(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Discovered quite by accident that my geocities Buffy meta site is still available. You can't see any of the graphics - but then they weren't work much to begin with. But you can access the meta.

http://www.oocities.org/shadowkatbtvs/

It contains 400 pages worth of Buffy Meta, mainly on Season 6, or all the episodes up to and including Season 6, there are a few on S7 and on Angel. Ghod, I went nuts. I mean seriously nuts. Talk about an obsession. I wrote about every character and theme imaginable. Also, analyzed it through a psychological, mythological, and philosophical lense.

My friends at the time (offline friends) decided that I was using it as a sort therapy - a way to get past some severe post-traumatic stress brought on by a variety of events that had all, more or less, occurred at the same time resulting in up-ending my life and metaphorically pulling the rug out from under me. It turned out well. I'm in a much better place now than I was then. And looking back, I rather grateful it all happened the way it did - learned a lot about myself and the world around me in the process.

I think Buffy will always have a place close to my heart, as will the people that I discussed it with on the boards that were active at that time, many of those people I'm still in contact with 13 years later...

I'd say Buffy had a hand in healing those old wounds, but I rather think it was the folks I corresponded with that did. We got to know each other through a shared (okay an obsession) with a tv series that for some reason or other moved us deeply and we related to on a deep psychological, emotional, and intellectual level - that none of us fully understood or could explain except perhaps to each other.

To this day, I'm not sure it was BTVS that I fell in love with - but the ability to discuss it through words, with fellow writers, poets, and artists ad naseum and with willful abandon. Worrying not what others may think of us. Screw them - we shouted!
We love this! And through it...each other. We were, I discovered, all ages, all genders, all sexual orientations, all races, all nationalities, all politics, all religions...there were people from around the world. Conversing. And you really couldn't tell what their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc was - and it simply didn't matter.
That was what I fell in love with - the people and the writing and the correspondence.
And that was what I occasionally miss. Also, that's what great art does - it brings people together in discourse over it. That's how you know something is great art - not by the awards it obtains or critical reviews and accolades...but by fan discussion boards and people writing fanfic, discussing it, obsessing over it, and loving one another because of it. It heals. It bonds. It changes. It creates new things. It reveals new things about us that we didn't see before. And it challenges us, and makes us ever so slightly uncomfortable. That is great art.

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

It changed my life too, and opened up new horizons.

[ann1962]

That's one big flash to the past. So neat.

And friends, the unexpected cool part that happened.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

What's equally amazing to me is that even today, 12 years after the show ended, people still want to read about it and talk about it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not to mention having some of the same debates. People are still debating Spike and Buffy's relationship in S6. And still rewatching it, and discussing it in depth.

Granted they did the same thing with Star Trek. But it's only certain shows or books that reach that level of discourse.