red_satin_doll

Or, the evolution of my New Year's greetings:

1) Here's to a happy new year!
2) It has to be better than last year?
3) Let's hope it doesn't suck.

On the other hand: Viola Davis is looking F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S on the cover of InStyle Magazine. It had this cover by Jan Welters at the doctor's office instead of the newstand version; and it looks more like the cover of Vogue circa 1977 than InStyle. I normally wouldn't line the bottom of a birdcage with that rag, but DAMN, that photoshoot. That woman.

******

Moving on.......It's been a while since I did a good old-fashioned promo post isn't it?

fassy is starting an new icontest comm and is seeking a mod or two to help run it. (There is already one volunteer but I imagine back-up can't hurt. And for the record, I saw Star Wars (the original of course) in the theater back in 19-mumblety-something, so I am still not used to seeing the name "JJ Abrams" in the same sentence with Star Wars.(Given the nightmare f**kfest that was the "prequels", I think I can learn to deal.)

Speaking of icontests:

*

whedon_elite: Icons for Challenge 135, "Red Hair" are due Sunday, January 24th by 3 pm EST. Make sure to scroll down the page and check out
the fabulous entries already submitted by

harlequinss_s,

teragramm,

all_malocks,

dixon,

emmatheslayer and

sweet_lyri. And I do mean "fabulous"; everybody's brought their A-game. At least in this little corner of the world 2016 is off to a roaring start.

*

slayerstillness: Challenge 61, "Reach Out and Touch Somebody" open for entries now through Friday Jan 29 midnight at your time zone.

*

btvsats20in20: Voting is open for Round 15 NOW through Friday January 22nd. Be sure to cast your votes for THEMES, CATEGORY, and ARTIST'S CHOICE.

Make sure to click ALL the buttons before you're done, and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask the mods. There are about -19-20 votes cast right now which is super but more would be great! I don't think we've ever hit at least 30 votes in a given round but I always think "ok this is the round..." (Back to the Optimist vs Realist conundrum and in my heart I always want the Optimist to win out.)

And because you've made it this far here are some lovely parting gifts: alts and extras from Round 15 plus new alts/ extras from Round 13. I also have a thinky thought or two along the way:

Teasers:

Round 13, "The Pack"

1 - 3

4 - 7

Crossovers with the movie "Possession" starring SMG.

Round 15: (Buffy-heavy at first. Of course. This is me, this is my brain on the Buffyverse.)

8 - 14

15 - 21

22 - 28
After I cleaned the cap up I finally saw that the picture on locker behind Buffy is vintage comic book art, possibly a blow-/print of a Roy Lichtenstein piece, with the SDHS "Razorbacks" pennant covering the eyes of a pretty blonde woman in the picture. Meta commentary on the storyline or just an inside joke? The fact that we see Cordy blindfolded later and no one can "see" Marcy Ross suggests either reading is possible. It seems to coincidental to be a, well, a coincidence.

29 - 34

35 - 40

41 - 45
The flashbacks in the episode look great as screencaps but they're hard to work with; they're overlit as opposed to the rest of the early seasons material, which tends to be underlit.

46 - 49

Also, I need to take some tutorials on working with skin tones for people of color, especially dark tones and not turn beautiful deep browns into weird shades of orange-red, or flat black. (We've just acquired PS btw, so I'm still fumbling along in ipiccy.) #49: for the theme "green" I thought, well, I'll just tint the entire icon to go with the chalkboard behind her. Except that it doesn't look very good. Green skin? Usually associated with sickness or aliens? I should have known better. Plus, "black" skin reacts differently to tinting than "white" skin does.*

But it's the second association that bothers me. Our culture has a nearly long history of excluding black characters and actors from science fiction, horror and fantasy in literature, film and tv, except as background filler or literal "space aliens", demons and monsters. People of color as people just did not exist, with count-on-one-hand exceptions.

This may be changing now, I guess - slowly - but this is the reality I grew up with and "it's starting to get better" (by whatever yardstick you want to measure "better") doesn't undo decades of absence. So it just makes me uncomfortable, even if I don't "mean anything by it", I'd rather not go in that direction.**

* I realize I'm still using phrases like "black" and "white" that were au courant when I was growing up...in the 1970's and '80's.

** Using my personal comfort as the yardstick here is arguably problematic.

*****

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)
~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request, they are not "bases". If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options
than I do, by all means ask.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

So, I'm stalled on Day 3....whilst the Snowflake Challenge is at Day 9. Pretend to be shocked by my sad inability to do a simple daily meme. And bless the mods for this: Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

But first things first: THANK YOU THANK YOU to the amazingly generous benefactor who responded to my Day 2 wish and extended both my paid account and my extra icon space! This time I do know who my patron is, and I am overwhelmed by their kindness. I honestly didn't expect anyone to respond to my request, never mind so soon!

Second things second: THANK YOU THANK YOU to whomever nominated my fiction posters for

herself_nyc's Closure is a Silly Word and

spuffy_luvr's Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are in Round 11 of the

rwsawards! (I also know who nominated Closure and I can guess who nominated Come out Come Out, but I'm not certain.) There's plenty of spaces left on the nomination sheet, so make some deserving authors and artists happy! The nomination period is open until February 3rd.

Speaking of the poster for "Closure", let's get back to the Snowflake Challenge whilst I pretend to play "catch up":

Day 03

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

2015 was the year I think I began to come into my own as an artist. My technical skills have a ways to go but considering I'm still working in ipiccy and not Photoshop, overall I can say "not bad".

For this post I'm going to concentrate on my banners and posters and not on icons, which require their own post. I've got a few items to show off, I hope you don't mind? I tend to think in terms of groupings, projects and "genres" rather than individual pieces. In no particular order:

1) Awards Banners for Round 6 of

btvsats20in20 (January 2015): my first major art project of the year proper. More posters than awards banners, these were far more technically complex than any I'd attempted previously as I pushed myself to learn new techiques. And I think they are more "artistic" than any I'd done previously, if in a somewhat self-conscious way. I wanted to create awards banners that were works of art in their own right. I think this project helped determine the stylistic direction my artwork has taken this year. It also pushed me to depict characters and pairings I rarely do; in fact, the banner for

sweet_lyri may be the first time I'd created a romantic Bangel image.

Right click all images to view full-size.
All artwork by me unless otherwise noted. Icons on award banners property of their respective creators. Not snaggable.

FINAL_v1_AngelthemesbannerfortempertemperJan2015byredsatindoll_zps48a9ea45

Harmonybannerv3.1_starrynightthemesACwinners_byredsatindollJan2015

1 - 5

*****

2) I'm very pleased with all the artwork I made this past year for

seasonal_spuffy Rounds 18 and 19. The Spuffy Hands Banner is one the my favorite artworks I've ever made, I think I actually exceeded my expectations with that one and made something truly artistic. My banner for Round 19 isn't quite as "artistic" and is probably a little more traditional but it gave me an opportunity to hone my skills in terms of layers, textures and creating a convincing manip. And then the fiction posters for Round 19: the aforementioned "Closure" and

shapinglight's "Casablanca" . "Closure" is one of the few fiction posters I've made that has no alternate version, I made it at the very last hour of Round 19, but I was able to produce so quickly because I started with a draft of one of the alternates for Casablanca. Being able to "reuse, renew, recycle" is one of the benefits of digital artwork.

Round 18 spring 2015 entry banner 3 lyrics by Bastille

unsigned final entry for round 19 banner comp seasonal spuffy autumn 2015n

closureposterforherselfnycround19seasonalspuffy1200x960_signedRSD.png

6 - 10

*****

3) Fiction posters for

buffy_genfic: Each of these stories is very different to the others and I tried to capture what was special about each one, as well as convey what they all have in common - loving attention to the women of the Buffyverse, and each of these authors skillfully turns "heartwarming" into "heartbreaking" and back again. The also aforementioned poster for

spuffy_luvr's "Come Out Come Out" , actually isn't my favorite; I can see a lot of things I would have done differently, although I'm still pleased that the print and texture on the scrunchy look convincing. I'm happier with my other efforts: posters and icon for "Who's That Girl" by

velvetwhip , "Show you the World" for

aliceinkinkland - my favorite detail is the fact that the jeep actually looks like it's on that road and not a separate image that was pasted on top; and another poster for

spuffy_luvr, "Choose 1 for Ready, 2 for Not Ready" :

buffyskateficposter1.2_byRSDforspuffyluvr900x720.png

whosthathgirlposterforvelvetwhip_v3.9a500sq_RSD2015.png

showyoutheworldposterforaliceinkinklandaugust2015_rsd_1.2_600x402.png

Alt 9 for spuffyluvr round 2 buffy genfic exchange sept 2015

11 - 14

*****

4) Character Posters of Willow and Buffy for

spuffy_luvr's Ipseity I challenged myself to adhere to roughly the same size and compositional format for both. The poster of Buffy is a bit flashier and more dramatic, and the symbolism far more obvious (the fracturing of Buffy's image, the sense of entrapment), which is what I was going for, but personally I prefer the more subtle, melancholy one for Willow. I love how the textures in that one remind me of a vintage handkerchief or tablecloth and give the image a quiet "domesticity", while the sigils to the left add an exotic contrast and yet also balance the ghostly image of Buffy.

Poster 2 for Ipseity by Spuffy Luvr Willow variant

Poster made for Buffy chapters of Spuffy gen fic Ipseity by Spuffy luvr 2015

15 - 16

*****

5) Other awards banners: This past year I've made banners for

btvsats20in20,

slayerstillness,

whedon_elite and

character20n20; as well as unofficial "commissioned" nomination banners for

wicked_awards. And I discovered this year that as much as I enjoy making icons, I love making posters and banners. The larger space gives me more scope to play. (The fact that I've had to start wearing bifocals for the first time this past year undoubtedly has something to do with it. Larger image = easier to see.) And whereas an icon is like a haiku, where every single word must be absolutely perfect, larger images allow for more "mistakes" (that in the end may not be mistakes at all.) Making banners on a regular basis has been a fabulous way to practice, practice, practice, and someone ends up with a lovely image to show off on their own journals.

17 - 23

FINAL2_kwrittenbannermostcreativebyredsatindoll_SS39

3rdplacetierua1412banner533x338_byrsd_WErd113_final.png

we120_bestcropbannerwithicon1.2FINAL.png

we123_bestcropbanner_doubledutchess400x300_1.4.png

trumpetflowerbanner350x272modschoiceteragramm1.4.png

24 - 30

nomineebuttonbuffywickedawards275x128_rsd2015_1.1final.png

therelishcollectionbannerforkerkevik2014_style2.1_byRSD2015_550x268.png

******

6) Last but most certainly not least:

velvetwhip's Answering Prayers was one of the projects that defined the year in fandom for me. The poster itself earned Runner Up in the

wicked_awards; I'm grateful for that and at the same time I'm still very dissatisfied with how the image turned out. It was definitely a learning experience (and it led to a commission for aadler's "All Ye Who Enter".)

answeringprayersbannerbyrsd2015_flamesversion1.4signed_zpsdt5fm2g4.PNG

version 2 as requested by the author August 2015

ETA: Poster for aadler's "All Ye Who Enter".

Of greater importance was the process of being a guest pencil (beta) for the story, the journey that Gabrielle took me on with Joyce, and the journey Gabrielle and I took together is something I'll be forever grateful for. And the story fills a real need: fanfiction that examines Joyce Summers and allows her center stage, that makes up for the way she was shortchanged in canon, is something that I've hungered for ever since I watched the series and it's all too rare, too difficult to find. Which seems odd given the number of mothers and/or maturing women in this fandom. And as usual with Gabrielle's work, I love that the story twists and deconstructs romance novel tropes and kept me guessing every step of the way. I'm incredibly proud to have had even a tiny part in bringing this story to fruition.

Reading Gabrielle's response to the Day 9 challenge: I fully intend to write another Joyce-centric story made my day. Possibly my year. That's how much I want her to write more Joyce-fic.

Day 04

In your own space, create a fanwork. Make a drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. Arts and crafts. Draft a critical essay about a particular media. Put together a picspam or a fanmix. Write a review of a Broadway show, a movie, a concert, a poetry reading, a museum trip, a you-should-be-listening-to-this-band essay. Compose some limericks, haikus, free-form poetry, 5-word stories. Document a particular bit of real person canon. Take some pictures. Draw a stick-figure comic. Create something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I tried to fill

kikimay day 2 request for some amusing Buffybot banners. And what I came up with sucked rotten goose eggs, IMO. But Kiki would like to see them anyway and she has a habit of seeing the worth in icons I've rejected. However I also came up with some Michelle Trachenberg icons that I think are pretty snazzy and Kiki has spoken admiringly of MT's beauty so I hope she likes some of these:

32 - 34

35 - 39

40 - 44

See? The MT ones are much, much better than the Buffybot ones. You were well and truly warned.

Day 05

Leave feedback for a fanwork. Or multiple fanworks. It can be as simple as I liked this to a detailed list of all the things you loved about the fanwork. The key is to leave some sort of feedback. If you've already left feedback in the course of a previous challenge, it totally counts. But you're free to leave more feedback.

Some works I've left feedback for in the past few days include Displacement and The Starfish by

spuffy_luvr on Elysian Fields, Chapter 17 of Dreams and Mirrors by

kikimay, feet been draggin' cross the ground by Celaenos, Go to Sleep by

evil_little_dog, Empty Hearts and Heavy Hands by Dactylgirl on EF; and in the art department I've left feedback for

comlodge's absolutely stunning self-portraits and

crazycordy's The Zeppo icon set for

btvsats20in20 Round 15. (And as it happens

crazycordy's birthday is today, so Happy Birthday and many more to come!)

And that's more than enough for one post, I should think.

"Third Wheel" (Buffy/Angel, Darla/Angel) is Glassdarkly (aka

shapinglight)'s entry in the 2015 IWRY Marathon, and inspired an art binge.

These banners in turn provided the inspiration for my icon set in

slayerstillness Challenge 57.

This is the second story by

shapinglight I've made posters for; the first being posters for Casablanca, for Round 19 of

seasonal_spuffy.

Teasers:

icon inspired by Third Wheel by Glassdarkly for 2015 IWRY Marathon

Click to view full-size (except icon #9)

1 - 2)

Buffy_2x21_B1_007lmtw_buffydarlablend2.2.1P__framed705x669RSD.png

705 x 669 each

3)

665 x 588

Confession (and warning for Angel-unfriendly thoughts): A year ago I said I "couldn't" do Bangel art. I've already proven myself wrong on that count, but I think it's significant that the primary power dynamic in this story - or at least the most intereting one to me - is not Buffy/Angel, or Darla/Angel but Buffy and Darla. I'm surprised by how few fics I've read draw on the parallels the series made between Buffy and Darla right from the opening scenes of WTTH (but then, I'm not a Bangel shipper so it may well be that there's more out there than I realize.)

If anything, the least interesting aspect of "Third Wheel" is, for me, Angel himself. He's a - well, a bit of a mope, and frankly just a little self-centered. (HIs first response to Buffy's nightmarish dilemma - and it is horrifying for both Buffy and Darla - is violence, then brooding and tears, as if he were the one most affected, not she. But to be fair, he does rally and prove himself to be the better man at the end.) Sometimes I have a hard time understanding why two such interesting, clever, powerful women as Buffy and Darla were drawn to him.

"Third Wheel" actually reminds me that I'm really not sure I ship Buffy with any of her canon lovers; it also adds weight to the argument that Darla, not Buffy, is Angel's "true love".

Without (hopefully) giving too much away,

shapinglight's description of how the situation initially affects Darla reminds me of how it feels when I feel an epileptic seizure coming on, and I love how that specificity of feeling, and the precision of her language and the details, give the weight and substance of "realism" to a fantastical story.

Lobby cards:

4 - 5 )

388 x 300 298 x 401

6 - 8 below are what I consider the "alt" versions (which sounds a little nicer than "rejects" doesn't it?)

6)

550 x 750

7 - 8)

thirdwheelforglassdarklybecomingframed3a_600x552RSD.png

thirdwheelforglassdarklybecomingearshotframed4_600x552RSD.png

600 x 552 each

9)

And of course, an icon to go with.

Sources:

The background textile in #1, 2 & 7 a detail of an 18th Century bodice in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute.
Vintage card "frame" in #7 & 8 courtesy of the Graphics Fairy.

Black filigree layer in #4 by scoobyatemysnax for burnedbreads

Check out my Resources post for screencap sources.
Regretfully, I've forgotten the original source of the gold frame in #1, 2 & 5.

********************************************

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

My set for Round 14 of

btvsats20in20.
Beta'd by the fantabulous

velvetwhip
Thanks to

bangel_4e for allowing me a small extension due to illness.

Teasers:

10 Themes
Desperate	In the Clouds	Enemy	Handwritten	Nose Down

Negative Space	Numbers	Safe	Circle	Kiss*

5 Category \|HORROR
Cat 1	Cat 2	Cat 3	Cat 4	Cat 5

5 Artist's Choice
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3	AC 4	AC 5

* There was no "kiss" in the episode so I used the next best thing.

The Cordy icons were some of the most challenging and interesting to do, partly because I hadn't planned on making any Cordy icons when I started. Her fear is played entirely for laughs in the episode, hah-hah, vain, self-conscious, socially-aware girl is terrified of being a nerd on the chess team who wears frumpy clothes and has "ugly" hair. Hah hah.

Well, not so funny when you consider what the loss of social status would actually mean (as we will see in Season 3, when she's left isolated by both the Scoobies and the Cordettes); not so funny when you consider the fact that she's been raised in a culture where a woman's self-worth is traditionally rooted in the kind of husband she is able to "catch", and her appearance is her main tool or weapon in pursuit of a husband.

And not so funny when you consider the racial implications of how smooth, silky, manageable hair is prized over curly or "kinky" hair. The "right" kind of hair is the kind that you see in the shampoo adverts; the wong kind is anything else, regardless of your race or ethnicity, although it's identified non-whites. Which is why I myself, as a white female, didn't appreciate my own thick, curly mane until I was well into my 20's, because it was the "wrong kind of hair" and ergo, the implication that something was fundamentally wrong with me. (Also not funny - catching said mane on the button of a professor's peacoat on the bus during a field trip.)

The more I looked at the images of Cordy, the more I also realized how well her fears reflected or paralleled those of the other characters and fit into the episode; and so I wanted to have one of her and the one of Vamp!Buffy touching her own face in the Category set.

Most of the nightmares can be catagorized as Appearance or Performance, regardless of the gender of the dreamer. So Xander shows up nearly nude in class, Cordy has ugly hair and clothes that mark her as a social outcast, Buffy is turned into a vampire (appearance); Billy is beaten nearly to death for disapppointing his coach, Willow is forced onstage to sing an opera she doesn't know and can't make a sound, Buffy's mind goes blank during a test, and Giles mourns at the sight of Buffy's grave (performance). But these two catagories often overlap, and so Buffy's failure to kill the Master (performance) leads to her becoming a vampire (appearance.)

For the AC set I originally wanted to do all Vamp!Buffy, but that felt like it would have been sort of copy-catting sweet_lyri's all-Buffy AC set.

Alts & Extras? But of course!

1 - 5

6 - 11
#11 was inspired by a comment I read at the AV Club Buffy rewatch three years ago: "Would you think I was weird if I said I think Joyce is kinda hot?" And I thought, dude, I'd think you were were weird if you didn't think she was "hot". WTF? Because she's over the age of 30? GMAFB

12 - 16

17 - 21

22 - 25

26 - 31

32 - 37

38 - 43

44 - 47 suitable for customization. The background of 46 47 puts me in mind of an AU plot where Buffy and Joyce are in Istanbul and Paris fighting monsters, having grand adventures and doing a little shopping along the way: The Incredible Summers Women World Tour. (Featuring Dawn as Watcher Junior, of course.)

44 - 49

50 - 55

56 - 60

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Current Mood: sick

** Pirate Bride

snogged returns to the world of fanart after an extended hiatus with this: "Mr Gunn Will See You Now" ("Fifty Shades of Gunn") a Gunn/Willow banner that is incredibly erotic. To call it "yummy" almost sounds dismissive; "perfectly scrumptious" works better. And yet, it's pretty much worksafe. (Unless a pretty lady in lingerie and a bare leg is a no-no in your office. Or implied interracial shipping. Or looking at fanart or anything not related to work and really, is this the kind of workplace you want to be in?) I've never considered that pairing but looking at her banner it suddenly seems perfectly right. Where's the faction for this ship? And, tell me again why m'lady has been away from fanart and denied us these lovelies for so long?

** Working in the Key of Light: Happy birthday to

pickamix, who started things off by giving all of us a gift: "Light Willow". A total turnaround aesthetically from a Mistress of the Dark Art(works): astonishing, unexpected and gorgeous. I'm kind of beyond words here because everything about it could have been, in lesser, hands, cliche - the butterfly wing texture; in her sure hands, nothing here is cliche, all of it is absolutely, meltingly lovely. It was the second thing to greet my eyes Sunday morning, after a proper cup of tea, and I began to tear up. Then I simply sat with it, studied it, took it all in - the way Willow emerges from the light, the way the texures wrap around her, embrace her. I could go on all day about it.

****

What unites these two artworks in my mind is their shared elegance: visually clean, uncluttered, nothing out of place. Simplicity of composition that belies the work that surely went into making both of these. Both of these have room to breathe and yet the composition in each one directs your eye exactly where the artists want it to be. You can roam around, you can go deeper (I can study these for quite some time to suss out the subtle, almost hidden layers), but your eye is not likely to fall off the canvas. That takes a sureness of touch that comes with talent, yes, but also intellegence and conscious practice of the craft. There's no way around it.

The presence of negative space in both goes a long way towards achieving that elegance; and this is a quality I need to study and learn from. My sweetie once described my writing as "too much velvet" for her taste. Too many adjectives, too much description, too much verbiage in general. And I find myself doing the same thing with artwork, especially now that I'm discovering layers and textures and oh boy is it easy to fill up the spaces and just because I can doesn't mean I should. Knowwhatimean?

****

Yesterday I thought to myself that if I were a fic author and received either of these artworks as a banner to go with a story I'd die of happiness, aka jump up and down and grin and hug myself uncontrollably. Silently, in my chair, so only I would know. (Ok, the grinning and hugging would actually happen. The jumping would be entirely mental but it would be intense.)THEN I'd show them off and say "Look what I got, y'all!"

But of course, I'm not not a fiction author, and not much of a writer at all, currently....

And then LOOK WHAT I GOT, Y'ALL!

"....yellow is the color of intellectual energy, positivity, but also jealousy and illness and in the yellow shirt there are birds flying (freedom) except that you go on and see the shape of the knife buried in the flesh and all the blood spilling. It's broken freedom and innocence lost...."

kikimay not only snagged my "There Once was a Girl" icon for her default icon, which is an honor all by itself; she wrote an analysis/interpretation of it! MY ARTWORK HAS BEEN META'D! And of course her commentary is as intelligent, concise and elegant as her prose. I always imagined I'd be writing the meta about someone else's work, never the other way around. Eventually I decided I wanted to provide the pictures to compliment for other people's words, instead of asking other people to provide them for me. (And at that point I knew

velvetwhip would be the ~~first~~ second recipient. it had to be her. ETA: clockwork_hart1 was actually the first person I made a banner for. Mind like a sieve over here.)

Now Kiki has provided the words to compliment my picture and so it goes. And this is addition to the honor of a Mod's Choice Award at

slayerstillness. The little icon that could.

I died of happiness....

...but then I came right away back because I've got to finish my set for Round 4 of

btvsats20in20, which is due Sept 27th. Have you seen the awesome entries so far by

spikesredqueen,

sweet_lyri,

pickamix, snowpuppies,

teragramm,

killing_kurare, and

oh_cheezit? Plus I needed to cast my vote on the current challenge of

slayerstillness, which I missed the boat on entering; therefore, doubly important that I participate as voter.

It's nice when we the artists vote for one another but there ARE MORE THAN 15 PEOPLE IN THIS FANDOM. I know there are. And if you can't or don't want to make icons, by all means vote. Your opinions count and don't let "Well I don't know anything about art" nonsense (because of some stupid thing your parents or your fifth grade teacher told you as a child) hold you back. YES YOU DO KNOW ABOUT ART. Of course you do! You're surrounded with it, you've taken it in your entire life. It's no different to voting in the Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards even if you haven't written any works of fiction yourself.

My sweetie has a classmate in art college ten years ago who was a wonderful artist (pastel was her preferred medium and she could make a pastel painting look like it was done in oils), and just the sweetest person imaginable. One of their professors told her in class, in front of everyone, that she "lacked artistic intelligence". Need I describe my feelings towards this arrogant jackass in minute detail or can you just pick up the vibe of my loathing?

We all have "artistic intelligence". We just need safe space to practice it and express it, as artists and appreciators. (Without people to appreciate, there is no point!) I can say without hesitation that participating in icontests, and thanks to the wonderful community of folks here, I've been pushed farther and faster just the last six months than I could have imagined possible. And I haven't even begun to skim the surface of what's possible.

But I've gone on long enough, Gentle Reader: goest thou and vote, create, offer feedback and share the love - do your part to keep this fandom alive and lively. What medium of expression have you not explored, or are just beginning to? What holds you back? What ideas do you have for bringing new excitement to this fandom and what about it continues to excite you and keeps you interested?

All this talk of icons, editing platforms and fanart the last week, plus icontests and enjoying other people's work, ~~has made me hungry~~ got some thinky-thoughts a'flowin:

Imagine voting at any fanfiction awards site (WGA, SunnyD, RWSA, NRFTW, ~~NAFTA~~, AoLA, etc) where all the work is listed anonymously. I am of course excluding juried situations which are sometimes but not always "blind". (In many cases IRL, this may be as much to protect from biases for/against gender, ethnicity, color, etc.)

Can you imagine a list of fic nominees with titles and no authors listed? Of course not. I can't either. But we do it all the time - on a weekly basis in fact - at icon challenges.

In fact, on one level it might be argued that whenever we publish work using pseudonyms, screennames or what we oldsters used to call "pennames" ("keyboardnames"?), then those stories are de facto anonymous in the real world, but that's another conversation altogether. (Or is it? Anonymity and women not being given credit for their work has always been a feminist issue. Are we protecting ourselves by using pseudonyms in fandom, or just playing into larger cultural patterns? I suspect that's a discussion for another time but worth pondering.)

In the past I've been kind of a fiend to obey the rules of which clearly state that icons must not have been previously posted anywhere else, and we're not to let other people know which are ours. The icons are all posted without the creator's names to allow for "unbiased" voting, right?

I got so anxious about it I even teasingly mock-scolded one of my friends *cough*kikimay*cough* (poor woman!) on the subject. I tried to figure out how to make my icons "less recognizable" by not using certain fonts or framing devices, etc. This was especialy challenging with Photobucket, which has a primitive editing suite with a very finite number of choices. When anonymity was becoming a consideration over artistry in my choices, I realized it was becoming a problem.

I was also certain I was alone in my anxieties on the subject until I saw a comment by someone else in fandom, who makes beautiful icons the way I make breakfast for my sweetie - that is to say, on a regular basis - express concern that one of their icons was recognizable. As it happens, I have guessed some of their icons correctly on a couple of occasions; and other times I've assumed it was their's and got it completely wrong. No one person "owns" a particular character, color scheme, font or effect, as it happens, although we each have preferences.

Not that knowing or not knowing mattered to me. Did I vote differently because I thought I knew which icons this person did? No, of course not. I voted for the work in front of me.

More conversation - and icons - a'comin' . Here's a little appetizer:

I'm confident of this because quality of the work is paramont to me. It has to be. I've had occasion to be a judge or on selection committees since college for written publications, fandom awards, and independent film festivals, going back a couple of decades to college. I had to learn and am still learning to walk that tightrope of constructive criticism that is fair and impartial but doesn't lose sight of the fact that there is another person waiting anxiously for feedback.

That doesn't mean I get it right all the time, or even most of the time, but it's something I keep sight of pretty fiercely. When I've been a fiction judge or a beta, I may LOVE an author. They may be my dearest friend in the world - in fact, I've been Muse (beta) for several of my best friend's novels and at least one book of poetry for several years - or at any rate someone I trust, respect, treasure.

The fact of my feelings for them has to yet to win anyone a first place or even a runner-up award. Even when it comes to nominations, I'm not going to throw a name out there if I don't believe the work has sufficient merit.

And I expect the same in return because I trust the folks on my f'list to have enough taste, discernment, and intellegence to vote for the work, not for me. I trust that they are bringing all of their talents, experiences and hard-earned skills in art in any medium to bear when they push the button. In fact I'd be horrified if I won an award for crap just because it got the most votes and I feel certain anyone reading this would as well.

Now does that mean I'll haul off afterwards and say "I didn't vote for your work, sorry, I liked this other one better"? HELL NO. Not unless asked specifically ask me. Which nobody does, btw. Not even me. I am more apt to wonder why the hell you voted for me when so and so's work was so much better. Which is, in essence a slur on your tastes and criteria because they are different than mine. See how tricky that can get? When in doubt, shut my mouth.

Just to be clear, this is NOT a manifesto to the hard-working fandom icontest mods "Change your rules!" Goodness, no. Your comm - your rules. Period and end of sentence. As long as I participate in icontests I will abide by those rules. I like the challenge, surprising myself; I like getting the juices flowing, I like the focus that prompts provide and I love seeing what other people come up with. And I'd be a liar if I said I don't enjoy winning now and then because I do. I like it, my ego likes it, my tender little heart likes it. Who doesn't? But I can't let any concern about being recognized or winning/not winning because of that inform my artistic choices. The fact that I've recently been introduced to four new online editing sites gives me a much wider sandbox to play in; but at the end of the day there are still certain choices or stylistic qualities that are recognizable signatures

The bottom line here is, I love you all, I cherish you my darling f'list, but when it comes to having to vote in contests I am ALL ABOUT THE WORK. Period. Whether there's a name attached to it or not.

Now that you've made it this far (no fair cheating and jumping all the way to the end, 'kay?), let's have some ~~tea and cake~~ more icons just for fun!

Why yes, I FINALLY made some icons of VampWillow (excluding my "Lesbian Vampire Seal of Approval Icon, of course). I know it's an iconic image but somethings are iconic for a reason., It's a great shot and I had to start somewhere, right? Also I have been trying to keep the wonderful Willow fans on my f'list in mind. You're welcome. All made entirely or principally in Photobucket unless specified. 1-5 are by reverse order of creation.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

6) 7) 8)

I was using #6 for a while as my primary Willow icon but traded it in for one by spikesredqueen. I still like it - no fancy effects except what was already onscreen plus increased saturation and brightness - but the resolution leaves something to be desired. #8 was another possible entry for the recent slayerstillness prompt (negative space) that I missed.

9) 10) 11) 12)

#9 is actually about a year old, another one I have mixed feelings about. LOVE the Buffy hairporn, the quality of a pencil drawing rather than photograph but again, there's the clarity issue. I tried that one again and couldn't get anything better in PB; the cap is just a tad too dark for my liking.

The "steal" from Never Leave Me in #12 is definitely deliberate. And it's not intended a a shipping statement on my part but anyone who ships the two of them is more than welcome to snag it for their own nefarious purposes. Willow's life changed forever when Buffy "took notice" of her. (Consider icons #1-5 "Exhibit A".)

My "Ted" meta entry for this year's Big Damn Lovefest took pride of place as Runner-up in Round 10 of the Wicked Awards Best Essay/Meta catagory Not Fade Away, along with "Dean Winchester, An Analysis (c. Season 8)" by witchiam. The winner in the category?

kwritten's meta masterpiece series Dawn Summers: Fighting for an Alternative Feminist Narrative.

ETA: Judges' Choice selections and banners by

angelus2hot can be seen hereCan I say that again, pretty please? 'cause this bears repeating and I may never get to say it again: My meta was second to kwritten 's Dawn Summers meta series. In this context I get to mention mine and her's in the same damn breath, and there were other excellent entries that could have been chosen. That is damn fine company to be in. Thank you to the judges for the honor and thank you

angelus2hot the lovely banner (Buffy in Tabula Rasa - do you know me or something? This is a prize in itself.) And congratulations to ALL of the other winners and nominees!

r10redsatindollnotfadeawayrunneruppngoriginal_bannerbyangelus2hot

Behold the pretty banner! by angelus2hot

When I say I didn't expect this, btw, it's no bull. I knew the Dawn Summers meta series was going to be a winner when I read it back in April, but someone nominated it for this round before I could. I nominated myself simply because I'm proud of my "Ted" meta and I want it to be read. It's one of the best things I've posted here, perhaps one of the better things I've ever written. BtVS appeals to me emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically; I think all these aspects are woven into the fabric of that essay. Read it together with my Buffy and Tara meta, and between the two you have a pretty good idea of not only how I approach the series, but who I am as a person. (Granted, that's a lot of weight to pile upon a poor little essay!)

But for the sake of karma and conscience I made sure to nominate a ton of fics, videos, artwork and other meta; lest The Powers that Suck decide to strike me down for my hubris or something like that. I had meant to put up a post encouraging other folks to nominate metas but real life i.e. a wee little apartment fire kind of got in the way. Priorities and all that jazz. (Maybe the TPTS were telling me something after all?)

In the past I've suffered from the belief that it's "not the same" to nominate myself as if someone else does; but I think I'm over that mindset. The nominated pieces were judged on their own merit regardless of who nominated them. (Last year someone else kindly nominated my "Dopplegangers: Xander" meta; I was flattered but I think it's a subpar work. It didn't place and it didn't deserve to.)

This award is not how I learned to love self-nomination, however, although it's a lovely reward and confirmation that it's ok to self-nominate. What really shifted my mindset on this was my first (and probably only) entry in the btvs_hush icon challenge #257. I started to write a post to encourage folks to vote in it when it occurred to me: What's the difference between self-nomination and self-pimpage?

Answer? Nothing. Or at least not a whole lot that I can see. We want our work to be seen, read, appreciated; we don't get money for all our time and efforts so recognition comes in the form of awards, reviews and replies, page views, works by other people we inspire with our prompts, gifts from fandom friends, etc.

Every single day I am coming across a new story, meta or fanvid off someone else's recommendation. Awards nomination lists introduce me to entire worlds within this fandom I never knew existed. Every week I make new friends in this fandom thanks to someone else's links, and my participation in fandom gets a little richer with each interaction.

So self-nominate by all means, and don't be shy about it. (I can decide what's good and what's crap for myself, trust.)

*With apologies to Mr Kubrick for the theft of his title...but while we're on the subject, if you haven't seen Dr Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb yet, you owe to yourself to do so. Forget 2001: A Space Odyssey - sure it's "big" and "important" (a.k.a. frequently incomprehensible and pretentious); and it's a wet dream of film majors everywhere (and what the hell was it about, again?). For my money, Dr Strangelove is the true masterpiece, a blacker-than-pitch comedy about geopolitics and the little men with their fingers on the button that is still relevant, still as funny and as frightening as hell.

Today I was at the house all day attempting to clean up the mess after the fire, with no electricity, etc. Fun. I pulled out one of my rescued-from-the-chaos-but-still-damp notebooks and decided to transcribe it to a clean new notebook to pass the time (aka "procrastinating, with feeling"). Instead of transcription I found myself, 2-4 hours later (I didn't look at my phone and had no idea how much time passed) with a basic but workable "outline" for the Buffy & Tara friendship metas I've been wanting to write. I've got ideas by the truckful but I've always been perplexed as to how to organize the role Tara plays in btvs and specifically Buffy's story: episode by episode seemed logical to me; it worked for my meta on "Ted" to focus that way. Except my brain doesn't work that way. For instance, when I watch or think about "Who are You", I see nearly the entirety of S6 played out in miniature. I watched the B/S handfasting in Chosen and my mind leapt backward to W/T's handfasting in Hush. My mind delights in these sorts of connections, which partly explains my love for the tv show but it makes it damn difficult to organize my thoughts. Today I was apparently lucky - time to myself (I busted ass afterwards cleaning, I promise you) and I started writing down Tara's various roles in the show. That allowed me to make those connections freely without the feeling of going "off track", as happens with a focus on a singular episode. (Although I could do an entire book of essays and fannish squee about "Who are You" alone and if I'm lucky I just might.) whether or not I'll get time with the computer again to be able to shape and post this, I have no idea. Part of what's interesting to me about this is the fact that I didn't look at any of my notes scattered across five books, I just wrote, and the ideas were all there because I know them so well. That's something I can't do with the rough drafts of fics I've written; I can't recreate them from memory. The word order is so so very specific in fiction. And it doesn't matter if it's pretty close to "finished" (ie something to pass on to a beta or just post already, damn it) or if it's very rough scribbles in a notebook as with my meta notes today. Which may be part of what makes fan fiction and non-fiction writing different experiences for me as a writer. But then again, if I had to totally reproduce a nearly-finished meta essay entirely from memory, would I be able to? Am I comparing apples with pomegranates? I wonder if anyone else had had similar experiences especially if you've written in both fiction and nonfiction?

ETA 08/02/13:

comlodge just re-stated the point in the convo thread below that I was attempting to make re: beta-readers and meta and did so better and far more concisely than I could ever hope to. I bow to her awesomeness.

I just noticed one more empty "pending" slot in the Beta catagory at the Running With Scissors Awards, which seems odd to me. Thousands of fandom writers (theoretically) = thousands of betas (theoretically) = unable to fill six slots? Granted a good beta is hard to find - or rather, a successful author-beta partnership based on complete trust and respect for the other person may just be harder to find than a good marriage. The author needs to be able to choose someone who can offer objective, constructive criticism, not flames or insults; who can judge the work based upon what the writer is trying to achieve in the piece and how much it fails or succeeds in that goal; and the beta needs to be someone who can offer help but then detach themselves and always remember it is the author's story, not their own.

On the other side of the page, nothing is more frustrating as a beta (I speak from experience, of course) than dealing with an author who says they want feedback when what they really want is praise. And this is true of 99% percent of the writers I've dealt with, who say they want "feedback" when what they're really after is ego strokes. Of course every writer wants that, but when an author is entering a relationship with a beta partner they need to be clear as to what, exactly they are looking for: an editor? A cheerleader? A teacher or taskmaster? Someone to brainstorm with? Line by line analysis of plot, structure, etc? Hugs and puppies? I'm not a beta for any writers in this fandom currently but I'm a "Muse" for one of my closest friend's novels (we prefer the title "Muse" to "beta"), and I've always been more than willing to give the writers I've working with the feedback they need, if they are willing to listen to what I have to say. (Why ask a beta for their opinion if you don't want to actually hear it?)

One thing I noticed since I've been a part of this fandom: betas are considered essential to fanfiction, to the point that authors actually apologize for not having a beta; why is it then that "meta" (nonfiction writing) posts very rarely mention the feedback of a beta? The exceptions I've seen have tended to be the more intellectual or academic fan essays and analysis. The other day I asked someone to beta a fanfic I'm working on but it's never occured to me to request feedback on a nonfiction fan essay before posting it. Is it custom? Habit? Lack of interest in nonfiction writing in relation to fiction?

(ETA paragraph breaks, hyperlinks, and screencap. Clearly, this post needed a beta of it's own.)

ETA: Additional screencaps added below cut - which has also been added. (Post in haste, repent at leisure.)

Take a Moment: by

lanoyee. Gen, Buffy, Tara, Dawn. A "deleted scene" , post-"Grave"; Buffy bids a friend good-bye. Spare, elegant and melancholy, it's a scene I wish had been in the show. One of the things I love best about BtVS is how unsentimental it is generally, but sometimes, what I want and what I need are one and the same; no one else can determine that for me. This story gives me both, and it honors one of the most overlooked friendships in the Buffyerse: Buffy and Tara.

lanoyee recently began transferring some of her female-centric & Buffy-centric meta from her tumblr to her LJ ~~because I begged~~ at my request. In our conversations about one of our favorite shared subjects, the interrelationships of the women on BtVS, the same words kept coming up over and over: overlooked, underestimated, underappreciated, etc. When it comes to Buffy especially, her relationships with other women generate a lot less ink, as far as I can tell, than her relationships with the men in her life; it's easy to forget how central Joyce, Dawn, Willow, Faith etc are to Buffy's story, to her heart. Spike and Angel may be in her heart; Joyce and Dawn are her heart, they are her blood. And yet at the same time the show demonstrates that importance of "not in blood but in bond" relationships, to quote Kikimay's recent comment.

"Take a Moment" was written shortly after a conversation

lanoyee & I had about Buffy & Tara in particular, i.e. Why doesn't anyone talk about their relationship? About Tara's role in Buffy's story? Because it's not something I need to fanwank out of thin air, or squint to see: It's right there onscreen; they have a connection to one another that Buffy never shares with Anya, or at least until "Selfless" brings the "Xander's Lie" arc full circle.

pocochina thankfully mentions their connection in her 2011 meta character study of Tara, summing it up in quick, vivid strokes in just two paragraphs.

I'd call Buffy & Tara my OTF (one true friendship) except that's bullshit: aside from Buffy being my favorite character in the 'verse (and possibly in fiction, period) when it comes to this show, I may prefer certain things but I don't "OT_" anything. But FUFAW (Favorite Underappreciated Friendship Among Women) is pretty unwieldy, and sound like either a disease or something two cats would do in an alley.

Tara may not get a lot of time on the show, and she and Buffy rarely interact directly but she plays a key or essential role in some of the best episodes of the series, and when she does, she not only sings, she soars: "Hush", which both mirrors and flips Buffy and Willow's first encounters in "WTTH"; "Who are You", in which she is the only character to realize that Faith isn't really Buffy, and she's never even met Buffy before; "Restless", as a dream guide to Buffy her connection to Dawn, as a sister, becomes explicit; "Family" begins with Buffy verbally committing to protect Dawn from Glory after learning that Dawn isn't "real", and ends with Buffy and Dawn protecting Tara from the Maclays and naming her as one of their own: "Who do you think you are?" / "We're family." (I recently rewatched that episode waiting for a conversation between Buffy and Tara at the end at Tara's birthday party, and was shocked to realize it wasn't in the episode at all, but rather from

snowpuppies's fic "Here Comes the Sun" )
Speaking the words: "family" "sisters" "Summers blood" makes the commitment as physical and as real as mixing her own blood with Dawn's in BT.

Not in blood alone, but in bond.

The relationships between the women of the Buffyverse aren't an afterthought, something set to the side, they are absolutely central to it; and unlike most tv and movies shows I grew up with, the women of the Buffyverse don't relate only to the men, who in contrast enjoy rich friendships with one another. (Remember the popularity of the "buddy movie" esp in the 1980's?) That, for me, is one of the strengths of the Buffyverse. The women matter, and they matter to one another, as literal and metaphorical mothers, sisters, daughters, rivals, friends, and allies. They love, and choose to love, even when it's painful and difficult to do so.

And this may be behind my frustration or impatience with Angel, Riley and Giles. Yes, they have to leave, yes I get it, blah blah bitty blah. They can't stand the "fire" of love, so they get out of the kitchen, out of "women's space" literally and figuratively. I could devote an entire meta just to "Joyce's kitchen" as symbol of the Mother Principal, of Mater. The room where Buffy fights to protect Joyce in "Angel" and "Ted", where they have their worst fight in "Becoming Pt 2", where Joyce reaffirms her admiration and pride in Buffy in "Helpless", is also the room we associate with Tara's pancakes, and Spike fights for Buffy in "Touched". (The Mother Principle is not about literal gender.) It means something. They "chose" Mater and reaffirm the importance of love - raw, real, and messy love in all it's aspects, not the illusion of "romance". They bear witness to one another: you're important. You matter. I love you. I believe in you. Yes you fucked up, but you can do better next time. I understand you - or maybe I don't, but I can offer you comfort.

It's why we don't see Angel and Riley in the final battle in "Chosen" nor should we. It's why Giles absolutely has to "bend his knee" to the Warrior of the People, the Queen - and thank the stars that she is a benevolent one - if he expects to stand next to Buffy at the end. Or rather, behind her, in the final scene.

And it's one reason - of many - why Tara's absence in "Chosen" hurts so deeply; she earned the right to be there. Not as Willow's lover, not as a "perfect, faultless human being" (which she isn't, despite the tendency to canonize her as saint), and not even as Buffy's friend but as a powerful woman in her own right.

If I don't go into the politics overmuch here it's because I have a LOT more to say on the subject and am saving it for the moment; but also because it's dominated the discussion re: Tara for over ten years. Rage or silence and little in between the two. If I focus on her death, then I fail to celebrate her life, and it's worth celebrating. Her very existence as the first three-dimensional lesbian character in a realistic lesbian relationship is worth celebrating. And deserves a much better legacy than shameful silence and lack of any such characters that still exists - or rather, doesn't exist - in US television ten years later.

As long as we share her story she'll never lack for mourners and lovers, but if we fail to do so then she "dies", utterly and completely.

"There's a labyrinth of Voices inside your head, a counterpoint of self-awareness and the remembered sayings of your guides and mentors, who don't always agree. Sometimes, you wish you could go back and ask your teachers again to guide you..."

"... but up there, onstage, exactly where they always wanted you to be, you must simply find your way. They have given you all the help they can; the only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is you."

- Jeremy Dink, "Every Good Boy Does Fine," The New Yorker, April 8, 2013; pg 43.

In case you haven't seen it, my contributio the Big Damn Love Fest, a meta on "Ted" (2.11) is up You can find it here on DW (I've also posted it here on my LJ if you prefer; although I encourage folks to vist the BDLF to see the other great entries.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go give the Summers women some hugs.

So yesterday I posted about the Absence of Light Awards, and gave a special shout-out to "Le Petit Mort" by

snogged . Then I remembered to check out the No Rest For The Wicked Awards winners list and the first thing that caught my eye: "Le Petit Mort" won for Best Drabble. Well, of course it did. (And I really don't mean to play favorites, btw, because both AoL and Wicked had so many wonderful entries this year it makes my head hurt trying to keep up with them all.)

Unlike AoL, the Wicked nominee and winners lists include a lot of names I'm not familiar with, in part because it awards works in multiple fandoms, but I do see some friends on the winners list in the fiction categories:

velvetwhip (Gabrielle),

snowpuppies , secondalto,

valyssia, and

pickamix. Congratulations to all of you, dears! And special congratulations to the winners in the Meta Category (Not Fade Away):

The winner, "And When the Sky was Opened" by

eleusis_walks is the first (only?) in-depth fandom examination of Cordelia Chase's character arc I've come across, and was completely new to me before this round of awards. (How many metas about Queen C have you read before? Exactly.) The runners-up were two of my favorite, absolutely essential metas about the Buffyverse: "Rules of Engagement: Violence and Hyperreality in the Buffyverse" by

lostboy_lj , and "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer vs Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by

beer_good_foamy .

All the nominees were fantastic but these choices feel particularly right - any one of them could have been "first place", so to me it feels like a three-way tie, in terms of quality. I cannot recommend any of them highly enough - and if you've chatted with me for more than five minutes you've probably seen me link to lostboy's and beer_good_foamy's metas and said "Yes, THIS." They've helped shaped, define and deepen my understanding and enjoyment of the Buffyverse, of Buffy Summer's story AND they've both got wit and style to spare. (Smarts plus humor = that guy or gal you used to date in college and sort of regret now that you let them get away. Or maybe you don't but you had a damn fine time while it lasted.)

*************

Now here's where I'm going to be a bit whing-y and indulgent if you'll bear with me: My own "Dopplegangers (Xander)" meta was in the running in this category, and I knew perfectly well that I was not going to win because the competition was formidable. (Full disclosure: I nominated several of my competitors, because my meta was the only nominee at the time and who the hell wants that? That's not a contest. Ironically, "And When the Sky was Opened" was one of the few I didn't nominate, which means - there are other people out there reading meta! So it's all good.) But that didn't stop a teensy little part of my heart from wanting to win.

Brain: "You're not going to win, your meta is really rough and sloppy compared to these others, no way you're in the same category. Don't even think about it, kiddo."
Heart: "I know, I know, of course you're right. But I can't stop hoping just a teensy bit - what? No I'm not crossing my fingers honest I'm not."

Now here's the funny thing - and yes, I've got a point here somewhere - my fic "Untitled" has been nominated in two awards, won two "silver medals", basically, and I have no idea who nominated it, who voted for it, or why it got nominated in the first place. And I mean that - none. I read the other stories I was competing against and was certain who was going to win; and it wasn't going to be me. It's like pennies from Heaven falling into my lap that I didn't expect and don't understand but, gee, I'll take it anyway and thank you. But the meta category? Of course I knew I wasn't going to win that.

Why the disconnect? Because I think I'm as adept at judging the quality of fiction as nonfiction, at least in terms of other people's work. Is it because I consider myself primarily a nonfiction writer as opposed to fiction? Am I not as good of a judge of fiction as I think I am? Could the fact that most of my reading at home (on the bookshelf) is nonfiction skew my judgement? Am I just overthinking the whole damn thing?

In any case, I'm going to get cracking this year because I already have my sights on the next round of Wicked meta awards. Which is probably a huge, huge mistake - pride goeth before the fall and all that jazz. But I plan to have a damn fine time of it anyway.

1) "Untitled" (AU the Gift)" was voted Runner-Up in the Best Drabble category in Round Four of the Absence of Light Awards! THANK YOU to the judges and readers who voted for me, and an extra special THANK YOU to

brutti_ma_buoni and

snowpuppies , whose stories provided the inspiration for mine.

The award button for it is really visually disturbing and may be a bit squicky/triggery for some folks (hey, this IS the AoLA we're talking about here) so I'm including it AFTER the cut. You're welcome.

I didn't prepare an acceptance speech because I really did not expect that, at all. This is not false modesty talking; if I had been a judge in that category I wouldn't have voted for my own story because there were so many fantastic ones to choose from. The other award winners in the Drabble category include some of the best Buffyverse stories I've come across, each one gorgeous and orignal: "Daisies" by

spike_1790 , a delicately-drawn and compassionate portrait of Dawn's "bad habit", tied as Winner with "Stolen Screams" by Jane Davitt, a very original take on Angelus' torture of Giles through Spike's POV. "Le Petit Mort" by

snogged , a hypnotic "prose-poem" about complicated connection between the First Slayer and ~~an OC Slayer~~ the First Evil, won Fan Fave in the Drabble category.

The entire winners list includes some of the finest writing and most accomplished writers in this fandom; Best Author alone reads like a Who's Who of Buffyverse writers. Congratulations everybody! (More hugs, cookies and cocoa!) Special shout-out to folks on my flist, including( I'm afraid I'll miss somebody):

snowpuppies ,

velvetwhip ,

beer_good_foamy ,

coalitiongirl ,

brutti_ma_buoni ,

aadler ,

naughtynyx88 ,

deird1,

pickamix,

quinara,

lynnenne ,

angearia - and so on and so forth. Hugs, cookies, and hot cocoa with extra mashmallows for everybody!

2) More shameless self-pimpage: Speaking of

angearia, her comments in

2maggie2 's episode analysis of "Ted" were the catalyst for my last post, the meta about the episode for the Jossverse Big Damn Love Fest (DW version, sans screencaps.) I'm dying to respond but I have to wait until tomorrow when I have the 'puter to myself all day. I honestly wasn't sure about "putting myself out there" in that way - in fact, I was a bit terrified; I couldn't think of anyone I felt comfortable enough going to as a beta or even asking "Is this ok? Is it too personal? Am I going to create a shitstorm?" But the responses the post has gotten so far have been absolutely amazing. Thank you. You've reminded me that sharing stories is important and necessary; that thinking we're alone and no one else could possibly understand is the part of The Lie that keeps us separated from one another and interferes with our self-acceptance (Hey, do I detect the theme of another Buffy meta here?) You ROCK. This fandom ROCKS, even when, like the Scoobies themselves, it drives me up one side the wall and down the other.

And it also confirms one simple fact: I LOVE Buffy Summers, even when (and maybe because) it's difficult for me to love myself - and I love her from the first moment we see her in SD to that final hard-won smile in the sunlight. NO FUCKING APOLOGIES.

Current Mood: happy

Originally posted at the Jossverse Big Damn Love Fest: http://big-damn-fest.dreamwidth.org/3818.html

RUNNER-UP: Best Meta (Not Fade Away) category of the Wicked Awards Round 10
banner by angelus2hot

***

Warning and Disclaimer: I have thoughts - and a lot of feelings - about "Ted". This is quite serious, and more than a little personal; some very triggery subjects will be discussed. I’m not kidding. If this isn't your thing, by all means feel free to hit the back button right now, and no hard feelings. If you chose to continue otherwise, considered yourself welcome as well as forewarned. But please leave your weapons at the threshhold before you come in. Then wipe your feet on the mat, and help yourself to cookies. (Or hot cocoa with extra marshmallows.) Also, I apologize for the formatting but LJ is being very disobedient tonight.

And then there's the simple truth that when you engage in violence, accidents happen. We aren't robots. We can't turn off and turn on with the flip of a switch--and if we could, then we'd be okay with murdering people to gain our own ends. That fact that Buffy's violence is motivated by love is essential; it is both dark and light--she dances on the razor edge and she only has her instincts to guide her. -

angearia
http://2maggie2.livejournal.com/33960.html

***

In 1958 Lana Turner’s 14 year-old daughter Cheryl Crane stabs her mother’s boyfriend to death, allegedly in an effort to protect her mother. (The man, Johnny Stompanato, had gang connections and a history of violence behind him.) The court rules it justifiable homicide.

***

Thirty years later another teenage girl, oldest of four siblings, reads about Cheryl Crane, admires Crane’s courage, and wonders if she would be able to do the same, if the need arose. Her (second) stepfather is a large and powerful man; her mom is barely 5’3”. Would a baseball bat be sufficient? A kitchen knife? She decides on a rusty WW1-era bayonet and hides it by her bed. Her mom finds it and removes it without a word.

***

In the end, it’s unnecessary anyway; her mom divorces her husband and her daughter can breathe again, a little, and home becomes a safe place to be for the first time in years. It’s not that the girl wanted to hurt her stepfather. She knows that would be a horrific act; she also knows that there are people out there, other girls, for whom such things are unimaginable. But she’s been surrounded by violence her entire life, and so it’s not off the table. What is unimaginable in all her dark reveries, risking death for the sake of her family, is the notion of defending herself from her stepfather. Not once does that occur to her.

***

In 2012 the same girl, now a woman, finally watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time. She enjoys the cleverness and subversion of the “high school is hell” metaphors, the witty dialogue, the genre tropes and subversions. She is entertained and amused, even moved at times, but she doesn’t really identify with the pretty, perky ex-cheerleader at the center of the story. It doesn’t really touch her own experiences, and isn’t remotely scary, even when Buffy goes down to meet her death at the hands of the Master for the first time. (There are a total of seven seasons, after all; ergo, nothing to worry about.)

***

And then the woman watches “Ted” and for a few moments, she is terrified - for Buffy, and for the girl who hid a bayonet by her bed all those years ago. Memories she’s (thought she’s made) made peace with and packed away tumble out unbidden, like an overstuffed dresser drawer. She knows that her experience is not identical to Buffy’s, after all, and there’s a relief in that; the girl she once was couldn’t fight back, couldn’t protect her herself much less her family, and never even dared to protest or sass back; Buffy can, and does. She has resources that girl of long ago, and most abused children, can never dream of - confidence, physical strength, strength of character and will, resourcefulness, as well as devoted friends who come to her aid.

***

But Buffy Summers is just a girl, after all, a 16 year old girl operating on instinct. She’s been given a “license to kill” (demons) and almost zero guidance in how to use it. The Watchers’ Council cares nothing for her welfare, or for the countless girls who have preceded her; what matters is that the Slayer does her job properly and follows the arcane rules imposed upon her, traditions handed down through the centuries.

Ted Buchanan, as it turns out, would make an ideal Watcher by the Council’s standards, barring his use of physical violence, and even that’s not a sure thing. After all, the original Shadowmen chained a girl and forced the power of the demon upon her; the Watchers' Council may be more “civilized” on the surface, but they uphold a terrible tradition. The Slayer is used, discarded and replaced when she rebels or no longer suits the councils needs. Surely more personal abuse and violations of Slayers by individual Watchers is not beyond the pale.

***

Likewise Ted demands obedience from a string of women, discarding and destroying them when they disobey him or are no longer useful. How many Slayers throughout time have come before Buffy (later Kendra and Faith)? How many other people has Ted hurt or killed, women who wouldn’t follow the program, in addition to the four wives in his closet? The Watcher’s Council and Ted both operate within closed systems; they may allow minor changes and adjustments so long as the original paradigm is preserved.

***

Of course Buffy defeats Ted, motivated not just by her Slayer instincts but the instincts of a daughter and friend to protect the people she loves. She’s the Hero, after all. And yet she suffers for her actions; social ostracization, guilt, and shame. Heros may not end up in court charged with justifiable homicide but there are still consequences to bear. (There are always consequences.)

***

Or at least there are if the Hero is a teenage girl. Violence from men is so common as to be unremarkable; violent acts committed by women are still considered shocking. It’s no accident that at the end of the episode Buffy and Joyce agree to a rewatch of Thelma and Louise, a movie that disturbed and polarize audiences because two female protagonists commit violent acts against male characters onscreen; the same violence by male protagonists is a commonplace in movies, and a guarantee of box office sales.

***

So Buffy succeeds but at a cost. Her mother is safe but heartbroken and terribly lonely, unable to even look her daughter in the eye. Whatever her personal animosity towards Ted, much of it justifiable in light of his behavior, the last thing on earth Buffy ever wanted to do was to hurt her mother. The bond between them, one that suffered fissures long before “Ted Buchanan” came into their lives, is further damaged. And yet they love one another, deeply, no one questions that, and there’s the rub. The anger and love are warped and woven into one another so tightly that what poisons their bond also strengthens it.

***

And so it is with her best friends, with her mentor, with everyone who comes within her circle. Violence begets violence. It stains and spoils everything it touches; it cannot be put back into a tidy little box, locked up and tossed away. We can atone for it but we cannot undo it.

***

But this a fictional story and in fiction, unlike real life, there must be some catharsis for the viewer, a chance to release the anxieties the story has provoked, to relax and breathe again. And so it is for the characters themselves, or at least it seems at the moment. The episode ends happily, one might say conventionally, enough. More dramatically than the story of girl with the bayonet, perhaps (real life has no resolutions, remember); but Buffy and her mother come to an uneasy, unspoken peace on the back porch, their home (women’s space) reclaimed, and they can breathe again, for a time. Rupert Giles and Jenny Calender share a passionate kiss for the first time, Xander and Cordelia giggle while Buffy averts her eyes. It’s an ending worthy of Shakespearean comedy: All’s well that ends well.

JoyceGiles_Kiss_Ted_Cropped_LJ.Brknscrncps

Except, of course, that we’ve seen the entire series, and we know too much. The moments that made us smile and cheer when we first watched are painful now. (Not as painful as the memory of that bayonet and all it represented, but certainly poignant.) The characters onscreen have the luxury of perpetual innocence; they can’t know yet that Buffy will hesitate to kill her lover and it will cost Jenny her life, and Giles his only chance at love; that Buffy will eventually run a sword through her lover’s heart. The truth of Buffy’s calling will be forced upon Joyce at the worst possible hour and their relationship will be very nearly destroyed.

***

Much has been made of Buffy’s “daddy issues”, at the cost of the complex mother/daughter relationship, and so scholars and fandom inadvertently repeat the sins of Ted Buchanan, and of the Watchers Council. We forget, dismiss or overlook the fact that it always comes back to this: the love between a girl trying to grow up in an uncertain and frightening world, and a lonely mother so deeply in denial she cannot see what’s in plain sight before her eyes.

***

And Ted’s fingerprints (do robots have fingerprints?) can be found in the final hours of Buffy’s story when Giles and “General Buffy” and their friends represent the last vestigal traces of the WC, haunted by ghosts and locked into a closed and destructive paradigm. Violence begets violence.

***

In 2012, Buffy became my Hero - by which I mean my fictional hero, my avatar, as opposed to real life heros such as my mother. (Make no mistake - in her capacity to love and endure, I consider my mother heroic.) My brothers grew up with Spiderman and Batman and Hans Solo; with countless tales of soldiers and kings throughout the ages. I had to wait until I was in my 40’s to find her.

***

Was it worth it the wait? Yes, it most certainly was. Yet I can’t help feel a little wistful that Buffy Summers wasn’t around in the 1970's or 1980’s; I certainly would have loved her then as I do now, if perhaps for different reasons. I can hope that in the years since that at least one other girl or boy, etched with anger and violence, haunted by dreams of murder that are so common as to be unremarkable, has felt just a little less frightened and alone because of her.

When I posted some of my favorite meta for 2012 on the buffyverse top5 last month, I wrote that I hoped for more of the same high-caliber meta in 2013. Wish, granted:

"Why the Buffyverse?" by

lostboy_lj Inspired by

shapinglight 's "fanfic musings" (inspired in turn by

brutti_ma_buoni .... and so it goes. You get the idea.) He takes on the question why is anyone still writing Buffy fanfic at all?

"The Monomythology of Buffy" also by by

lostboy_lj This is already on my best meta of 2013 list. Absolutely essential reading: Buffy's journey through the lens of Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" - a Cliff Notes version but a hell of a lot smarter, and with pretty visual aids. One of lostboy's talents is laying out complex ideas boiled down to their essential components, with a great deal of wit. I've been linking to this on convo threads all over the place as if it was Apocalypse Season.

Speaking of must-read meta: a conversation between

lostboy_lj and

local_max on the Monomythology post inspired max's musings about Ben's literal and figurative role in S5 as a "illusory comfort" and representative of the medical establishment, how he tries to placate Buffy regarding her mother's illness, and how he "self-medicates" to keep the reality of Glory at bay: it’s consistent with a pattern of Ben: he uses deception to placate Buffy (and others) into believing that a real problem, whether it be Glory, the string of crazy people in her wake, or Joyce’s upcoming death (though Ben is not actually aware of the last one), is not a real problem. Don’t sweat it, no need to prepare (though, it’s not as if preparation is possible): your problem is in good hands. As per usual with max, penetrating intelligence, personal honesty, compassion and intellect come together in a fascinating consideration of a "key" (pun intended) but oft-overlooked character.

And of a more general nature (not specific to this fandom),

angearia has a thing or two to say about "authorial intent" and the complexity of determining who the "author" is, especially in a work such as BtVS in which there are so many hands, so many voices involved in it's creation (writers, producers, actors); a question further complicated (and multiplied to the nth degree) by the presence/participation of the readers/viewers as co-creators of a give work. She argues passionately that "the reader" is also an author - and no greater example of this can be found than btvs fandom as we engage with the series over time, emotionally and intellectually. Long live the Revolution, indeed.

FYI: I am procrastinating on my "Ted" meta for the Big Damn Lovefest, and everything else on my to-do list, like a mad thing. Pain from a recent injury is about to do me in.

A couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that my meta "Dopplegangers" has been nominated for Best Meta in the No Rest For The Wicked Awards, I didn't properly say "thank you". I had a nice long paragraph of appreciation all typed out on LJ - and that was the week LJ decided to give me shit, and wouldn't let me post more than a couple of sentences. *shakes fist at LJ*

So, thank you very much, Mystery Reader - and I honestly have no idea who it might have been, but it's appreciated all the same. I don't think what I've written is even in the same league with some of the other meta that have been nominated, but it's a huge compliment just to be in the same category with the other writers there. And it's especially gratifying because meta, not fanfic, is what got me into this part of fandom on LJ and what really pulled me into Buffyverse fandom for the first time last year; it was the thoughtful essays and discussions that demonstrated to me that what I'd heard - that there was a TV show with academic journals and conferences devoted to it - was no joke.

This is perhaps the first fan awards I've run into that specifically include a category for meta writing. There are also categories for vids, manips, banners and icons, as well as fics in a variety of fandoms. The nomination period ends the 31st, so stop over there and spread the love for your favorite fan works. (It's probably worth mentioning that the nomination periods for the Absence of Light and the Willowy Goodness Awards will also be ending soon. I think all of them still have slots that can be filled in various categories.)

I know fan fiction dominates fandom creativity, in this as in other fandoms, but I think it's a shame not to give meta essays some love and recognition as well, particularly given the fact that Buffyverse fandom is the most academic fandom and intellectual fandom of any tv show. And while I read TONS of fanfic now, meta is still where my heart is, particularly when the writer combines heart and head, intellectual and emotional responses. There's Slayage of course, but those papers are addressed to a very specific audience, one that I never became a part of and whose language I cannot access.

I am speaking from a place of my own inadequacy, of course (health monetary problems forced me to drop out of a masters degree program many years ago, and I never achieved the level of education I imagined I would), but there's a need in me to talk and write about the show, to peel back it's many layers, to hear different viewpoints, without feeling like someone is talking over my head. Which is ironic, given that the refrain I heard time and again from classmates and even my mom growing up was "Why do you have to use such long words? Can't you speak English?"

Karma is indeed a bitch, my friends.

So I never got to reside for very long in that vaunted ivory tower, which isn't so very exalted in reality - I have more friends than I can count who are doing better than I am, perhaps, but still just getting by cobbling together a variety of adjunct teaching positions. But watching BtVS awoke something in me that needed more intellectual stimulation, and meta on LJ, DW and various blogs fulfill that quite nicely.

Current Mood: grateful

A couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that my meta (*self-pimpage alert!*) "Dopplegangers" has been nominated for Best Meta in the No Rest for the Wicked Awards, I didn't properly say "thank you". I had a nice long paragraph of appreciation all typed out on LJ - and that was the week LJ decided to give me shit, and wouldn't let me post more than a couple of sentences. *shakes fist at LJ*

So, thank you very much to the mystery person - and I honestly have no idea who it might have been, but it's appreciated all the same. I don't think what I've written is even in the same league with some of the other meta that have been nominated, but it's a huge compliment just to be in the same category with the other writers there. And it's especially gratifying because meta, not fanfic, is what got me into this part of fandom on LJ and what really pulled me into Buffyverse fandom for the first time last year; it was the thoughtful essays and discussions that demonstrated to me that what I'd heard - that there was a TV show with academic journals and conferences devoted to it - was no joke.

NRFTW is perhaps the first fan awards I've run into that specifically include a category for meta writing. There are also categories for vids, manips, banners and icons, as well as fics in a variety of fandoms. The nomination period ends the 31st, so stop over there and spread the love for your favorite fan works. (It's probably worth mentioning that the nomination periods for the Absence of Light and the Willowy Goodness Awards will also be ending soon. I think all of them still have slots that can be filled in various categories.)

I am speaking from a place of my own inadequacy, of course (health monetary problems forced me to drop out of a masters degree program many years ago, and I never achieved the level of education I imagined I would), but there's a need in me to talk and write about the show, to peel back it's many layers, to hear different viewpoints, without feeling like someone is talking over my head. Which is ironic, given that the refrain I heard time and again from classmates and even my mom growing up was, "Why do you have to use such long words? Can't you speak English?"

Karma is indeed a bitch, my friends.

So I never got to reside for very long in that vaunted ivory tower, which isn't so very exalted in reality - I have more friends than I can count who are doing better than I am, perhaps, but still just getting by cobbling together a variety of adjunct teaching positions. But watching BtVS awoke something in me that needed more intellectual stimulation, and meta on LJ, DW and various blogs fulfill that quite nicely.

I received a message from

angelus2hot that "The Mirror Cracked: Dopplegangers" has been nominated in Round 9 of the No Rest for the Wicked Awards, category "Not Fade Away (best fan meta/essay)".

Note to self: Try rewatch an episode before writing meta about it. Because I rewatched "Anne" this morning, and it's even better than I remembered. In fact, I can say that it and "Bargaining" are my favorite season openers.

(Note to everyone else: I cannot get the lj cut tag to work, in either rich text or html, even after much effort. So I apologize for this all showing up on the Friends page. I assume you still love me anyway, gentle reader.)

I mentioned yesterday that "Anne" is an encapsulation of S6's theme of Buffy's depression in a single episode. Watching it again this morning, for the first time since I finished the series, I realized that it's an encapsulation of pretty much the entire seven seasons, (And it captures pretty much everything that makes it my favorite TV show ever: humor and drama in perfect balance, wonderful character work, and a kick-ass fight scene.)

( Are you seated comfortably? )

First off, there's a lot going on in this episode, such as economic class issues, personified later in the season by Faith; and Xander and Cordy's difficult relationship, characterized by avoidance, dislike, insults and sex that masks genuine affection (shades of Buffy and Spike, anyone?) I'll talk about those in other meta posts, but for this one I want to focus on Buffy's depression arc as reflected in "Anne" and portrayed over the entire series. We tend to think of S6 (and late S5) as the "depression arc" but the show has been very careful to build that aspect of Buffy's character from the beginning of S2.

The opening scene with the Scoobies (Xander, Willow, Oz) trying to fight vampires in Buffy's absence, and botching it up (although I think they need to cut themselves some slack - half the vamps dusted is better than none, right?) will be repeated in "Bargaining": "We need Buffy". And their reaction to her return in the next episode, Dead Man's Party, will be called back in After Life: Taking her presence for granted once she returns, failing to ask her what's going on in her head, what she's been through, or what she might really need.

The reversal here of course is that in "Anne" she descends to a "Hell" from which she fights her way out; in the Gift she "ascends" to Heaven, only to be torn from it in "Bargaining" without her consent:

"Anne":
(Buffy) "This isn't hell."
(Ken) "What is Hell? The total absence of hope."

After Life:
"Where ever I was, I think I was happy....I was finished. Complete....I think I was in Heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there, pulled out by my friends....Everything here is hard, and bright, and violen. Everything I feel, everything I touch - this is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I've lost. They [the Scoobies] can never know. Never."

Buffy's monologue in AL, poignant as it may be (all praise to SMG's delivery), is summed in the single shot in "Anne" at the top of this post: despair, depression, PTSD, the sense of having lost everything: family, friends, lover, childhood innocence; exiling herself to an urban setting (L.A.) that is "hard...and violent." Even the reference to her friends' actions in Bargaining, and "They can never know [where I've been, what I've gone through]" is relevant to Becoming/Anne: Buffy never mentions Xander's lie ("Willow said 'Kick his ass' ") and her perception that her friends abandoned her until S7's "Selfless".

The dark, fiery setting of the underground factory is a place she returns to both physically and emotionally throughout the series.
She descends to that hell, the utter absence of hope in S5: TWOTW and The Gift; most of S6 up to Normal Again; EP and Touched in S7, finally vanquishing it physically and emotionally in Chosen.

BUFFY_S5_D6-Title2_wmv_0603

In each instance Buffy must fight to break through her depressive state by renewing connections to her Slayer instincts and to her friends and family on her own terms. The personal (Buffy) becomes the political (the Slayer). In both "The Gift" and "Chosen" her solutions to saving the world are also motivated by a desire to protect loved ones (Dawn in The Gift) or banishing her own fears (of dying alone, in "Chosen".) It's not coincidental that in most instances, with the exception of "Touched", this is facilitated primarily by other women, especially friends and family: Lily and Joyce in "Anne", Willow in TWOTW, Dawn in "Grave", Joyce again in "Normal Again". One of BtVS's strength is that it continually affirms and values relationships between women in a way that was (and is) still relatively uncommon in US movies and tv shows. (See

gabrielleabelle's meta "Women, Connecting".)

"Touched" twists the pattern around a bit: Spike, arguably the most "androgynous" of the male characters (he and Buffy have shifted male/female role expectations fluidly, if not easily, throughout their relationship) reestablishes the emotional connection that allows her to break through and reclaim her identity and purpose. That can be interpreted positively: the male and female halves of Buffy (as well as Spike), the anima and animus, joined together in strength rather than weakness; or negatively: women will ultimately betray one another, and a woman's most important connections are with men. I'm not wanting to engage in a "Spuffy-centric" conversation here, btw; I'm just trying to parse out the writers' intended and unintended messages in the gender twist to the pattern.

Buffy then reconnects with Willow and Faith ("Good thing we're such hot chicks" / "Takes the edge off") to create the Slayer spell and connect through and with them with all the Potentials all over the world. That the spell has a some very unpleasant implications - violation of personal agency, the creation of a master race, etc - is something that has been thoroughly discussed and I'm going to put aside in-depth consideration of it for the moment - again, I'm trying to look at it only in the context of Buffy's depression arc. In this regard, however, I think

local_max made an excellent point the other day that in the context of Chosen Buffy is less trangressive than Willow, and I'd argue that Buffy's affirmation of the WC's mission, spreading it outward, continuing the "war" rather than questioning, subverting or rejecting it entirely, supports his observation. In "Anne" the positive negative implications of the Slayer spell are foreshadowed in Buffy's command to a scared and reluctant Lily (a sort of proto-Potential, if you will) that she lead the other workers out of the factory: "You can handle this - because I say so". She acts as "General Buffy", commanding the troops, delegating tasks, and empowering another girl, or more precisely permission (via a verbal kick in the ass) to claim her own power; but she has also makes an assumption about the other girl's ability or willingness to do the task out of immediate practical need without prior proof that Lily can step up to the plate, and is proven only by happenstance. (What if Lily hadn't pushed Ken off the scaffold?)

That her depressive episodes reoccur over the run of the series (and I am purposefully excluding the comics as I do not consider them head-canon, at least) indicate that simply "getting over herself" is not sufficient to solve her underlying issues. The show's attitude towards professional therapeutic help ("Beauty and the Beasts", and "Normal Again") is a bit of a mixed bag, and I want to on more in-depth on the subject in another meta. Suffice it to say, Buffy never receives real help, except of the bootstrap variety; no therapy - or rest - for the Slayer.

(I've got a lot more to say about "Anne": about Joyce's anger toward Giles and the WC, about Xander and Cordy's relationship, class issues, etc. To be continued....)

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HERE'S TO A NOMINALLY TOLERABLE 2016 EVERYBODY!
I'm making an absolute hash of the Snowflake Challenge....and nobody is surprised by this.
Ghosts of Impossible Things: Artwork for "Third Wheel" by Glassdarkly (Shapinglight)
btvsats20in20 ROUND 14: NIGHTMARES (BtVS S1.10)
Showing the Ladies Off (and pushing our comfort zones)...
(no subject)
Ted Meta: Runner-Up in Wicked Awards or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love self-nomination*
If I write meta about writing meta - will the universe fold in on itself?
Or what's a beta for? And, is there a beta in your meta?
The Earth Her Body - Fic by La Noyee, (and random thoughts about the women of the 'verse) (1/?)
Quote du Jour: "A Labyrinth of Voices"
Entry for the Big Damn Love Fest: BtVS 2 x 11 "Ted"
Squee for Thee, Not Me
Squee and Self-Pimpage Ahoy!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2 x 11: "Ted"
Meta Much More - or, Recent Fandom Reading
No Rest for the Wicked Awards, and Meta Love - Some fannish thoughts and gratitude
Meta, much? Belated gratitude and more awardage stuff
My "Dopplegangers" meta nominated in the "No Rest for the Wicked" awards!
More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?)

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Entries tagged with meta

HERE'S TO A NOMINALLY TOLERABLE 2016 EVERYBODY!

I'm making an absolute hash of the Snowflake Challenge....and nobody is surprised by this.

Ghosts of Impossible Things: Artwork for "Third Wheel" by Glassdarkly (Shapinglight)

btvsats20in20 ROUND 14: NIGHTMARES (BtVS S1.10)

Showing the Ladies Off (and pushing our comfort zones)...

(no subject)

Ted Meta: Runner-Up in Wicked Awards or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love self-nomination*

If I write meta about writing meta - will the universe fold in on itself?

Or what's a beta for? And, is there a beta in your meta?

The Earth Her Body - Fic by La Noyee, (and random thoughts about the women of the 'verse) (1/?)

Quote du Jour: "A Labyrinth of Voices"

Entry for the Big Damn Love Fest: BtVS 2 x 11 "Ted"

Squee for Thee, Not Me

Squee and Self-Pimpage Ahoy!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2 x 11: "Ted"

Meta Much More - or, Recent Fandom Reading

No Rest for the Wicked Awards, and Meta Love - Some fannish thoughts and gratitude

Meta, much? Belated gratitude and more awardage stuff

My "Dopplegangers" meta nominated in the "No Rest for the Wicked" awards!

More thoughts about "Anne": Buffy's depression arc (2/?)

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June 2021

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