A Stupid Buffy Fan Meme...to amuse myself

[shadowkat]

You know, or rather you really don't know because I haven't told you yet so how could you possibly know? That phrase does not logically work, does it? Anyhow..I think I'd have done better with the whole fanfic writing thing if I could get up the guts to ask people online that I don't know very well to beta. Oh I sort of did at one stage - I had people online beta a novel I'd written - there was this guy in Wales, named celebrex or celebrain who was doing it - his best line, which makes me laugh to this day was - "all men have chest hair, the ones who don't - wax. A lot." It made me laugh, because my brother and father have very little chest hair. But I chose not to fight with him on it. Sort of like the line my Dad's editor threw at him once - "your women characters are too tall. there are not that many women who are 5'9 to 6 foot with long legs. Average height is 5'3-5'6." This boggled my father's mind since his sisters, wife, me, and mother had all been 5'8 and taller. We write what we know, unfortunately if that conflicts with what other people know, our information is considered suspect or inaccurate. Anyhow, something tells me if I'd started with fanfic and not with my own original novel - this whole beta thing would have gone a lot better.

Buffy fan meme...because I am grumpy and feel like entertaining myself doing this instead of watching tv or reading.


Top Five Favorite Spike Episodes (or substitute your favorite character)

1. Beneath Me
2. Sleeper
3. Fool for Love
4. Intervention
5. Becoming Part II

Top five Buffy/Spike favorite episodes

1. Once More With Feeling
2. Dead Things
3. Smashed
4. Intervention
5. Never Leave Me

Top Five Xander Favorite Episodes
1. Selfless
2. The Wish
3. Prophecy Girl
4. The Pack
5. The Replacement

Top Five Willow Favorite Episodes
1. Dopplegangland
2. Villians
3. Choices
4. Tough Love
5. Halloween

Top Five Willow/Tara Favorite Episodes
1. Hush
2. New Moon Rising
3. Tough Love
4. Bargaining
5. Once More With Feeling

Top Five Episodes of BTVS
1. OMWF
2. Hush
3. Restless
4. Passion
5. Beneath Me

Honorable Mention: Fool for Love.

Favorite Season? Season 5

Favorite story arc: Spike and Buffy

Favorite villian: The Mayor

Favorite character arc: Spike

Favorite songs: Lucky (from Harsh Light of Day), Goodbye to You (Tabula Rasa), Pavolov's Bell (Sleeper), Out of this World (Dead Things), Transylvanian Concubine (Surprise), and Key (Crush)

Favorite Whedon written songs: Blue (Conversations with Dead People), Rest in Peace,
and Walk Through Fire.

Favorite characters: Spike, Buffy, Willow,

(Actually I think these may well be my favorite fictional characters period.)

Favorite controversial story arc: Sigh, Spike and Buffy. Although Willow and Dark Magic is a close second. My life in fandom has clearly been a frustrating one because my favorite arcs were many fans most hated ones.

Favorite controversial episode? Hmmm...I'd have to say Lies My Parents Told Me. Because there are parts of Seeing Red that I still have troubles watching, ditto to Dead Things.

Favorite controversial character? Spike

Musical Score - Prefer Chosen over Becoming/Season 2 - which I found overly sappy and romantic on repeated viewings. Favorite Sarah McLachlan song? I like the one in Becoming, that line - fit in this sickly skin haunts me to this day.

Favorite Xander moment? The speech he gives to Dawn in Season 7 Potential. And the one he gives to Buffy in The Freshman - where she's his hero. Fell a little in love with Xander in The Freshman.

Favorite Spike moment? The speech he gives at the end of Beneath Me.

Favorite Buffy moment? Tough one. There's too many...I think it may be in Innocence when she fires the Rocket Launcher at Angelus/the Judge/and Drusilla. Love that moment. Also adore
the moment in Checkpoint where she tells off the Council.

Favorite Spike/Buffy moment? the kiss in Intervention

Favorite Willow moment? I owe you knives!!! Hee. That and "OH, I'm all fluffy..."

Favorite Angel moment? In Consequences - his speech to Faith about evil.

Favorite Giles moment? When he confronts Ethan Raine in Halloween

Comments

[shapinglight]

Great list, which I largely agree with this, though must admit I've never actually thought about what were my favourite Xander or Willow episodes, because I'm not that interested in either character.

Now I feel like doing my own list.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Should have done one for Giles, but is was getting late and I was tired.

So uh Giles..

Top Five
1. Passion
2. Halloween
3. A New Man
4. The Dark Age
5. Helpless

And yes, I'm apparently a bit sadistic - I like all the dark ones.

Top Five Angel?
1. Consequences
2. Passion
3. Enemies
4. Becoming Part II
5. Innocence

[shapinglight]

Yep. I tend to go for the dark ones too, though I wouldn't with Xander, because I like his character best in the comedy episodes. I love The Zeppo. One of my favourite season 3 eps.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Great list! I agree w/almost everything (I fear I will never love Season 5, although there are parts of it I love)...
what I really love is reading a list like this and thinking about how much BtVS means to me!

And for the record, the men in my family are remarkably hairless too (full heads of hair, but little body hair, and none of them can grow a full beard to save their life... I claim it means American Indian blood).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, my criteria for favorite season was which season didn't have any episodes that I fastforwarded during, thought of skipping or surfed the net or wandered off during my re-watch?
The only one, interestingly enough that did not have ANY episodes that I wanted to skip, or got bored during or cringed during - was Season 5. It's interesting because it is the season I've written the least about actually. Season 6 in my rewatch was by far the most painful - there are episodes that were difficult to rewatch in that season. Same with all the other seasons. Just S5 doesn't have that problem for me.
(shrugs)

Interesting. The Native Americans or American Indians really aren't as hairy as most. Although I pretty sure I don't have any, my neice on the other hand definitely does.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

"The only one, interestingly enough that did not have ANY episodes that I wanted to skip, or got bored during or cringed during - was Season 5."
LOL
And for me Season 5 is the ONLY season I feel the need to fast forward through a substantial number of episodes (I've even grown fond of the cheesy Season 1 episodes):
I cannot bear Glorificus or the Knights... so I skip entire episodes which focus on them, and fast forward through them when they show up in the rest of that season.
But I think we've had this discussion before: different strokes for different folks.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yep. And I've had the Glorificus/Knights debate in detail with the denizens of the ATPOBoard, specifically my friend J - who shares your disdain for that season and that villian. He started my Buffy DVD collecting - by gifting me Season 5 for my birthday one year. He was basically getting rid of his copy, he really did not like that season. As a huge Xander fan - his favorite was Season 3 and Season 4.

I couldn't bear Caleb - who made my teeth hurt.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

"I couldn't bear Caleb - who made my teeth hurt."
Oh believe me, if anyone other than Nathan had played that role then I would have agreed...
(although there was WAY less Caleb in the 7th season than there was Glory in the 5th!)
I'll bet there might have been actresses who could have made Glorificus interesting to me, but not the one who played her...

Season 4 will always be my favorite, I loved the Sci-fi element, and I loved Spike as the comedian.... I loved every single episode of the 4th season... I didn't care for Riley, but he was so obviously transition guy that I didn't even care one way or the other about him.

And of course I adored Season 3! The Mayor, Faith, and so much of it was so exciting (the only thing that was annoying was the Buffy/Angel 'romance').

BtVS really was a treasure.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh. Very nice. It gets me thinking. Like shapinglight, I'm not so interested in Willow and Xander, but I notice that you pick episodes where they are evil, like I would. Heh.

Interesting point about chest hair and height. For me, it plays out as putting lots of Latino culture into my Southern California scenes, the lack of which I think was a big failing on the part of Team Joss. Don't they look around once in awhile? Hello? Reality? But yeah, people do tend to write their own reality. *grumble, mumble*

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I don't blame Whedon for that so much as the network. A while back I was listening to the commentary to The TV Set with Judd Apatow and he was commenting on casting and network tv - and how the suites tell you who you have to cast. He had to fight for people. And at one stage they came in and said - we need one minority in Freaks and Geeks - and yeah, you can make it a woman.

Whedon tried to cast outside the box, but was hampered by the network - who had a major role in casting - they chose who Angel and Cordelia were played by, not Whedon. Whedon had a say, but they had the final say.

Also the flick The TV set shows how casting works - it really isn't up to writers. So fanfic writers have more control.
That said, things have changed a bit since then - Veronica Mars and Glee are examples of that, as are Modern Family.
It's not great, but it is better.

Hee, on the first part - yep, I like the evil episodes. My top ten Giles - are Passion, the Dark Age, Helpless, Halloween,
and A New Man. I just got tired last night so didn't add it.