ETA Whedon once said Xander was based on himself because he was that guy all the girls just wanted to be friends with.
Yeah, that's not how that works.
Nobody wants to be friends with Xander. Buffy wanted tutoring from Willow and Willow had a crush on Xander. And since Xander had no friends outside of Willow (and Jesse), befriending Willow full-time meant being stuck with Xander. 💁🏽♀️
Over the years, we saw Willow evolve, make new friends, join/create new groups, while Xander...didn't. And in S4, when Xander keeps showing up on campus at a university he doesn't go to, Buffy politely asks WTF he's doing there.
If Willow had gained some self-esteem a few years earlier, Xander would be a friendless loser probably planning to pew pew the school.
Girls don't "want" to be friends with guys like Xander/Joss. We get stuck with guys like them because they have no one else to glom onto, nowhere else to go, and since they can't force their way into a guy group, they use their last little dregs of male privilege to force themselves into a girl group. They show up uninvited to our homes, follow us EVERYWHERE, and disapprove of every guy we're interested in.
Cordelia could've easily replaced Xander completely in S1-3 while Anya could've taken over in S4, and BTVS would've been infinitely better. (Even better, Cordelia could've stayed on Buffy and Spike could've gone to Angel after getting chipped.) Because it wasn't Anya who was stapled to Xander, it was Xander who was stapled to Anya (like with Willow). We were first introduced to Anya through Harmony and Cordelia. She later worked a spell with Willow. We NEVER needed to see her with Xander.
Buffyverse Book Review: The Willow Files by Yvonne Navarro
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Summary:
It's Willow's world and we're all just living in it. So this consists of novelisations of three episodes from across seasons 1, 2 and 3 which are particularly interesting in terms of Willow's characterisation. We've got "I, Robot, You, Jane", "Phases" and "Dead Man's Party", and this is interesting because the novelisations include deleted scenes and extended versions of scenes that were in the script but didn't make it into the final cut of the episode. It also includes excerpts from Willow's diary entries as she tries to process everything going on in her life.
Spoiler-Free Review:
I enjoyed this! I will add the disclaimer that this is obviously not the book for you if you don't like either Willow as a character or any of the episodes in it, but I love all of the above so I thought it was great. The thing I love about novelisations in general is the way they give you a closer look into characters' internal thoughts and feelings that goes beyond what can be conveyed on a screen. And I thought Willow's digital diary was a nice touch, it really drives home the fact that she's still just a kid trying to figure out growing up when growing up has been intertwined with a whole bunch of supernatural insanity.
I'm including excerpts and comments on each individual story under the cut because otherwise this is going to be a very long post!
Diary Entry #1:
"I don't tell anyone, but I spend a lot of time thinking about Jesse and... well... wondering how afraid he was when the vampires took him underground."
I love this, the show fully just forgot that Willow and Xander had a whole best friend who fucking died and I'm glad at least one piece of Buffyverse media isn't brushing over that
I also love Willow expressing how out of place she feels because she doesn't have a boyfriend, how she thinks of it as a problem that needs to be solved. I don't believe her sexuality was handled particularly well on the show, but this bit is definitely giving comphet baby gay who wants a boyfriend because that's what she thinks she should have
"I, Robot, You, Jane":
Another disclaimer: I love this episode, I don't care what anyone says
I love how evocative and unsettling some of the descriptions in this are, like Moloch placing his hand on his follower's head to snap his neck "as gently as a mother stroking her child"
The explicit confirmation of the unapologetic glee Jenny takes in winding Giles up, and how funny Willow finds it:
"[Ms Calendar] strode in and Willow had to hide her smile at the flustered set to Giles' jaw" and "Ms Calendar did an admirable job of holding her expression, although Willow could tell she really wanted to chuckle."
Suffice to say, Jenny Calendar is as much of an icon on paper as onscreen
Also, this makes me think Fritz was a psychopath even before the demon got in his head
Extended scene: when Buffy talks to Dave, she notices that his hands are bleeding and raw from how much he's been typing
Extended scene: when Jenny sees the book with Moloch on the cover, she asks, half-joking, if Giles happens to collect heavy metal album covers too, and he absently replies "Yes".
Extended scene: Buffy figures out Dave is also involved because Moloch on the computer screen tells her the same thing as Dave did initially, word for word
Jenny is described as "excited" at the prospect of a demon, until Giles says it's Moloch and then she's like oh...
Extended scene: Jenny is initially concerned if they have the right materials/preparation for a binding ritual, Giles says:
"'There's no time. Moloch seems to have fixated on Willow. We need to get him out now.'
'Okay,' [Jenny] said, then repeated it, as though trying to reassure herself. 'Okay. Minor panic, but I'm dealing.'"
^ that's gonna become my new motto
Extended scene: Willow at CRD, asks Moloch what he's doing and he replies "What comes naturally."
Diary Entry #2:
The main interesting thing here is Willow musing that, in some form or another, most sentient creatures (both good and evil) all want the same thing: connection.
"Phases"
Willow and Cordelia snipping at each other then teaming up to hit Xander in that self-defence gym class after he pisses them both off
I like how the novelisation doesn't try to minimise how creepy both Larry and Gib Cain actually are
Oh, God, Theresa's internal monologue when she meets Angel:
"Buffy Summers had this way about her, an odd ability to stop bad things from happening, even if no one ever talked about it. If this guy knew her, he had to be okay and she would be safe with him. Theresa was certain of it.
The fact that Angel killed her partly because he thought a werewolf could be a problem for him and he wanted to motivate Buffy to kill it for him?? Hate this motherfucker sometimes
Diary Entry #3
Okay, so this one is from between seasons 2 and 3, while Buffy's gone
Willow notes that "Giles doesn't seem like the same person" anymore and just wants Buffy to come back so maybe he "could at least start trying to heal"
How Willow feels underwater with the whole situation now that Buffy's gone and she just wants everything to go back to the way it was
"Dead Man's Party"
How Willow desperately wants to be understanding and empathetic towards Buffy but she can't manage it because she's still so hurt herself and struggling to process that
How Willow is the only one to notice how not okay Giles still is:
"When Buffy had first disappeared, Willow had seen Giles kind of... turn in on himself. He'd never told Willow about what had happened, but she knew he'd gone to see Mrs. Summers. Afterward, he was much worse - more quiet and sad, and Willow thought it was a good bet that Mrs. Summers had blamed him for Buffy's leaving. With that on top of Angel killing Ms. Calendar, then leaving the body for Giles to find, she knew he had to be carrying a world of hurt."
^ Jesus. Really drives home the fact that Giles went through pretty much all of the worst things a human being can experience consecutively, and stayed alive through it all basically for Buffy's sake only for her to disappear and he's left being treated as if that's his fault. Someone please get this man a therapist
How badly Buffy just wants to make everything okay but she doesn't know how, her struggle between knowing that she did what was necessary for her own wellbeing but that it was detrimental to others
Please don't kill the kid, I hate it. Leave the kids alone
Drusilla and angel... Do they have a past? Interesting.
Oh for fuck sake! Not again! Why does buffy walks in the worst time ever. Now its angel and Drusilla. Great.
Sometimes Cordelia needs to shut up. Girl, just don't.
A new guy, billy ford, buffy's giant 5th-grade crush. Welp he's either gonna be our new fav guy or die in this episode.
Lmao Xander, you are funny. Also, willow that song is not about fat guys.
Jealousy jealousy all around. Tension all around here. Angel jealous, love it.
Ford knows everything. What do you mean you know about vampire and that she's the slayer!? WTF MAN!
He's a bad guy, I am sure of it. He's a vampire, maybe...? Or he wants to be one...?
Awww, angel is jealous. I love men get jealous in shows or books.
I love awkward mess willow. She's me and I love it.
Dont trust the ford guy. I know he's cute buffy but cute guys are trouble. Stick to women.
Spike and drusilla/drusilla's relationship is creepy .
This ford guy is totally crazy and dumb. Wanna be a vampire, just die.
Jesus Angel is dramatic, "Do you love me?", "maybe you shouldn't ", just shut up.
Jesus fucking Christ, Angel. What he did to Drusilla is pure evil. Poor girl. I hope she gets to torture and kill him. Wtf man.
Xander: "Angel was in your room?", Willow:- "Ours is a forbidden love". God I love willow. She's my favorite .
Man, buffy really has the worst taste in men. None of them are good. Angel(his fucked up past), billy ford, the creepy cemetery guy, the college guy who was a reptile worshipper and in sacrifice cult. Girl, maybe get some therapy at this point,.
Spike is kinda hot and I think I need some therapy now.
Oh OH, this ford guy is max from Rosewell(or whatever it's called), the one with insane chemistry between him and Liz. Lmao, never watched the show but I've watched gif's of them making out, which are...something 🤤🙈
Buffy for the win again.
Spike is gonna kill ford isn't he? Poor guy should've stayed in the Rosewell universe.
I kinda feel bad that ford he died. Poor guy was crazy.
I like this little moment between buffy and giles. It's emotional, raw and real.
B:- "does it get easy", G:- "what, life", B:- "yes", G:- "what do you want me to say", B:- "lie to me". Damn, I don't know why but it got me.
The last scene between giles and buffy, in the end, got me. I mean this show is pretty heavy and emotional at the times but I feel like it's gonna get much more from here.
Also, the "lie to me", episode title. Perfect for this episode. The theme of this episode was literally "lie to me", the conflict, the delusions, denials, characters lying to themselves. Ford, buffy, Giles, angel, all of them lying to themselves in different ways. Their pain and turmoil. Perfect.
Alright, another solid episode. Honestly, other than one or maybe two episodes, I've been pretty much invested in the show and haven't got bored at all.
I loved this episode. Little more sneek peek in angel's past, and drusilla and damn her past broke me, poor girl. Honestly she can go on a killing spree and I wouldn't blame her, the girl has been through hell. Angel ruined her life because he became obsessed with her? Fuck you angel.
Not sure how I feel about ford, he was a one episode guy so no attachment but like dude just die. It's kinda sad he spiralled that far away.
I really need more angel, I am not gonna lie, he doesn't even feel like a character to me anymore. It's weird how little or Barely he is in the show. I know he has his own show but I don't wanna watch that because ain't no way I am putting myself through cordelia and angel bullshit.
A really great ending to the episode, really liked that they touched on Buffy's emotional turmoil, even if it's briefly.
I guess that's all, loved the episode. Not much xander in it, it was more buffy and angel focus and angels past which included drusilla. Someone needs to get her justice because poor girl.
2x01: Yeah, that's the worst part of being hung upside down by a vampire who wants to slit your throat: the stains.
2x02: Sorry, but I'm an old-fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and the women have the babies.
2x03: If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.
2x04: I can translate American salivating boy talk. He says you're beautiful.
2x05: And you! I mean, you're gonna live forever! You don't have time for a cup of coffee?!
2x06: Do you love my insides? The parts you can't see? Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet.
2x07: A hundred years, just hanging out, feeling’ guilty…I really honed my brooding skills.
2x08: Do you know what you need, Xander, besides a year's supply of acne cream? A brain.
2x09: I'll dance with you, pet, on the Slayer's grave.
2x10: Well, I sorta test well, which is cool, except then it leads to jobs.
2x11: Well, apparently the secret ingredient is not love.
2x12: Do you know what this says about me? That I am doomed to lead my mother's life! How deeply scary is that?
2x13: Just because she's "Miss Save the World", we have to make a big deal? I have to cook!
2x14: To kill this girl, you have to love her.
2x15: What's his number? Oh, yeah. 1-800-I'm-dating-a-skanky-ho.
2x16: And keep your mom-aged mitts off my boyfriend! Former!
2x17: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace, but we would be hollow, empty rooms…shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
2x18: Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass.
2x19: Did Cordelia win another round in the broom closet?
2x20: It's a slap in the face to everyone who studied hard and worked long hours to earn our D's.
2x21: No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we? Helpless? Puppets? No, the big moments are gonna come, you can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
2x22: That's everything, huh? No weapons...no friends...no hope. Take all that away...and what's left? Me.
OK so this is the last review @initiumseries and I did when we were sort of sober and we did it on one of my favourite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer since I keep mentioning it when I want to emphasize how shitty TVD is, so here is us when we like something :)
Buffyverse Book Review: How I Survived My Summer Vacation
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Summary:
Okay, so remember at the start of S2 when Buffy gets back from LA and Willow and Xander tell her that Sunnydale has been very quiet over the summer? Well, the premise of this book is that this is total nonsense: they only think things were quiet because Giles, Jenny and Angel decided they would handle anything that happened themselves and not involve any of the kids so that Willow, Xander and Buffy could actually have a normal (ish) summer. This book is a collection of six short stories each detailing an incident that happened over the course of the summer, either in Sunnydale or in LA.
Spoiler-Free Review:
I liked this! Because it's a short-story collection, there isn't much in the way of overarching plot and the storylines are all quite simple, but that doesn't mean they're not fun. Two of them cover things we know happened in canon (the Scoobies burying the Master's bones and Buffy trying to cope with briefly dying at his hands), and I think these definitely fill in the gap between "Prophecy Girl" and "When She Was Bad" really well. The other four have no bearing on canon, but they do make for enjoyable short reads. One of the things I really liked was that it fleshed out the relationship between Buffy and her dad, which we don't see a lot of, while also showing the very beginnings of Giles starting to fill that role instead. Also, this is the only Buffy book I have which is told from Jenny Calendar's perspective for any significant duration, and I love her so that definitely gets this book more points from me.
I'm including comments on each individual story under the cut because otherwise this is going to be a very long post!
#1 - Dust:
Buffy heads to LA to stay with her dad, where she is plagued by horrific visions of the deaths of everyone with whom she has physical contact. She also meets an old friend, who has changed quite a bit.
I found the portrayal of Buffy's relationship with her dad in this one really interesting. There's obviously a lot of love there, but there's also a disconnect that neither of them can really overcome even though they want to.
Buffy is trying so hard to be okay and she's not, and she's struggling with the fact that she can't really talk to anyone around her about it, which is a good lead-in both to her behaviour at the start of Season 2 and then later at the start of Season Three.
The interplay between supernatural and psychological with Buffy's struggles was also really well done.
This whole story just made me want to give her a hug.
#2 - Absalom Rising:
The Scoobies try to get rid of the Master's bones. Predictably, this does not go well, as a newly-arrived wannabe-big-bad vampire wants the bones too.
Okay so this one is really the catalyst for the rest of the Sunnydale-focused short stories. While attempting to dispose of the bones, Jenny thinks about how "[Willow and Xander] are just children. Buffy is, too. So young to be mixed up in things like this" (p.71). After they all get attacked by vampires, this concern prompts her to say to Giles that if anything else happens, they should be the ones to deal with it so that the kids can just be kids for a while.
The level of dramatic irony in this one is painful, because it shows Giles starting to realise he has feelings for Jenny - he fucking quotes Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" in his head! - while juxtaposing this with imagery - phrases like "affectionate ghost" and "beautiful phantoms" - that reminds the reader she's doomed.
Confirmation that Jenny is the teacher all the students have a crush on is so funny but also 100% correct.
This is also an interesting one in terms of Jenny's characterisation, because it's set after Season 1 but written after Season 2, so it mentions the fact that she's only in Sunnydale to watch Angel. But she actually only thinks about it once across the whole book, in the context of wondering whether they can really trust him and worrying what Giles would think of her if he found out the truth, but then she pushes all that away and dismisses it as "trivial and irrelevant" because that's not who she is right now and it has nothing to do with what she's trying to do at that moment (i.e. help Giles and the Scoobies get rid of the Master's bones). The level of compartmentalisation she's able to achieve here is indicative of how separate she actually considers those things to be in her head, that she considers why she's in Sunnydale and why she's there at that moment helping them to be entirely unrelated.
#3 - Looks Can Kill:
A shapeshifter arrives in Sunnydale, which is inconvenient considering Jenny has to leave town for a couple of days and takes the group braincells with her. Seriously, it's like a pantomime scene watching Giles and Angel try to figure this out.
The shapeshifter concept is one that I wish we'd seen more in the show, because it was so funny. Like, this thing was literally just fucking with them for half of the story.
Jenny's utter shock and exasperation when she rushes back having realised they're dealing with a shapeshifter and it turns out that Giles and Angel have also figured it out but not bothered to establish any way to correctly tell each other apart from the shapeshifter, and this predictably backfires. Poor woman was surrounded by idiots.
The dramatic irony in this one is also a bit of an ouch because, in the final fight, Not-Angel attacks an evil vampire while Actual-Angel gets Jenny out of said vampire's reach. This is how Giles manages to tell which is the real Angel and which is the shapeshifter: because only a creature with a human soul (i.e. Angel) could have done what Giles himself actually wanted to do in that moment (i.e. get Jenny out of harm's way).
#4 - No Place Like...:
Buffy meets an old woman in LA who believes her daughter's spirit is being held captive by a witch. With nothing but a few phone calls with Giles to help her, Buffy has to do the entire research/solution-finding thing herself.
This one was sad, y'all.
Very focused on parents and children: Buffy tries to help an old woman reunite with her daughter's spirit while dealing with the fact that neither of her parents really know her at all. Meanwhile her dad keeps cancelling plans and she barely sees him, but Giles answers the phone in the middle of the night and that's the thing that makes her feel less alone (she even jokingly calls him Dad because he keeps worrying about her).
Buffy wanting so desperately to be normal for a while but also being unable to turn away from helping someone in need.
It demonstrates how much Buffy needs the Scoobies when she has to try and do everything herself.
#5 - Uncle Dead and the Fourth of July:
Jenny tries to get Giles involved in Sunnydale's Fourth of July celebrations. He doesn't like summer and he doesn't like America, but he does like her so he's willing to suck it up. Except a small army of zombies shows up to the parade!
This entire story is just evidence of how much Jenny already has Giles wrapped around her finger. Like he does not want anything to do with this Fourth of July nonsense but then she smiles at him and he's like "okay well now I guess I have to go :/"
Also, Giles being so delighted by the fact that Jenny is actually interested in hearing all the random history shit he wants to talk about
Random vampire who only exists to cause trouble and then promptly dies my beloved <3
Allan Finch appearance! He's useless!
Angel being helpful and Jenny actually being concerned about him. My girl really said "given the choice between ancestral enemy and zombie soldier, I am not choosing the latter"
#6 - The Show Must Go On:
Giles and Jenny investigate a series of unusual vampire murders which seem to be connected to the travelling theatre company Willow and Xander have got summer jobs with.
So I felt like the plot was maybe the weakest in this one, but I enjoyed it because you can take the girl out of the Shakespeare class but you can't take the appreciation for play references out of the girl.
The level of shenanigans required to keep this particular Situation secret from Willow and Xander was top-tier.
How Giles and Jenny's approach to vampire killing differs from Angel's was also really entertaining. The first one ambushed them because they were too busy debating how best to ambush it, and for the second one Jenny literally decided "fuck it, I know I'm hot, and if the vampire is looking at me then he's not looking at the guy creeping up behind him with a dagger". Meanwhile Angel just says hello and starts swinging.
My inner horror girlie also comes out with this one though, because weirdly I wish that there had been more murder.
