December 31, 2025...Sigh, around Sunset
Dec. 31st, 2025 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatTook today off, also am taking Friday off. Work is slower than molasses at the moment. I don't know why they were being fussbudgets about not letting me take the last two weeks of December off. It's not like I can do anything during those weeks.
It's still cold here, in the low thirties, feels like the twenties. Felt it when I went grocery shopping and to the pharmacy, mainly to get more antacid, and something for dinner tonight. I was going to make a quiche, I might still do that - traditional to make one on New Year's Eve. My mother always did when I was a kid - we'd have quiche and champagne at midnight.
Mine isn't as rich as hers was, I use half and half or almond/coconut milk creamer, three eggs, spinach, and cheddar/gureyer cheese. She used heavy cream, four eggs, spinach, bacon, and swiss and cheddar cheese.
Anyhow, on way back from grocery shopping, I was stumbling along and one block away from my apartment complex: It was cold. The sun was setting. My groceries were weighing heavy on my arms, and my knee was aching. I got to the cross walk just as the light changed, and I thought, frak it, I'll risk it - kill me if you want to, you stupid cars. I don't care. (I live in residential area, with a lot of cross-walks). Halfway across, I hear a loud honk, and look up, a young woman, with bright yellow blond hair, big sunglasses, and a round face with red lipstick has rolled down her window - from the top of a big black shiny SUV. She can't be more than twenty-five. She curses me out, calls me a bitch, and just tells me off for deigning to stumble across the cross-walk, just as the light turned, and halting her lazy privileged spoiled prissy ass from getting to where she was going. I felt the spoiled princess' rage all the way home. [ I've had Bengali drivers stop, let me go, often wave me along, long after the light has turned, and kindly smile at me. So it's not all NYC drivers.]
I guess I'm lucky the spoiled brat didn't run me over?
My knee was killing me when I got home. It doesn't handle a lot of weight or standing on it for too long. I may have to start doing grocery orders and limiting the amount of stuff I carry. I was annoyed enough at the spoiled brat that I drew her, the car, and myself - for a later watercolor.
I can still see her round face and died blond hair in my head. Like a cartoon.
***
I watched more of Angel S3 and Buffy S6 (which I like better than Angel S3). Buffy is still the better series on all cylinders. And the more relatable.
Watched Once More With Feeling for the first time in ten years. I'd forgotten a few things about it. Anya brings up the feeling of being watched, as if she's really in a musical, and the fourth wall has broken away - and stresses over whether her song and dance number with Xander will be a hit or is too retro. And if any of them would be? (Answer? Rest in Peace is probably the only one that can be considered a hit, and can be sung outside of the series and context, and make any sense. That and possibly the end number, and Tara's. But Tara's number is a touch too..silly to take off.)
Giles never understood why Buffy survived over other slayers. And is still too caught up in what he was "taught" by the Watcher Council to be that helpful to Buffy. Oddly, and somewhat ironically, Spike is taking on that role more and more - along with Willow and Anya. They seem to understand how to help Buffy better than Giles does - and kind of fight him on the idiotic decisions he makes. This starts becoming evident in S5 - when Giles proposes to kill Dawn, and everyone fights him on it. And it's evident again in this episode, where Giles decides that the "slayer" should save Dawn by herself and solve the problem "alone" without their help, and "stand on her own" - and he must leave, so she will take charge of her own life, handle Dawn, and everything on her own. To a degree he's right - Buffy should be handling the parenting duties in regard to Dawn, but he's wrong that she should be doing it alone. Joyce didn't parent Buffy by herself, after all. He's also wrong about the slayer fighting evil by herself. You'd think he'd have learned that by now? I mean he tries that approach over and over again in S1-4, and keeps getting proven wrong, and ends up helping despite himself.
Spike actually states all of this in Fool for Love, where he says that the flaw is the "slayer is all alone" and after a while the isolation and fighting alone gets to them, and they slip up or give up, ie. the death wish. What keeps Buffy from going down that path - is her connections to the world, her mother, her friends, Giles, and Dawn. But if all of that were to be torn away - he'd have himself one good day. He says the same thing to Dru in S2 - a slayer with a mother and friends wasn't in the brochure. And in S4, he tells Adam that the only way to defeat Buffy is to remove her from her friends and family. They can take her alone.
Giles meanwhile - is telling her to fight alone. And after she's brought back, her friends let her fight alone most of the time, it's only when they get involved and actually help - that Buffy defeats the "major threats".
During the group song in Once More With Feeling - "I've Got a Feeling" - Buffy sings "what can't we defeat - if we're together?" Emphasis on "together". But no one hears her - even though they sing with her - "together" - Giles wants Buffy to do it on her own.
I kind of wish Whedon killed Giles off - but that would have been too easy. (Also, he was admittedly the reason I started watching the series.) It's better than he's there - but ineffectual, and often proven wrong, with others fixing things. His students, Xander, Willow, Buffy, and even Anya, Tara and Spike have in a way surpassed him. Anya is the one who pushes Giles to go after and help Buffy, with Xander backing her up - even if they are bickering, they are united on that front.
And Spike is among the first, to tell Giles, hell no, if you don't want to back her up - I will. But Buffy still put off by a frustrated Spike telling her to stay away from him - tells him that she thought he wanted her to stay away from him. And he pulls an Angel - and tells her, fine take care of it yourself. Actually that interaction could have been pulled from either S1-3.
Spike/Buffy is interesting - in that Spike is confused. Before Buffy died she made it clear that they couldn't be together, she could never love him, but she needed him and wouldn't forget that he put his life on the line for Dawn. After she comes back, she starts patrolling with him, leans on him, confides more and more in him, and is...dare we say it? Flirting with him.
He doesn't know what to make of this. Is she playing with him? Does she have feelings for him? So he's confused and frustrated. And being a demon (he doesn't have any connection to humanity or a soul), part of him would love to kill her and be done with it - but he was so tortured that she died because he failed to protect Dawn and live up to his promise - and that was for months. So Spike is a very confused, frustrated, love-sick vampire - in the midst of an identity crisis.
To be fair, Buffy is also confused, frustrated, and in the midst of an identity crisis. Also she's turned on by Spike, and possibly falling in love with him - even though she knows the relationship can't go anywhere and is impossible.
Actually that was what turned me on to the relationship? It was impossible.
I couldn't go anywhere. And it was doomed to failure. Made it more interesting and less predictable to watch. (I don't like sappy romances on television. Tara and Willow is bad enough - it's only saving grace was I knew it was doomed.)
Another aside - damn, who is in charge of Willow and Tara's wardrobe? Tara is wearing a corset. Their dresses are costumes. And who wears that to school and to casual things? They are dressed as if they are going to the Renaissance Faire or a Witches Convention. Buffy and Anya have the best wardrobes. But I honestly think the costume department has a weird ass view of Willow and Tara.
The best singers are hands down, Giles and Tara. I already knew about Giles. Dawn, Anya, and Spike can sing. I think Anya is slightly better than the other two. Both Spike and Dawn's voices crack on high notes, and are limited in range. Marsters is right when he states that he can sing, he's not a trained singer. This worked, because he's not supposed to be a trained singer. Also he can sign better than the entire lead cast of Angel. (Only Lorne, Darla, and Lindsey can sing on that series - there's a reason they didn't do a musical on it, well that - and David and Charisma threatened to hire someone to take out Whedon if he attempted it.). Gellar isn't that bad. She can do passingly well. As can Xander. Also they fixed the voices in post-production. (You can actually fix voices with sound editing, so they have perfect pitch. Lando, a previous co-worker, explained to me that with advances in sound editing - you can pretty much make any voice sound fantastic.)
I can see why the actors freaked when the musical was first proposed to them, and they got the tapes - sung by Whedon and his wife at the time, Kai. It could have turned out badly, the fact it doesn't - has a lot to do with Christopher Beck, various producers, directors, sound editors, choreographers, Hinton Battle, and the cast going into hyper-drive to ensure that it worked. They really worked hard to sell it. And it was hard to do - there's a lot of scenes in which they are talking over each other, or singing over each other - and that's hard to pull off.
It's in the scenes in which they are singing or talking over each other - that I kind of picked up on a few things I'd not noticed previously.
The group works best together, but the events from S5 coupled with the aftermath of bringing Buffy back from the dead - has resulted in a splintering of the group dynamic. They aren't really together or united in anything at the moment? Or on the same page? Anya/Xander are bickering about their future and the wedding, and it's not clear they care about the same things. Willow/Tara are also bickering - about magic. This is a hold over from S5. The last time Tara brought up Willow relying too heavily on magic - Tara ended up going to the Cultural Fair on her own, and got mind sucked by Glory. Then when they fight over it again, Willow does a forgetting spell - poor traumatized Tara must be equating fighting with Willow on magic with losing her mind at this point. No wonder she leaves.
Tara leaving Willow is paralleled or equated with Giles leaving Buffy, but it's not the same. And what always bugged me about Giles leaving - is he keeps thinking his only charge is Buffy, and that the others don't matter.
Which kind of bites him later. It does here - Xander summoned the "dancing" demon - and Giles shrugs it off, too focused on Buffy not taking responsibility for everyone and everything.
Buffy, folks, is 21 years of age. She lost her mother. She died. She was yanked out of heaven. She's stuck caring for a mystical sister that she died for. And has to juggle living expenses, taking care of her sister, and being the slayer all at the same time. We're told all slayers have watchers up to their deaths - they also don't live that long (small wonder - the watchers are ineffectual nitwits).
Truth of the matter is - Giles doesn't like taking responsibility. And doesn't want it. Never has. He's a reluctant watcher. It was actually my first meta on this series, written in 2002, and lost in the bowels of the net. But, Giles shrugging off Willow's use of magic is...well, it says a lot about Giles? And the Watcher Council? Willow has slowly become a very powerful witch, and is untrained. She has access to a lot of dark magics. Magics that Giles has recklessly exposed her to or allowed her access. The Watcher Council asks where he keeps the dangerous books - and he keeps them upstairs in the magic shop, not under lock and key. Willow grabbed one and accessed all its secrets in Season 5. In S2, he willy nilly lets Willow do a dangerous gypsy curse to get Angelous his soul back. And he doesn't really discuss it with her. When he learns of the spell she used to bring back Buffy - he doesn't bring in anyone to oversee Willow. He yells at her, then backs off. And when he discovers Willow yanked Buffy from heaven, and then Willow springs a dangerous memory spell on all of them - he still "leaves"??? WTF Giles? You don't leave people when they are screwing up, and hope they work it out without you. Then come back and fix it. That doesn't work.
Giles is a crappy parent and role model.
The end of Once More With Feeling is interesting - because it's clear all the characters were shaken by what transpired, and not sure what to do with themselves or each other, or how to look at one another. Willow is devastated. Tara is disgusted and devastated. Anya is horrified, along with Xander - both of which had seriously questioned bringing back Buffy. Spike is frustrated and annoyed by all of it. And Buffy just doesn't care any longer - she's numb - and just wants to feel something. Dawn feels as if she doesn't matter to anyone.
The kiss at the end works on multiple levels. It's also a game-changer. When it happened - I got obsessed with the series. That whole episode blew me away in 2001. It surprised me, and I'm rarely surprised by television series.
Because I thought, okay, that's new. They never do that in these shows. I had no idea where they were going with Spike and Buffy. That romance felt even more impossible than Buffy and Angel did. So much was aligned against it. Made it more interesting.
It's still cold here, in the low thirties, feels like the twenties. Felt it when I went grocery shopping and to the pharmacy, mainly to get more antacid, and something for dinner tonight. I was going to make a quiche, I might still do that - traditional to make one on New Year's Eve. My mother always did when I was a kid - we'd have quiche and champagne at midnight.
Mine isn't as rich as hers was, I use half and half or almond/coconut milk creamer, three eggs, spinach, and cheddar/gureyer cheese. She used heavy cream, four eggs, spinach, bacon, and swiss and cheddar cheese.
Anyhow, on way back from grocery shopping, I was stumbling along and one block away from my apartment complex: It was cold. The sun was setting. My groceries were weighing heavy on my arms, and my knee was aching. I got to the cross walk just as the light changed, and I thought, frak it, I'll risk it - kill me if you want to, you stupid cars. I don't care. (I live in residential area, with a lot of cross-walks). Halfway across, I hear a loud honk, and look up, a young woman, with bright yellow blond hair, big sunglasses, and a round face with red lipstick has rolled down her window - from the top of a big black shiny SUV. She can't be more than twenty-five. She curses me out, calls me a bitch, and just tells me off for deigning to stumble across the cross-walk, just as the light turned, and halting her lazy privileged spoiled prissy ass from getting to where she was going. I felt the spoiled princess' rage all the way home. [ I've had Bengali drivers stop, let me go, often wave me along, long after the light has turned, and kindly smile at me. So it's not all NYC drivers.]
I guess I'm lucky the spoiled brat didn't run me over?
My knee was killing me when I got home. It doesn't handle a lot of weight or standing on it for too long. I may have to start doing grocery orders and limiting the amount of stuff I carry. I was annoyed enough at the spoiled brat that I drew her, the car, and myself - for a later watercolor.
I can still see her round face and died blond hair in my head. Like a cartoon.
***
I watched more of Angel S3 and Buffy S6 (which I like better than Angel S3). Buffy is still the better series on all cylinders. And the more relatable.
Watched Once More With Feeling for the first time in ten years. I'd forgotten a few things about it. Anya brings up the feeling of being watched, as if she's really in a musical, and the fourth wall has broken away - and stresses over whether her song and dance number with Xander will be a hit or is too retro. And if any of them would be? (Answer? Rest in Peace is probably the only one that can be considered a hit, and can be sung outside of the series and context, and make any sense. That and possibly the end number, and Tara's. But Tara's number is a touch too..silly to take off.)
Giles never understood why Buffy survived over other slayers. And is still too caught up in what he was "taught" by the Watcher Council to be that helpful to Buffy. Oddly, and somewhat ironically, Spike is taking on that role more and more - along with Willow and Anya. They seem to understand how to help Buffy better than Giles does - and kind of fight him on the idiotic decisions he makes. This starts becoming evident in S5 - when Giles proposes to kill Dawn, and everyone fights him on it. And it's evident again in this episode, where Giles decides that the "slayer" should save Dawn by herself and solve the problem "alone" without their help, and "stand on her own" - and he must leave, so she will take charge of her own life, handle Dawn, and everything on her own. To a degree he's right - Buffy should be handling the parenting duties in regard to Dawn, but he's wrong that she should be doing it alone. Joyce didn't parent Buffy by herself, after all. He's also wrong about the slayer fighting evil by herself. You'd think he'd have learned that by now? I mean he tries that approach over and over again in S1-4, and keeps getting proven wrong, and ends up helping despite himself.
Spike actually states all of this in Fool for Love, where he says that the flaw is the "slayer is all alone" and after a while the isolation and fighting alone gets to them, and they slip up or give up, ie. the death wish. What keeps Buffy from going down that path - is her connections to the world, her mother, her friends, Giles, and Dawn. But if all of that were to be torn away - he'd have himself one good day. He says the same thing to Dru in S2 - a slayer with a mother and friends wasn't in the brochure. And in S4, he tells Adam that the only way to defeat Buffy is to remove her from her friends and family. They can take her alone.
Giles meanwhile - is telling her to fight alone. And after she's brought back, her friends let her fight alone most of the time, it's only when they get involved and actually help - that Buffy defeats the "major threats".
During the group song in Once More With Feeling - "I've Got a Feeling" - Buffy sings "what can't we defeat - if we're together?" Emphasis on "together". But no one hears her - even though they sing with her - "together" - Giles wants Buffy to do it on her own.
I kind of wish Whedon killed Giles off - but that would have been too easy. (Also, he was admittedly the reason I started watching the series.) It's better than he's there - but ineffectual, and often proven wrong, with others fixing things. His students, Xander, Willow, Buffy, and even Anya, Tara and Spike have in a way surpassed him. Anya is the one who pushes Giles to go after and help Buffy, with Xander backing her up - even if they are bickering, they are united on that front.
And Spike is among the first, to tell Giles, hell no, if you don't want to back her up - I will. But Buffy still put off by a frustrated Spike telling her to stay away from him - tells him that she thought he wanted her to stay away from him. And he pulls an Angel - and tells her, fine take care of it yourself. Actually that interaction could have been pulled from either S1-3.
Spike/Buffy is interesting - in that Spike is confused. Before Buffy died she made it clear that they couldn't be together, she could never love him, but she needed him and wouldn't forget that he put his life on the line for Dawn. After she comes back, she starts patrolling with him, leans on him, confides more and more in him, and is...dare we say it? Flirting with him.
He doesn't know what to make of this. Is she playing with him? Does she have feelings for him? So he's confused and frustrated. And being a demon (he doesn't have any connection to humanity or a soul), part of him would love to kill her and be done with it - but he was so tortured that she died because he failed to protect Dawn and live up to his promise - and that was for months. So Spike is a very confused, frustrated, love-sick vampire - in the midst of an identity crisis.
To be fair, Buffy is also confused, frustrated, and in the midst of an identity crisis. Also she's turned on by Spike, and possibly falling in love with him - even though she knows the relationship can't go anywhere and is impossible.
Actually that was what turned me on to the relationship? It was impossible.
I couldn't go anywhere. And it was doomed to failure. Made it more interesting and less predictable to watch. (I don't like sappy romances on television. Tara and Willow is bad enough - it's only saving grace was I knew it was doomed.)
Another aside - damn, who is in charge of Willow and Tara's wardrobe? Tara is wearing a corset. Their dresses are costumes. And who wears that to school and to casual things? They are dressed as if they are going to the Renaissance Faire or a Witches Convention. Buffy and Anya have the best wardrobes. But I honestly think the costume department has a weird ass view of Willow and Tara.
The best singers are hands down, Giles and Tara. I already knew about Giles. Dawn, Anya, and Spike can sing. I think Anya is slightly better than the other two. Both Spike and Dawn's voices crack on high notes, and are limited in range. Marsters is right when he states that he can sing, he's not a trained singer. This worked, because he's not supposed to be a trained singer. Also he can sign better than the entire lead cast of Angel. (Only Lorne, Darla, and Lindsey can sing on that series - there's a reason they didn't do a musical on it, well that - and David and Charisma threatened to hire someone to take out Whedon if he attempted it.). Gellar isn't that bad. She can do passingly well. As can Xander. Also they fixed the voices in post-production. (You can actually fix voices with sound editing, so they have perfect pitch. Lando, a previous co-worker, explained to me that with advances in sound editing - you can pretty much make any voice sound fantastic.)
I can see why the actors freaked when the musical was first proposed to them, and they got the tapes - sung by Whedon and his wife at the time, Kai. It could have turned out badly, the fact it doesn't - has a lot to do with Christopher Beck, various producers, directors, sound editors, choreographers, Hinton Battle, and the cast going into hyper-drive to ensure that it worked. They really worked hard to sell it. And it was hard to do - there's a lot of scenes in which they are talking over each other, or singing over each other - and that's hard to pull off.
It's in the scenes in which they are singing or talking over each other - that I kind of picked up on a few things I'd not noticed previously.
The group works best together, but the events from S5 coupled with the aftermath of bringing Buffy back from the dead - has resulted in a splintering of the group dynamic. They aren't really together or united in anything at the moment? Or on the same page? Anya/Xander are bickering about their future and the wedding, and it's not clear they care about the same things. Willow/Tara are also bickering - about magic. This is a hold over from S5. The last time Tara brought up Willow relying too heavily on magic - Tara ended up going to the Cultural Fair on her own, and got mind sucked by Glory. Then when they fight over it again, Willow does a forgetting spell - poor traumatized Tara must be equating fighting with Willow on magic with losing her mind at this point. No wonder she leaves.
Tara leaving Willow is paralleled or equated with Giles leaving Buffy, but it's not the same. And what always bugged me about Giles leaving - is he keeps thinking his only charge is Buffy, and that the others don't matter.
Which kind of bites him later. It does here - Xander summoned the "dancing" demon - and Giles shrugs it off, too focused on Buffy not taking responsibility for everyone and everything.
Buffy, folks, is 21 years of age. She lost her mother. She died. She was yanked out of heaven. She's stuck caring for a mystical sister that she died for. And has to juggle living expenses, taking care of her sister, and being the slayer all at the same time. We're told all slayers have watchers up to their deaths - they also don't live that long (small wonder - the watchers are ineffectual nitwits).
Truth of the matter is - Giles doesn't like taking responsibility. And doesn't want it. Never has. He's a reluctant watcher. It was actually my first meta on this series, written in 2002, and lost in the bowels of the net. But, Giles shrugging off Willow's use of magic is...well, it says a lot about Giles? And the Watcher Council? Willow has slowly become a very powerful witch, and is untrained. She has access to a lot of dark magics. Magics that Giles has recklessly exposed her to or allowed her access. The Watcher Council asks where he keeps the dangerous books - and he keeps them upstairs in the magic shop, not under lock and key. Willow grabbed one and accessed all its secrets in Season 5. In S2, he willy nilly lets Willow do a dangerous gypsy curse to get Angelous his soul back. And he doesn't really discuss it with her. When he learns of the spell she used to bring back Buffy - he doesn't bring in anyone to oversee Willow. He yells at her, then backs off. And when he discovers Willow yanked Buffy from heaven, and then Willow springs a dangerous memory spell on all of them - he still "leaves"??? WTF Giles? You don't leave people when they are screwing up, and hope they work it out without you. Then come back and fix it. That doesn't work.
Giles is a crappy parent and role model.
The end of Once More With Feeling is interesting - because it's clear all the characters were shaken by what transpired, and not sure what to do with themselves or each other, or how to look at one another. Willow is devastated. Tara is disgusted and devastated. Anya is horrified, along with Xander - both of which had seriously questioned bringing back Buffy. Spike is frustrated and annoyed by all of it. And Buffy just doesn't care any longer - she's numb - and just wants to feel something. Dawn feels as if she doesn't matter to anyone.
The kiss at the end works on multiple levels. It's also a game-changer. When it happened - I got obsessed with the series. That whole episode blew me away in 2001. It surprised me, and I'm rarely surprised by television series.
Because I thought, okay, that's new. They never do that in these shows. I had no idea where they were going with Spike and Buffy. That romance felt even more impossible than Buffy and Angel did. So much was aligned against it. Made it more interesting.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-01 01:17 am (UTC)I also remember the amazement at the end of OMWF that the kiss happened and that it was something that would actually be pursued that season.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-01 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-01 03:54 am (UTC)