#btvs season three

[buffysummers]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 3.16 - "Doppelgangland"

[bocadelinfierno]

[andhumanslovedstories]

Also. David Boreanaz might be capable of acting but he hasn’t demonstrated it yet on this rewatch. (I am hedging this statement only because I vaguely remember him being much better on his own show once he’s allowed to do things like have a personality that isn’t entirely about being sad and obsessing about a 16 year old. But hey, that could be pure nostalgia talking.) He’s better as Angelus than he is as Angel, in the way that a bicycle is generally better transportation than a unicycle, but you still shouldn’t take it out on the highway. It reminds me of The Hunger Games movies where you have this amazing cast of adult actors and also Liam Hemsworth is there. Yknow? Like sometimes Angel is in a big emotional scene with Buffy and Giles, and those two are giving it their fucking all, and then it cuts to David Boreanaz looking like he’s his own stand-in just reading the script so the real actors have something to react to. It’s brutal. This fact alone should have settled the Bangel v. Spuffy debates.

[thepunkmuppet]

rip willow rosenberg you would’ve screamed and torn your hair out to ghost of you by my chemical romance

[btvsdemonssmashorpasstournament]

BTVS Smash or Pass Tournament Round 1 (Season 1)

[jennycalendar]

idk if you've talked about this before, but is there anything you'd do to "fix" amends? i think it's important to have an Angel Guilt Episode, but would you execute it differently or would you do something else altogether? (while you're at it you can fix smg's bangs too) with it being the last time we see jenny it COULD be something meaningful but idk if the concept is salvageable.

been actually thinking about this a lot lately, because i agree with you! there is really no situation where angel would be in a solid enough place to make the distinction btwn Jenny and What He Thinks Jenny Should Make Of Him, and as canon is constructed, there is really no person in canon who 1) knows jenny well enough to articulate what she wants and 2) is WILLING to articulate what jenny wants or even, like, say her name. she's constantly tossed out in season three as a weapon more than a person -- a name used to twist the knife for buffy and for angel -- and that is so depressingly dehumanizing, but the thing is that canon is legit built on her dehumanization! her death has always mattered more to the narrative than her life, and introducing the concept of Treating Jenny As A Person this late in the game would likely feel super hollow when she was never a fully written character while alive.

that said: i think that a lot of the trouble i have with amends stems from the notion of casting buffy and angel as the people most hurt by angel's actions. i think that amends could have been stronger as an Angel Guilt Episode if instead of focusing on angel's desire to amend things with buffy, it established that weird dreamlike connection between angel and GILES instead! that giles is seeing angel's dreams and angel's guilt and struggling with this and trying to compartmentalize all of his rage and pain, because how DARE he dream of angel's guilt? how DARE he not be allowed to even have this one little dignity -- his ability to resent angel in the sanctity of his mind? the world has taken so so much from giles and it feels so weird to only get this one little scene between him and angel where nothing is really resolved and no connection is formed.

and while i also do understand that the buffy/angel thing has to be happening, we get that development every episode! i am rock solid certain that the conversation/development btwn buffy and angel in amends could have happened literally anywhere else, but to have an episode that is about angel's guilt for jenny, an episode where jenny manifests as Absolute Evil because Absolute Evil can use her face now that angel killed her, and to NOT delve into how deeply giles was hurt -- it leaves this hugely sour taste in my mouth.

canon does not have space for jenny to be a person. there is no version of amends that works if it is turned into a Tribute to Jenny, because jenny, as much as i love her, is not written strongly enough for this to work and be convincing. but a version of amends that explored giles's pain would undo a lot of the damage that season three did, and soften the blow of having to watch buffy and angel present themselves as the most Misunderstood Suffering Pair while giles is literally dissociating in the background in the watcher costume he put on because he can't be a person anymore. i think one strong episode focused on angel and giles and how fucked up giles is would be so amazing. can you IMAGINE the energy of giles breaking down over jenny in front of angel? what that might do to him to have that pain recognized as something that isn't fixable, and to know that there is someone else who is always going to carry jenny's death? i think it might actually mean positive growth for giles -- this moment of bizarre, horrible catharsis and connection with the person who took his everything away. this understanding that jenny is a ghost for giles just as much as she's a ghost for angel.

(also, this version of amends would slap in the most horrible horrifying way if it started with an idyllic little dream of giles and jenny having Nice Couple Times, With Kissing, that suddenly goes horribly sideways right before giles jerks awake.)

[wren-kitchens]

im literally so glad depression did not take my sense of humour away because if it did I would literally just be angel from buffy and I cannot think of a fate worse than that

[fairweathermyth]

tv show tag game

tagged by @abnerkrill - thank you, mott! 

rules: list eight shows for your followers to get to know you better

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Parks and Recreation

Halt and Catch Fire

The Leftovers

Black Sails

Search Party

Schitt’s Creek

Interview with the Vampire

tagging if you want to do it! @juwonah @candlewinds @kiwimidnight @idontwikeit @siennablake @menocchio-final-final @ledtasso @yaomei

[wewontbesleeping]

hmmmm i don't like thinking about buffy season 7 and the potentials, no i really don't.

[buffysummers]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

[bocadelinfierno]

[all-seeing-ifer]

as a buffy and xander friendship-enjoyer I really wish I could like xander's "making amends for being kind of a shitty friend over the whole angel thing" schtick in amends bc my god I would love to see the two of them experience some kinda catharsis but it's so. it's so outta nowhere and insubstantial in this episode it just feels like a wasted opportunity. it's been 2 and a half seasons at this point of this massive tension between buffy and xander that keeps getting swept under the carpet that felt like it was building to Something and then it's just. aight i guess that's it. never speaking of that again.

[rachaeljurassic]

Companion to

I may need three polls for this one :/

[wolfstrong]

idk I'm used to being a Star Trek fan where if you want any romantic relationship to happen you pretty much have to hallucinate them all on your own which the fandom is really great at doing but anyway now going into Buffy its SO WEIRD that romantic relationships are such a huge focus and also that it's not just cut and dry "we are two people who like each other" but like a very complicated thing that spans multiple characters. UGH its like if shipping was real

[sunnydaleslayer]

Soulless Spike going out and getting a soul to be the better man he feels Buffy needs says so much-

[lilmoonbean]

I know so much of my anger on this has to do with my current mood but I will NEVER get over how shitty everyone treats Buffy Summers. Constantly throughout the show sure, but more specifically her friends. Like in Dead Man’s Party all I want to do is stand in front of her and yell at her friends (and her MOM) about how goddamn selfish they are being. Obvs Buffy wasn’t in the right completely but it doesn’t seem like anyone takes one second to think about her trauma over what she just had to do and how fucking lonely she must’ve been (always is more accurately). And do they apologize for literally yelling at her while she’s crying? No, the big bad of the episode comes in, they fight, they hug, all is forgiven and the episode ends with Buffy being the perfect little bestie there to listen to all of Willow’s “moral superiority”🙄