (again) she categorizes him as “safe” in her head. There’s also a pretty funny gag using Marcus’s unfamiliarity with the situation and Fred’s nickname to give him the impression Angel is gay (Angel’s clothes help) that mostly steers clear of being played for homophobia, so that’s nice. It would be nicer if we ever actually got any queer representation in Angel which is SET IN LA, but you know, whatever.

12. Meanwhile, Angel wakes up in Marcus’s body and we have some sight-gags about the infirmities of age. He calls the hotel and Marcus-as-Angel gives him some shit and says some lovely misogynistic crap about Cordelia that makes us all want to punch him. Aaand now the health-care worker is walking Angel back to his room and giving us a quick fill-in about Marcus’s streak of body-stealing. Nice fridge horror moment there.

13. So, Marcus tore the office apart and then fell asleep in a chair? Logic is a bit lacking. And now Cordy’s holding out on the casefile until he has the talk. With Fred. Who he presumes Wesley must be because English and making tea equals gay? Ugh. It builds heat for the villain effectively, but there’s something uncomfortable about the show going there with Wes’s “questionable masculinity” when Buffy played with it so often in a pejorative way. Put a pin in that while I try to reduce my blood pressure.... the actors at least play it well.

14. And now Gunn’s back and Marcus is adding being a racist prick and rude to delivery-people to his resume of awful. Everyone thinks it’s weird that Angel is eating (and whose food is he eating, by the way?) but nobody seems to be paying it any attention. We find out that the women in that first Marcus-related scene were paid escorts, which brings back the work/personal boundary idea again and also makes it a lot more uncomfortable (and raises my opinion of the actresses and scripting in the scene) in retrospect. Issues of performance, boundaries and expectation at play there - Marcus is paying for sex and expecting a lot more of it than is normally implicit in the transaction, but playing off his borrowed physique and male privilege to run right over that boundary. Speaking of boundaries, Marcus’s smokescreen about privacy points to the way that private investigation steps all over those and Gunn is echoing Cordelia’s earlier workplace-related creepiness with wanting to interview the escorts. What’s funny when talking about physically fit men comes off not funny at all when talking about women in a traditionally vulnerable trade. Bad Gunn! Bad! And Wesley is getting in on the badness, too. Thank you, Cordy, for at least pointing that out. Aaand Marcus is creepy. They’re now leaving him alone in the hotel. That ain’t gonna go well.

15. Angel in distress. Cute baby. Evidence being shredded. Yeah, not going well. And now we’re about to have our first scene with Marcus-as-Angel and Fred, which is enough to make my skin try to crawl off on its own. Drama is drama, but do we really have to play the vulnerability of the traumatized woman whose coding is “Southern,” “young” and “romantically innocent” for cheap chills? That’s obviously the point of the episode, but it’s frankly not a good scripting decision.

16. A couple of things from this scene are worth calling out. First, Marcus uses the same pick-up line on Fred as he did on Cordy. Cordy reads it as a joke because she sees Angel as safe and a buddy. Fred takes it with flustered excitement because she reads Angel as safe and chivalrous. When Lilah comes into the scene, it breaks the tension a little, but knowing Fred is upstairs and about to go out with this man who she thinks is safe and isn’t is terrifying.

17. About the Lilah scene: Marcus is a creeper with a one-note schtick. Also, watching Lilah trying to read what’s going on is fascinating. Quick cut to Angel having a heart attack in Marcus’s body instead of that, which is annoying, but at least Lilah’s still there when we get back. The transition to sex here is a little strange - are we meant to think that Lilah is really buying this as Angel? - but I’m honestly just so relieved that this is killing time that we might spend seeing Fred get creeped on that I don’t care. But hey, them doing it in the office after she’s done him a favor to get back at her workplace rival at least makes the shredding of personal and professional boundaries really, really blatant. Aaand there’s Fred. Thank you, creepy Marcus-man, for averting that shit with your crappiness. But now you know you’re a vampire, so that’s going to lead to other creepiness.

18. Cordy makes a cheap prostitute joke. Boo, Cordy. And now Fred is having emotional pain, and I’m meant to sympathize, but I’m still too busy with relief. Nice callback to having different conversations here, though - Cordy thinks Fred is broken up about one thing, and she’s actually talking about something totally different.

19. Now Marcus is out cruising the town looking for blood? Sex? Both? We get a weird nightclub scene which is played without dialogue, entirely on stereotypes, and now a woman is being saved from murder by Marcus discovering Angel’s other superpowers. This plays very nicely with pointing out just how terrifying Angel’s powers set is when he isn’t driving it. Put pin number three in that thought while we go to the reveal!

20. Wes puts it all together finally after some unpleasant alpha-male commentary from Gunn and a gag about Buffy and Angel from Cordy. Dramatic rush to the retirement community to save Angel-as-Marcus from Marcus-as-Angel’s attempt to secure his spot in the undead body forever. This is an okay sequence, playing interestingly on the fear of patricide, but it wouldn’t really work if David didn’t do such a fantastic job of playing Marcus as a bad Angelus rip-off. It has a nice feel-good payoff of friends being the key to saving you and Wesley gets a good moment, but mainly it feels like we’re wrapping up the show in a couple minutes because we’re running out of runtime. Pacing is not this show’s friend. Hey, look, it’s the hero walk from the opening sequence!

21. Now we get Angel and Fred talking in the garden. At least Fred already has all the facts because Cordelia got there first, and Angel is self-aware enough to be glad of that. Aaand now Fred’s sharing her pain. Which is promptly interrupted by the news that Buffy’s alive, and I’d be a lot happier about that if it weren’t being played to make me feel for Fred’s competitive heartbreak. Aaaand credits. Done. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Analysis: Yes. Yes it was. To start with the pure technical question of this as an hour of television - what the hell happened with their sense of pacing? The writing’s not terrible (its use of symbolism and theme is actually decent) and the actors give it their all, but it rambles along with all the tension coming from our fear of what might happen to Fred and/or Angel in Marcus’s body and then fails to have a climax worth mentioning. Its comedy is only funny in a wince inducing way, the drama falls flat and it doesn’t even really commit to the horror premise of our female characters being in danger from a misogynistic creep in Angel’s body - it brings in Lilah and then the random woman in the bar to take those hits instead, as if somehow that’s more acceptable (one of them’s an evil lawyer and the other is cheating on her boyfriend with a hot guy, they CLEARLY have it coming /sarcasm). We’re left with some mild workplace harassment of Cordy, a wince-worthy scene with Marcus-as-Angel and Wes that hinges on stereotypes about gay men and heartbreak from Fred (our designated Innocent Female Victim) that we’re supposed to care about while being relieved that her ‘virtue’ was protected. Ugh. Not a good show.

But we should pick up those three pins from earlier for a minute and at least talk about the premise itself.

A) Angel is depicted by Fred as a chivalrous model for men, which is why she has feelings about him. Cordy says similar things about him, then complicates it by pointing out all the ways he doesn’t fit it (history of violence, lack of sexual availability, etc).

B) Wes’s masculinity versus Angel’s is a running thing in the story - Marcus reads him as “less manly” and therefore gay, Gunn makes jokes about Angel reclaiming the desk sexually, we’re expected to read something slighting about Wes into Fred talking to Wes about Angel at such length.

C) Marcus-as-Angel is a lesson in how scary power is when it’s being driven by someone without restraint, yes, but it’s also about what Marcus does with that power - he beats up other men and assaults women. Pay attention to what he says to Angel in their last scene together - “You don’t deserve that body,” he says, as if Angel’s unwillingness to assert his physical and sexual prowess is a sin.

So what we’ve got here, a step or two down, is a contrast of two archetypes of masculinity with a nod to a third: the competitive, pumped-up, strength-flaunting sexual predator and the chivalric, chaste knight who rushes about saving women from monsters and relies on his friends, plus nerdy English guys who make tea and whose masculinity is questioned. Everything the writers show us is designed to show off how icky the first is and engage our admiration for the second, while making snide jokes about Wesley. On one level, that’s actually really problematic - chivalric concepts of masculinity are almost always tied up in ideas about “worthy” women (writers, I’m looking at you and the way you set Lilah up for sexual assault here), and they’re frequently a cover for a lot of implicit sexual violence. But let’s credit the writers with actually having one good point, whether they mean to or not, and jump off from “are there any men who aren’t dogs” (thanks Cordelia) to try reading this as a critique of toxic masculinity. Because what’s good about Angel, in this reading, isn’t his strength or his good looks or his cool car - it’s his geeky love of old movies, his willingness to admit his weakness in the conversation with Fred at the end, his reliance on his friends, his willingness to use his power (metaphor for male privilege much?) to help others without expecting thanks. What’s bad about him is his macho posturing (it gets him into trouble in the first place), his lack of communication (avoiding talking with Fred, his going off without talking to Cordy because he’s being snippy about her talking to the gym boys) and his insecurity about his sexual problems. In other words, it’s the ways he’s still tied up with the same conventional hyper-masculinity that Marcus is willing to kill people to embody again (and that we're making fun of Wesley for not measuring up to, but let's stay on point). Which brings me back to the hallway scene and David playing Marcus as Angel when he’s stalking Angel in Marcus’s body, and how reminiscent that is of Angelus.

Because the dirty secret of Buffy Season 3 and a lot of Angel is this: Angelus is predatory masculinity - the same predatory masculinity that Marcus hams up playing at - embodied. We meet him for the first time as a metaphor for a boyfriend turned abusive in Innocence, and from the first scene when he’s callous to Buffy after her first sexual experience, he’s playing on every social trope we have for a man who mistreats women. He’s manipulative, cruel, obsessed with conquest, basically the whole list. So we take as our hero, in Angel, a chivalric man from another time who’s walking around with all this dark ugliness of masculinity just one moment of orgasm away from ... wait a minute. Oh dear.

Now we’re back to being problematic again, aren’t we?

I could do six more paragraphs on the way that the series privileges certain kinds of pain (and certain people’s pain) over others, but I think I’ve taxed y’all’s patience long enough. Thanks for hanging with me today, and I’ll see you all around the web.

[kelasparmak]

001: Vorkosigan Saga. 002: Charles Gunn/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

OH MAN THIS GOT LONG

Vorkosigan Saga:

Favorite character: Hmmm, tough one. No, just kidding, everyone who’s ever met me knows Bel’s my favourite, hands down, no contest.

Least Favorite character: I mean, there are a lot of baddies to pick from. Ryoval, Ser Galen and Bruce Van Atta all rate highly.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This one actually is tricky, since I really really like a lot of the canon relationship dynamics. Byerly and Ivan definitely, Aral and Cordelia (and Oliver Jole, though it’s Aral and Cordelia’s dynamic that I’m particularly fond of), Ethan and Terrence, Simon and Alys, and I think Miles and Bel. (Honourable mentions go to Bel and Nicol, Ivan and Tej, and Elli and Elena, which is a pairing I’d not actually really considered until I got desperate for Vorkosigan fic and ran the Russian works on AO3 through Google Translate and found some really interesting fic.)

Character I find most attractive: My mental images of book characters are generally super vague and I’m eh about attractiveness anyway, but thinking about it I’d probably say Rish, Taura or Dono Vorrutyer.

Character I would marry: I’d be quite happy marrying an awful lot of them, really. Bel, for preference, since I’m practically in actual bona fide love with it.

Character I would be best friends with: I’d like to say Bel, but I don’t think I’m exciting enough. My actual best friends through life have mostly been more like Tej or maybe the younger Kareen, so maybe one of them? Tej and I could definitely bond over language learning. (I would also love to be best friends with Byerly, but again, I don’t think we have the same idea of a good time.)

A random thought: The first thing that springs to mind is my fascination with the fact that Bel and Jole had a fling back in the day. When was this? How (hilariously) would Miles react? I would love for Bel, Nicol, Garnet Five and Corbeau (since he’s the Barrayaran Imperium’s ambassador or attache or whatever to Quaddiespace) to visit Sergyar and pop in on Miles, and have that awkward ‘yes, we’ve met’ conversation when Miles tried to introduce them to each other. Well, awkward for Miles and Jole, at least; Bel and Cordelia would no doubt find it hilarious.

An unpopular opinion: Iiiii don’t really like that more or less everyone ended up paired off to an Appropriately Gendered Spouse, with a bureaucratic position and babies ever after. I mean, that’s an oversimplification and there are exceptions (like Elli, or Ethan and Terrence, though that’s implied rather than explicit and since Athos is men-only it feels a little ‘for lack of alternative Terrence might end up with a guy and if he does it’ll probably be Ethan’) but that’s how it feels to me. I don’t know how unpopular that opinion is, though.

My canon OTP: Aral/Cordelia

Non-canon OTP: Byerly/Ivan (I mean, we’ve essentially had this question already)

Most badass character: I think Taura or Elli, probably? Miles is definitely a contender too, but I suppose because you see him wallowing in self-pity or making it up as he goes or doing extremely silly things pretty often the overall effect is perhaps diminished a little. Though I think overall the sheer amount of obstacles, self-imposed as well as external, that he manages to overcome, might put him at the top of the list.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Leo/Silver, probably. I don’t think it was very ethical for Leo to get involved, at least not at that point - I’m not sure if she was canonically a great deal younger than him or if I’ve just imagined that, but there’s a huge gap in terms of life experience, and I think that given the way Van Atta had exploited her very very recently, Leo should have given her some space and time and the tools to figure out what she wanted before he got involved with her.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Bothari’s portrayal made me pretty uncomfortable at times. Not sure if it was necessarily a screwup because she writes other mental illnesses pretty well, at least as far as my understanding of them goes, but I felt like with Bothari there was a very fine line being tread between a very complex depiction of schizophrenia (specifically traumagenic schizophrenia) & cyclical abuse on the one hand, and the ‘dangerous and barely-human crazy person’ stereotype on the other.

Favourite friendship: So many. In the interests of not just repeating myself from the shipping questions, though, I really like the development of Miles and Ivan’s relationship from not really Getting each other at all in the first book (and Miles in particular being pretty contemptuous of Ivan), to a close (if constantly mutually exasperating) friendship once they’re a little older.

Gunn/Wesley

when or if I started shipping it: Gosh, it’s been absolutely years since I watched Angel and I only watched it the once, so any of these answers may be completely wrong, but honestly I think it was from the first time they argued.

my thoughts: I really liked their 'odd couple’ dynamic - it reminds me a little of a much more extreme version of Eliot and Hardison’s initial impressions of each other, in that they each have a lot of preconceptions about the type of person the other is and about their worth, but pretty quickly get over it and come to respect each other and (shockingly enough) realised that it was actually really useful that they’d had such different experiences and that they worked much better together than separately. I’d have liked more episodes dealing with their very different backgrounds and attitudes in a more casual setting - I don’t remember how often that came up but I don’t feel like it was very often, or at least not often enough for my liking :P I just wish that phase

What makes me happy about them: I guess I’ve just said it. Got a bit carried away there I guess. 

What makes me sad about them: The goddamn unnecessary love triangle! And everything getting fucked up! Why did this happen! I prefer to pretend that storyline, and the Illyria storyline, and the Grimdark Wesley storyline, didn’t happen, because they were silly and unnecessary. Whedon, you didn’t even have to let my kids be happy, but making them miserable because of internal conflict that wasn’t even in-character for them wasn’t even lazy writing, it would have been lazy writing with different characters, but this required effort! To be bad! Why! (Caveat: possibly the Grimdark Wesley storyline isn’t so much objectively bad as I just didn’t like it. I don’t mind him being emo, that’s a-ok, but his behaviour toward Gunn and Fred was straight-up gross, and while I quite liked Wesley dealing with the consequences of his mistakes, I’d have been happier if he’d learned from them instead of getting worse, lol.)

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Iiii actually have never read any fic of this series, I don’t think, so I guess I don’t know. I can imagine some things that would and that I wouldn’t be surprised to see done.

Things I look for in fanfic: Well, nothing, but I guess it would be the dynamic that I liked between them in the Good Times. Preferably a ridiculous shenanigans, some near-death experiences, actually talking about their feelings, and a healthy dose of fluff (or h/c). And Gunn being smart as hell, because he is and arguably is better at applying that in practice than Wesley.

My kinks: I am a pure and innocent soul and I don’t even know what a kink is. (Okay, but leaving out the sexual element, I guess even though I was talking about how much I hate Grimdark Wes, I’d probably be interested in hatesex fic set during that period if it was concerned with working out their frustration and betrayal rather than just uncomplicated angry sex) (Also, I can see Wesley being super into Gunn being smart as fuck generally, and specifically into his Lawyer Talk after he got essentially the entire corpus of law and G&S downloaded into his brain. In my head this is not a very sexy thing, it’s very ‘Ooh Mr Darcy’, Wesley is hopelessly enamoured and Gunn is initially bemused but flattered and very quickly gets tired of Wes swooning every time he says something smart, which is way too often for it not to have lost its effect AND YET. And especially if they’re working for Wolfram & Hart together in this scenario, in which case Gunn uses advanced legal terminology often on account of it being his job, which makes it hugely impractical for Wesley to try and jump his bones every time it happens. He’s probably just into the legal jargon and not the Gilbert and Sullivan because that would be a very weird kink and not one I can imagine being sexy at all, but now that I say it, if someone wrote that fic I would read it just out of morbid curiosity.)

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Fred! As well as each other! Guys, polyamory, it’s a thing! (If it had to be other people, I’d probably go for Gunn with Fred and Wes with either Angel or Spike. Probably not Lilah.)

My happily ever after for them: No one dies and Gunn has high self-esteem and Wesley stops fucking up everything he touches. Nothing bad happens and The Gang never have to deal with apocalypses or implausibly huge conspiracies or anything, they just hang out being supernatural detectives and doing Season 1-2 type stuff forever. Possibly they are in a triad with Fred but this is not necessary.

[buffster]

Sanctuary (ATS 1.19)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

Sanctuary marks the episode where Wesley climbed to my favorite characters list. 

A strange way to begin an episode so focused on Faith, I know, but we really got to see who Wesley is here and I just adore him. The opening scene is of Cordelia and Wesley meeting in the office both looking like they--well, were beaten and tortured.

Angel: Doughnuts?

Wesley: Developed a sweet fang, have you?

Angel: You got jelly?

Cordelia: Whole selection.

Wesley: Won't she find it difficult enjoying delicious, jelly-filled doughnuts, if she is - one assumes - bound and gagged?

Angel: Wesley, we went through all this last night.

Wesley: Yes, you were right. The police would be ill equipped to hold a Slayer against her will. I understand why you chose not to turn her over to them. I do not, however, understand why the woman who brutally tortured me last night- this morning- gets pastries! 

Angel: I don't really have anything else downstairs. What do you want to do, Wesley? Let her starve?

Wesley: Certainly not. There are far more humane ways to deal with a rabid animal.

Angel: She is not an animal.

Wesley: No?

Angel: She's a person. In case you've forgotten, we're not in the business of giving up on people.

Wesley: Don't you dare take the moral high ground with me after what she did. I believe in helping people. I do not believe in coddling murderers!

Angel: It wasn't too long ago that you were the one making the case for her rehabilitation.

Wesley: It wasn't too long ago I had full feeling in my right arm!

Angel: She wants to change.

Wesley: There is evil in that girl, Angel. It doesn't matter what she wants, or says she wants - you set her free - she'll kill again.

I loved the moral dilemma taking place in this exchange. I completely understand where Wesley is coming from, and it’s not easy to know who’s in the right here without foreknowledge of later events. Faith is a loose especially murderous cannon and we do see her almost take off in a few hours. Angel is attempting to help her and (I think) knows tying her up would trigger a flight-or-fight or response. The best chance for her rehabilitation is to take things easy and let her make the right choice, but the best chance for the rest of humanity is to tie her up. Faith’s rehabilitation is extremely flimsy throughout, and I honestly don’t believe she could have kept to the path without a long time out in jail. So Wesley and Angel both have good points here. 

Cordelia, as ever, is simply practical.

Cordelia: Like I'm gonna stick around while psycho case is roaming lose downstairs with three tons of medieval weaponry? Not! Oh - and I'm thinking - sugar high? Maybe not a great idea. 

Angel really has it coming at him from all sides here as his team leaves, Buffy shows up looking for revenge, Wolfram & Hart are out to kill, and the Watcher’s Council arrives to capture Faith. Oh, and let’s not forget that Faith isn’t exactly 100% on board with her redemption here.

Angel: Where are you gonna go? Back out in that darkness? I once told you that you didn't have to go out in that darkness. Remember? That it was your choice. Well, you chose. You thought that you could just touch it. That you'd be okay.  -  5x5, right, Faith? But it swallowed you whole. So tell me - how did you like it?

It’s moments like these--and the whole knife holding thing--that show how tenuous Faith’s hold on sanity is. Angel is definitely taking a risk.

Meanwhile, Wesley has been approached by The Watcher’s Council. He’s offered the ultimate temptation; airfare home, a spot back on the Council, and potentially the chance to win back his father’s approval. But Wesley has “done more good” working with Angel than he ever felt he did on the Council, and he’s learned his lesson about some of their methods. Wesley actually cares about the mission, not just the power and the show. It was a big step for Wesley to turn his back on the Council like this. He’s thrown his lot in with Angel and rejected returning to a sense of belonging that he so craved. Side note: I have to admit I’m pretty curious about the methods of rehabilitation they were planning to use on Faith.

Lee: This is getting ridiculous. The first assassin kills the second assassin - sent to kill the first assassin, - who didn't assassinate anyone until we hired the second assassin to assassinate her.

Lindsey realizes they don’t win using hard power and resorts back to his soft power techniques. Unfortunately, those also fail.

Faith: So, how does this - work?

Angel: There is no real simple answer to that. I won't lie to you and tell you that it'll be easy because it won't be. Just because you've decided to change doesn't mean that the world is ready for you to. The truth is, no matter how much you suffer, no matter how many good deeds you do to try to make up for the past - you may never balance out the cosmic scale. The only thing I can promise you is that you'll probably be haunted and may be for the rest of your life.

Faith has to slay a demon and the blood on her hands triggers a PTSD-style meltdown. I really think she needed the break from real life that was prison. Some type of mental health retreat might have served as well, but that wouldn’t satisfy the law or anyone else that wants her. Unfortunately, Angel’s attempt to comfort her is when Buffy shows up. 

Buffy’s appearance here didn’t say many good things about her character for me. This is the worst sides of Buffy on display. Angel is 100% right that she came for revenge, and then rather than own up to that she attempts to hide behind sympathetic concern for Angel’s well-being. Then she hits Angel and plays shocked and hurt when he fights back (even though, as he points out, she’s stronger than he is). 

Buffy: She's playing you. She tried to kill you!

Angel: That was just - that was just a cry for help.

Buffy: A cry for help is when you say 'help' in a loud voice.

Angel: I know Faith did some bad things to you.

Buffy: You can't possibly know.

Angel: And you can't possibly know what she's going through.

Buffy: And of course, you do? I'm sorry. I can't be in your club. I never murdered anybody.

Now, don’t take this to mean I don’t understand her feelings toward Faith. She’s been unfairly targeted out of pure jealousy and it’s been awful for her. It’s her treatment of Angel I take issue with. Especially because Angel doesn’t really see what’s motivating this. In my opinion, she couldn’t help but guiltily think that Angel never would have been fooled by Faith!Buffy. When she arrives and sees Angel has also been taken in by her it’s a double whammy. But I don’t like the way she speaks to Angel later and taunts him with her new, fantastic relationship. It’s petty and mean, especially when--as Angel says--he isn’t able to move on the way she has. 

Buffy: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me.  My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim.

Faith: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even..

Buffy: Shut up!

Faith and Buffy get a chance to hash it out, and I think the Buffy-Angel combo is what pushed Faith to confess and deal with her punishment. They had a real good cop bad cop thing going on, with Angel being understanding and Buffy pointing out she’s planning to leave Angel to clean up her mess. 

For some reason Angel feels guilty for being honest with Buffy and decides to head to Sunnydale to talk to her. Rather than just...I don’t know...running down the steps and catching her? It’s a flimsy excuse to get him on Buffy, but that’s where we’re headed.

Character Notes:

Faith Lehane: Her favorite doughnuts are jelly-filled, but she doesn’t particularly like them that much. Popcorn is one of her favorites. 

Kate Lockley: She’s begun investigating cases where there’s a rumor supernatural elements are involved and people have noticed. A fellow officer calls her Scully, but she points out that Scully is the skeptic and she’s a believer. I was honestly pretty shocked she threatened to lock Angel in a cell and let daylight have him.

[oilskirt7-blog]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rewatch: Consequences

The Scoobies are good at fighting monsters, but they're terrible at planning interventions. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 Episode 15 showed that they only made things worse for the Faith situation.

With a little more care and planning, they could've gotten through to her. I believed it when I was eight years old; and I still believe it now after rewatching again. They completely fumbled in convincing her to trust them.

Let's discuss why by rewatching "Consequences."

Faith's and Buffy's reactions to the murder shed some light on their personalities.

Whereas Buffy was wracked with guilt and having nightmares, Faith brushed it off and internalized her pain. The secret weighed too heavy on Buffy's conscious to not be addressed.

That's not to say Faith didn't have a conscious. She absolutely did! On the other hand, survival was more important to her. As long as she didn't get in trouble or hurt, she would be fine living life five-by-five.

Still, Faith did feel guilty about the murder and what she had done. She just didn't want to open those emotional wounds and have to face the consequences.

To get the truth out of her, everything would need to rely on the approach. "Consequences" featured tactics that only made things worse, but there were a few that could've worked with time and slight changes.

Buffy appealing to Faith's emotions wasn't going to work.

Faith had already made a logical conclusion to herself about the attack. You could hear it in her words in the classroom, on the street, and when they broke into the deputy mayor's office. Faith had justified the murder as an accident while being on the job.

Related: Enjoy UNLIMITED access to thousands of Movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video. WATCH ANYWHERE. CANCEL ANYTIME!

That type of argument would naturally be the first one someone would go to after a traumatic moment. So, it's understandable why Buffy tried to reason with Faith to feel sympathy for the crime.

The problem, however, was that Faith didn't want to hear any of it.

Sticking to the story of it being an accident was the only way she was going to make it through. And yes, the death was an accident, but her truth to the world was that she wasn't there. To herself, all of it was simply a casualty of the job.

Unless Faith started feeling guilty herself, Buffy's words would fall on silence.

Part of it also could've been the fact that Buffy was the one delivering the argument.

The Slayers had a secret together that would've implicated them in a crime. If Faith was going down, you better believe she would do anything to take Buffy down with her. She basically said as much in the classroom.

Plus, even though the two were friends, Faith did have a touch of jealousy and animosity towards Buffy. Having the truth come out that the "bad girl" Faith committed the crime would've reinforced her inner narrative that Buffy was perfect and she was the mistake.

Faith's retorts had a tone of frustration and malice toward Buffy.

Mayor Wilkins: This isn't working. Mr. Trick: It's supposed to do something besides shred paper? Mayor Wilkins: It's supposed to cheer me up it what it's supposed to do. Why in the world would Allan leave a paper trail a mile long about our dealings? You think he was going to betray me? Oh no, that's a horrible thought! Now he's dead and I'll never have the chance to, well ... scold him and find out.

The intervention with the Scoobies had the most positive potential. It's a shame that this tactic never came to be because it could have worked.

Faith held a deeply rooted paranoia that none of the Scoobies were her friends, and that they looked down on her because she wasn't perfect Buffy. By having the core group reinforce that they would stick by her and help her, Faith would've allowed herself to trust them.

The Scoobies wanted to help her, and Faith wanted to feel like she belonged.

Another supporting piece to having this intervention would've been Giles explaining the process of past Slayers. As he mentioned to the group, human casualties happened before in the line of fire. If Faith worked with the Scoobies, she would have had options and could get the help she needed to deal with the death.

Her reactions stemmed from a need for survival. If she felt supported, she wouldn't act so defensively and uncaring.

We can look to two reasons why this tactic never came to be: (1) The Scoobies didn't tell Wesley about the chat, and (2) Xander not knowing the meaning of a casual hook-up.

Don't get me wrong, Xander thought he was legitimately doing the right thing. He was 17/18 years old, so basically, a teenage boy who just lost his virginity. He thought he had a deeper connection with Faith because of that moment.

We can give him the benefit of the doubt here. (For those who are shocked right now, yes, I did just defend Xander. There are first times for everything.)

Related: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rewatch: Bad Girls

On the other hand, if Buffy and Giles gave ample warning about not playing the "romance" card with Faith, Xander should have heeded that advice. Faith didn't respect the hook-ups she had, and Xander's chat would've meant nothing.

His reckless late night visit to the motel nearly got him killed because of it.

Wesley: Does everybody know about you? Buffy: She's a friend. Cordelia: Let's not exaggerate.

Also, poor Willow! How could you not feel her heartbreak in the bathroom? The entire Xander crush had caused nothing but pain and sorrow for her.

Luckily, she got out of that romantic mess once and for all after they were discovered. If this heartache was the final nail that ended this storyline, it was better to have it in the long-run than continue a plot that was too destructive.

Eliza Dushku's performance during Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 Episode 15 might be one of her best ever.

The pathway of emotions felt like a roller coaster because she seamlessly took us from anger to seduction to sadness and back again in the span of an hour. Her character development broke through every emotional response triggered by her guilt.

You could tell from her tone and expression that she loved getting into the mind of Evil Faith.

The "black widow" scene with Xander in the motel felt unhinged and raw. Faith's progression from reluctance to seductive to murderous happened quickly before our eyes, and the transition felt natural to the character. She embraced her villainous side in that scene.

Related: David Boreanaz Defends Buffy Reboot: What Did He Say?

The suffocation was a shocking twist you didn't expect to happen; it's one of the few times where Buffy the Vampire Slayer caught us off-guard without any warning.

You hoped for a redemption for Faith, but when she started choking Xander, the harsh reality hit: Faith enjoyed the pain and power too much. She became a character who wouldn't resist killing off the main characters, and that was a scary concept. It didn't take until the Angel therapy session to truly break down barriers.

You and me, Faith, we're a lot alike. Time was, I thought humans existed just to hurt each other. But then I came here. And I found out that there are other types of people. People who genuinely wanted to do right. And they make mistakes. And they fall down. You know, but they keep caring. Keep trying. If you can trust us, Faith, this can all change. You don't have to disappear into the darkness.

Angel

Angel and Faith's friendship was one of the more underappreciated relationships. Only until the spin-off Angel (and the graphic novels) did this friendship get the attention it deserved.

If they had a little more time together, he could've gotten through to her.

Wesley had to come in and ruin the day like he always did. If they had warned him, he probably wouldn't have called the Watchers Council. Especially if Cordelia was the one to ask him, he totally wouldn't have done anything.

Wesley: My. She's cheeky, isn't she? Faith: Uh, first word: jail. Second word: bait.

Faith seemed so receptive to his words, and she also seemed ready to chat about it with Buffy at the docks. They were both so close to making a breakthrough, but something kept interrupting them at the worst times.

We have to look at it as fate.

Fate needed Mr. Trick to die so that Faith would assume the job opening. Faith needed to be working with Mayor Wilkins so that the Scoobies would eventually fight him. And these betrayals would lead to Faith's redemption.

It's a shame that Faith couldn't have stayed on the side of good, but I wouldn't trade some of the great chapters that came from her switch to the dark side. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 was better off because of it.

What did you think of "Consequences"? Would you have handled the Faith situation differently? Was Xander's heart in the right place? Should the Scoobies have looped Wesley into the plan?

Want to join us in rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer? We'll be posting new rewatch posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Come back here and share your thoughts of the episode in the comments.

Justin Carreiro is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.

Source: https://www.tvfanatic.com/2018/10/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-rewatch-consequences/

[theajaheira]

regarding honor and honesty in the workplace (20/?)

read on ao3!!

this fic is so exhausting i wanna do it perfectly and not miss any detail BUT WE HAVE A CHAPTER NOW. THANK HEAVENS. anyway:

this chapter: no more chapter summaries. too much stuff has started going down for me to make non-spoilery statements. everything’s a spoiler enjoy

from the personal files of Jenny Calendar:

It’s ridiculous. Obviously.

Why would anyone think

The real question is

I’m dating Lilah, so even if I was (which I’m not)

Cordelia Chase doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Rupert was still in the elevator when Jenny stepped inside, holding an overstuffed folder to her chest, a Post-It with Cordelia’s email stuck neatly to its cover. He looked up and gave her a small, nervous smile. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I think I sort of panicked.”

After Cordelia’s question, Jenny didn’t feel like pressing him for specifics, and didn’t want to think about why. “Yeah, it’s okay,” she said. “I got a whole bunch of evidence and some contact info for if we want to get in touch with them again. Should we tell Buffy that her ex is back in town?”

“No,” said Rupert very sharply as the elevator doors closed. Off Jenny’s look, he amended, “I-I don’t want to hurt her, Jenny. She came to terms with Angel’s leaving, she’s happy with Willow—it’s clear she doesn’t have those same feelings for him anymore. Bringing him up would only end up hurting them both, and I think we’ve seen enough hurt in that arena to last a lifetime.”

“But don’t you think she has a right to know that—”

“Jenny,” said Rupert quietly, “there are some things that people are better off not knowing.”

There was a strange, charged silence between them, then, and the way Rupert was looking at her made a part of Jenny want to never look away. Frightened by the intensity of the moment, she drew in a breath, letting her gaze drop to the folder. She was certain that she was blushing. “You’re right,” she said finally, not daring to look at him. “On some accounts. But I still think—”

“He’s not here for her,” said Rupert, “and we don’t even know if he’s staying. Telling her might cause her needless pain.”

The thought of being with Rupert in a romantic sense wasn’t something that had occurred to Jenny before. Strange, since they’d spent three years being mistaken as a couple—but it had just never crossed her mind in the way it had right then, and—she blamed Cordelia. People had mistaken them for a couple before, but no one had ever assumed they were in love.

It was significant, probably, that she wasn’t able to label Cordelia’s judgment as a mistake, but Jenny honestly couldn’t think about Rupert and her without feeling like she was going to panic. “Did you press the button?” she asked.

“No,” said Rupert.

“Can you?”

Rupert jabbed at the button for the lobby and the elevator began to move. He glanced furtively over at Jenny, then said, “You’re with Lilah, anyway.”

Jenny felt a nervous rush. “Yeah,” she said, and that was the end of it.

“We’re not going over to Giles’s for dinner tonight?” Faith sounded genuinely bewildered. “Have we ever not gone over to Giles’s for dinner?”

“Sometimes he comes over to ours for dinner,” Jenny pointed out, only belatedly realizing that this proved Faith’s point. “And—I’m dating Lilah now. I need to start focusing in on stabilizing our family unit instead of—”

“Mom,” said Faith quietly. “Giles is family. Why would you act like he’s not?”

Jenny suddenly remembered the night of her first date with Lilah, and the way she’d felt coming back to find out that Rupert had been concussed, and the effortless closeness between them—how easy it had been to say he was family then. All of a sudden, that memory felt like too much of an admission. “You and Tara can go over for dinner,” she said. “I might stay home.”

Faith was looking at Jenny with a small, worried frown. Then she said, “If you’re sure,” and headed back into her bedroom to tell Tara the news.

Jenny watched her daughter go, then slumped into the couch, staring into space. She stayed like that for a moment before dialing Lilah’s number.

Lilah picked up after five rings. “Sorry about that, I was in a meeting,” she said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

There was something comforting about hearing the casual, easy cadence of Lilah’s voice. Jenny smiled. “Nothing much,” she said, “just that we got a whole boatload of evidence from Wesley and Cordelia. Like, a whole folder’s worth, and that’s just a few of the copies they were willing to let me bring back to you so you could see them. So it’s looking like that case of yours might be coming to a close pretty damn soon.”

There was a strange silence at the end of the line. Then, in an almost pained tone of voice, Lilah said, “Jenny, can you come over tonight?”

“What?”

“Just—can you come over? I need to see you.”

“Is everything okay?”

Another silence. Then, “Not really. I just—” Lilah paused in an oddly deliberative sort of way before saying, “I worry about you.”

“I’m a big girl, Lilah,” said Jenny, frowning. “I can take care of myself.”

“Well—I worry about you, that’s all,” said Lilah again, awkwardly. “Call it a habit. Wolfram and Hart doesn’t take kindly to people snooping around, and the closer you get—”

“I’m gonna be okay,” said Jenny gently.

“I know that,” said Lilah stiffly, but there was a strange resignation to her voice. “I just—I want to see you tonight. Okay?”

“Then you can come over here,” said Jenny. “How’s that? It’s a lot comfier than your bachelorette pad. We can make dinner, have some wine, cuddle on the couch and watch bad movies…” She trailed off, waiting, then said, “Lilah, are you sure something’s not wrong?”

“Are Rupert and the kids going to be there?”

“They’re all having dinner at his place,” Jenny answered. “If time with just me is what you want, it’s what you’re gonna get.” Guiltily, she felt a sense of relief that Lilah needed her attention; it provided an incredibly useful distraction from whatever the hell seemed to be going on between herself and Rupert. “Seriously, just—just come over here. It’ll be just us. I think we both need a break from all this case work for a little while.”

Lilah was quiet for a second. Then, wryly, she said, “God, I knew it was a mistake to get involved.”

“I’m sorry?” Jenny felt her stomach drop.

“Not—not that I regret—it’s just that, that I’m not used to—” Lilah blew out a breath, then said, “Worrying,” as though she was pronouncing Jenny’s death sentence. After another moment, she said, “I’m coming over.”

“Good,” said Jenny. “Great. And don’t scare me like that, okay?” She added a laughing note to her last sentence, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’m coming over,” said Lilah again, and hung up. Frowning, Jenny did the same.

“Everything good, Mom?” Faith asked as she exited her bedroom, overnight bag slung over her shoulder and Tara at her heels. “You sounded kinda stressed.”

Jenny’s eyes went to the bag. “You’re staying at Rupert’s?”

Faith smiled a little awkwardly. “Whatever you and Giles are going through,” she said, “me ‘n Tara figured you might need some space.”

“We’re not going through anything,” said Jenny a little too sharply. “And you’re definitely not just staying over at Rupert’s without asking permission.”

Faith’s smile faded and she looked genuinely surprised. “Seriously, Mom, what’s up?” she said. “You’ve never been like this before. I used to go and sleep over at Buffy’s all the time last year and you never once pitched a fit.”

“I’m not pitching—” At Faith’s doubtful look, Jenny sighed. “Fine,” she said. “You’re right. I-I think I probably do need a little space tonight.”

Faith nodded, and her smile returned, but there was a clear sadness in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said, “say hi to Lilah for me,” and she was out the door with Tara before Jenny could process that her daughter had overheard her making plans with Lilah and had decided to clear out.

“Oh, shit,” she said, groaning, and fell sideways onto the couch.

from the personal files of Jenny Calendar (DRAFT, DELETED):

why does it feel like everything’s falling apart?

Things didn’t really feel all that much better when Lilah showed up. This might have had to do with the fact that Lilah was carrying a half-empty bottle of champagne and had an odd, slippery smile that looked very suspiciously like she was inebriated. “Lilah,” said Jenny thinly, “what’s going on?”

“God only fucking knows,” said Lilah, placing the champagne bottle down on the end table by the front door and giving Jenny an ungraceful kiss. “You know, I, I had this whole damn thing down to a science before you? And then you show up with those big eyes and a whole damn family and you tell me I’m a good person like you know what I’ve done.”

“We’ve been through this before,” said Jenny, who had had too long a day to have the one consistent thing in her life flake out on her. But—Lilah was never really there, was she? Lilah always seemed perpetually hidden behind half-truths and sweet kisses. All things considered, Jenny really shouldn’t have been surprised. “A bad person wouldn’t hire a private eye to take down a firm like Wolfram and Hart.”

“Oh, you don’t know me,” said Lilah darkly. “And the thing—” She hiccupped almost morosely, staggering over to the couch and sitting down. “The thing is, Jenny, I’m going to be fucking destroyed after this case ends. I’m just—I’m going to be nothing. A shell of what I was. They tell you don’t let yourself care, and I thought—I thought I was above that. Thought I could play you.”

Jenny pressed her lips together, exasperated. “You’re talking drunk talk,” she said, “lie down,” and pushed on Lilah’s shoulder until Lilah was indeed lying on the couch.

“Jenny,” said Lilah, a strange, wavering note in her voice. “Jenny, c’mere, let me see you.”

Jenny sighed and knelt down next to Lilah, resting a hand on Lilah’s shoulder. Lilah looked up at her with a kind of devastated misery, like she was looking at a car wreck waiting to happen, and—and it more than stung, after a day like today. Jenny already had her own reasons to doubt the strength of her connection with Lilah—she didn’t need that same doubt from Lilah herself. “We’re gonna last,” she said, more for herself than for Lilah. “I’m not in the habit of ruining relationships.”

“No,” said Lilah, still looking at her, “but I am,” and closed her eyes as though that was the end of it.

Jenny looked at Lilah on the couch, then swallowed hard and pulled herself back up. She picked up her phone, her keys, and her laptop bag, exited the apartment, shut the door behind her, and dialed Rupert’s number.

Rupert picked up on the fourth ring. “Jenny?” he said, soft and uncertain. “Faith said something about you having a date with Lilah—is that why you won’t be at dinner tonight?”

Jenny smiled a little, comforted by the familiarity of his tone, and didn’t say anything.

“Jenny, are—are you there?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “Just—wanted to hear your voice.”

There was a strange silence, then Rupert said, “I can’t do this. I really can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever’s been going on with Lilah, it’s—you’ve been erratic, inconsistent, and overall quite impossible to work with. Just when I think we’ve reached some sort of understanding—”

“Rupert—”

“—you skip out on some event or some gathering in favor of being with her. And then you turn to me as though—” Rupert’s voice caught, almost as though he were near tears. “—as though I’m someone to fall back on, and I can’t—”

“Rupert, just—”

“—can’t work with someone who doesn’t respect the, the work we do at all times. You must understand—”

Jenny felt her ashamed guilt dissipate. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she said fiercely. “You’re trying to tell me that I don’t respect the work we do? I’m the one who hired you!”

“That’s not why—Jenny, I can’t work with a person who doesn’t value my contributions or my time,” said Rupert. He still sounded shaky, but he also sounded frighteningly sure of himself. “I don’t know if we can be partners anymore.”

“What?” Jenny felt like the floor had just opened up under her.

“Believe me when I say it’s the best for both of us,” said Rupert quietly. “Certain—realizations—I came to today, regarding—the depth of my feelings for this job, for the work we do—it’s unhealthy and all-consuming, and I’m putting in more than I’m receiving. Please respect my decision.”

“Are you going to tell the kids?”

“I am and I have.”

“You told them without me there?”

“You were the one who chose not to be there.”

“What the fuck kind of move is that?” Jenny was all but shouting. “You told my daughter you were quitting without me there? She’s—that’s not your news to tell!”

“You’ve said before that we were family—”

“Faith’s my family,” said Jenny furiously, aiming to hurt Rupert as much as he’d just hurt her. “You’re my associate. Not even that, now, according to you,” and then she realized what she’d just said, and who she’d just said it to. Horrified, she began, “Rupert—”

Rupert hung up.

Jenny listened to the dial tone until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the apartment hallway. Nodding to herself, she pocketed her phone, scrubbed roughly at her eyes, and headed out into the night.