Image description: A collage with a base image of an “evolution of man” diagram. The text “My immortal evolutionary traits are still intact” is across the top of the collage. On the left side of the collage are messages from a friend that read “I thought we were supposed to be nice BECAUSE we weren’t rewarded for it! That that was the whole point! you’re telling me the normals get to feel good about it on automatic??? They’re playing with fucking cheatcodes??? How can the NCs make such a big deal out of being a good person when they get the good chemicals just by doing it!” I’ve responded with “You’re right and you should say it.” In between the “...on automatic???” and “...fucking cheatcodes???” messages is the text “taking a ‘cheater niche’”. Below that and to the right is the text “Why should we care about those with ASPD if they clearly don’t care about us?” Below and off set to the right of my message is the text “It’s what ya do about it.” The text “I am unapologetic for the empathy I lack” is on top of the red rightward pointing arrow at the bottom of the diagram. End description.
Creator's note: my friend is using "NCs" as shorthand for "neuroconvergents". I introduced him to the term "neuroconvergent" after finding it on ASPD/NPDblr-- quite likely on @skyrages' blog, but not from them specifically that I first saw the term (I think it was in a reblog or an ask from someone else-- I thought it was a reblog, but the only other place I'm finding it on tumblr that I may have seen it is an ask from @dreamyeyedrose to skyrages. Of course, tumblr's search function is notoriously bad, so it may well be in a reblog I can't find now).
"My immortal evolutionary traits are still intact/I am unapologetic for the empathy I lacked" are lyrics from the song "Heaven's Gate" by Amélie Farren.
"It's what ya do about it" is from Anguish of the Marrow.
"taking a 'cheater niche'" is from this paper, and "Why should we care about those with ASPD if they clearly don't care about us?" is from this sorry excuse for journalism.
I've titled this one "You Have Cheatcodes, and You Still Act Like This?" over on Dreamwidth.
I'm taking part in the Fannish 50 and originally wasn't going to cross post but why not.
This is the first of the 50 TV Episodes from "Older" Fandoms that Shaped Me as a Fan that I want to talk about because when I think of impactful TV episodes this is pretty much top of the list every single time.
Massive Trigger Warnings For This:
Death of a parent
CPR
Grief
Context for the Episode
Original Air Date: 27/02/2001
Season: 5
Episode: 16
The cold open of this episode picks up from where the last one left off. There's no recap at the start of this episode either.
So at the end of the previous episode we see Buffy walk in the door and see that her Mam has got flowers and she calls for her, getting no response Buffy walks into the front room and finds her Mam on the couch with pale skin.
The Plot of the Episode
This episode is broken into 4 parts; (titles from the wiki)
The Daughter
The Sisters
The Family
The Body
The first thing we see after the credits is a flashback to Christmas at Buffy's house. Everyone is having fun, it's filled with joy and it's so important to have this at the start of the episode. Then, piece by piece we see Buffy coming to terms with it; her on the phone with the ambulance service, then Giles coming over and seeing "the body", her friends finding out and all of them dealing with it.
Impact on me
Act 1
Each act starts with a shot of the body on the floor which is powerful. It keeps reminding you of what's happened and confronting it. You're not allowed to forget what Buffy has and is seeing
Lack of music - it's haunting that normally you get background noise and songs in these episodes but here you have nothing. You're confronted with this absence and it makes you focus on everything going on the screen a lot more.
The opening shot with Christmas was put in so you wouldn't have Joss Whedon's name over the long shot of Sarah Michelle Geller reacting to seeing Joyce dead.
Seeing Buffy and hearing her say Mom and then Mommy - the childlike aspect of it reminded me how young Buffy is and how long she's been dealing with this. She's been dealing with vampires and the Hellmouth and this responsibility but at the same time dealing with being a kid and having to go to school and do homework and having a life. She's just a scared kid here, and she's allowed to be.
Buffy doing CPR and the ribs cracking as she's doing it really got me the first time I watched this episode. I knew that it was the case it could happen but this made me confront the thoughts of having to do it and what it would be like if that happened to me.
The fact that this is the one monster she can't defeat - death.
"she's cold" "the body is cold" "no, my mom"
This broke me a bit because it's something so small, but so powerful
And for those who watched that episode and then went into a healthcare setting, then you've had this reminder, this thing in the back of your mind that these are not just "bodies" these are real people. These are people that mean the world to someone else.
"we're not supposed to move the body" and it sort of dawns on her there, when she uses the same phrasing as the person she was speaking to on the phone. That's the moment it hits her that this is real. That her mam is now a body, it's both her mam and not her mam anymore now that she's passed.
Act 2
The fake out bit with Dawn worked so well
The art class - we're looking at a woman's body and the negative space around that
We don't really see the bit where Buffy tells Dawn we see what the other students in the classroom would be able to
we're watching the pain of others on the TV, we're onlookers
Also Dawn's conversation is something so teenager-y and normal and it's at times, we get a bit of humour with the "Annals of History" pronunciation but it's cut short
Everyone realises something has happened, but isn't sure what it is exactly
I had it when I saw my partner come into my work before Christmas. I instantly knew something had happened, just not what it was specifically.
And the final bit of this act is that we see the body that Dawn has drawn and that stings so badly having just seen her and Buffy talking.
Act 3
So Buffy, way back in Act 1, pulled down Joyce's skirt to cover her for when the paramedics /coroner got there and now we see Joyce's body and they're cutting the clothes off her.
The silence when we see Xander and Willow just hits you.
Willow not being able to choose an outfit is so relatable. Black being too somber, yellow being too happy, and she wants the blue jumper because Joyce liked it but she can't find it and that's what she's focusing on.
The fear of her not having grown up enough outfits for this when Willow is normally the character I imagine when I want to think of someone upbeat in Buffy.
This being the first time we see Tara and Willow kiss. It's absolutely magical in that they're there for each other in that moment, and it can't be swept under the rug with the here for the gay representation and then they're gone once ratings go up.
The first proper boyfriend I had, he got together with me around the same time my Grandfather passed away and he was so supportive and amazing with me and then coincidentally my fiance got together with me around the time my uncle passed and having this in the episode? Showing that there's still relationships and happiness and we're seeing the comfort on screen? Beautiful.
Anya is the only one who can really ask these questions and she doesn't understand and that's heartbreaking. The others don't really understand her here but I think that's why it works so well. She's not human, she hasn't been around humans like this and had these experiences before and it's new to her and she doesn't understand.
They feel like she shouldn't be talking like that about it.
Xander and Willow here reminded me of what it was like when I lost my Granda and my best friends in the world were there for me and looking after me, and there's been moments where it isn't a family member but it's someone close to a friend of mine and it hurts so bad and then you have these little moments where you just make things normal when comforting each other.
Act 4
Dawn asks to see Joyce and it didn't occur to me that she hasn't seen her before this. She's been told by Buffy but it's abstract at this point, it's not real. Buffy saw her, Giles has even seen her but Dawn hasn't.
Giles is being protective over Buffy here and filling out the forms and taking the role of a father.
There's this reveal that Tara has done this before in this act and I love the way it's done. Buffy apologises and says she hasn't done this before, and Tara says that she has. It was when she was 17. She says yes and no to it being sudden, because even if you know it'll happen it still comes as a surprise.
There's a vamp in the morgue and it attacks Dawn and life goes on, things are still as Normal as they can be considering what's happened.
And there's something about Dawn finally seeing Joyce, and asking where she went when Buffy says it's not her.
Image description: A collage with a base layer of AOTM!Alastor's stagbeast form by @kalico-of-doom with the words "My gender can be a freakbeast If I fucking want it to be" pasted over it. The words "My gender can be a" are styled to look like they are shouted from the freakbest's mouth. "freakbeast" is on its own line over the stagbeast's bloody skeletal body in different colors and font from the other text. End description.
You can see the original art here. The artist has given me permission to use her art for sharing this collage.
"My gender can be a bicycle/If I fucking want it to be" are lyrics from the song "Pronouns" by @dog-park-dissidents.
"freakbeast" is a word Alastor uses more rarely to describe his macroconscious stagbeast form in Anguish of the Marrow.
Image description: "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL" from "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC" is at the top. Below that is the phrase "a man with an empathy disorder". "or three" has been pasted in after that. Alastor is to the left of that. End description.
Image description: A collage with three pictures. In the middle is a piece of art that reads "BITE THE HAND THAT BEATS YOU" with a canine with a bloody maw by a bloody hand. On the left is a picture of Vaggie baring her fangs in a fight. On the right is a picture of Alastor smiling angrily. Along the shaft of Vaggie's weapon are the words "even if it feeds you". End description.
The pictures of Vaggie and Alastor are from Hazbin Hotel.
The centerpiece art is from here.
The collage is inspired by the quote "...it was amazing what the razor-thinness of that smile did for her little white teeth. This was a thing that wasn't made to rip flesh from bone, but would not hesitate to bite the hand that beats, even if it is also the one that feeds" from Anguish of the Marrow.
Image description: A collage with a base image of a red couch. Across the top of the collage in black text with a purple background is the text “Growing up, how was your relationship with the fundamentals of conscious existence?” Below that are the words “once upon a time/the perception that he was incapable of altruism or "real" emotion/had been forced on him by schoolmasters and alienists alike” in three lines. “Incapable” is bigger than the rest of its line, as is “forced” and “alienists”. Below that, along the cushions of the couch, in bigger text than all the other words in the collage, are the words “And how does that make you FEEL?” The word “FEEL” is in bold with a space between each letter, and I’ve applied a glitch effect to it. Below that are the words “It was a cycle he perpetuated, aggravated,/ but it had not started with him.” The word “aggravated” is slightly bigger than “It was a cycle he perpetuated,” and off to the right of that line, making it a visual double entendre: “It was a cycle he perpetuated, aggravated” and “How does that make you FEEL? aggravated”. “not” is bigger than the rest of its line. End description.
The text with the purple background are lyrics from Will Wood's "Ideas Only Spread Because People Like Them, the 'Free Market of Ideas' is not a Meritocracy, it's a Set of Unhealthy Coping Skills and a Corporate Oligarchy, Wake Up, Man! Don't Let the Lies Dim Your Light! anyway this one's black box warrior (2024)" from The New Normal! (The Normal Album 2024 Edit)-- those lyrics are the same on the original "BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA" on "The Normal Album", but I heard it on The New Normal! first so that's what I'm citing —although to be very autistically pedantic about it the way I want to be in my heart, the lyrics page I snipped from was officially for “BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA”.
That whole album is a neurodivergent (and specifically Cluster B) BANGER that pairs excellently with the experience that is Anguish of the Marrow, where the rest of the text is from. This piece is based on the paragraph "That, too, was more than fair. Yet he still found himself aggravated by having to keep answering variations of this question. Why, they all asked him - why? Why are you doing this, why do you care, why him, why now, why this, why that, as though he needed a reason more complex than the simple fact that he liked Angel very much and didn't wish to see him in pain. The fact that this was so unbelievable was at this point his own doing, certainly, but once upon a time the perception that he was incapable of altruism or 'real' emotion had been forced on him by schoolmasters and alienists alike - and like any apex predator, he had fashioned his persona to suit the conditions at hand. It was a cycle he perpetuated, but it had not started with him."
"And how does that make you feel?" is just the classic therapy question, but "FEEL" in bold, all caps, and with a space between each letter is from the fic, and each word is pasted in from the fic.
The glitch effect is courtesy of https://pixlr.com/express/. Once again, I don't like that it advertises as AI and offers a specific AI feature on the site, but the glitch effect is not part of that.
The couch is taken from here.
I titled this one "And how does that make you [ERROR]? over on Dreamwidth. One (of many) alternative title(s): "Growing up, how was your relationship with the fundamentals psychiatry?"
Image description: A cropped frame of Alastor with his head turned all the way around. He is smiling nastily. In Barbie font is the text "Empathy is a disease, bitch! Get well soon!!!! xoxo <3". The wallpaper of the Hazbin Hotel makes up the left and right sides of the "card". End description.
Once again, special shout-out to @nickinellis for the swatch of Hazbin Hotel wallpaper. You can find it here.
I used this Barbie font text generator from Text Studio to, well, generate the Barbie font text.
Inspired by Anguish of the Marrow, in which Angel Dust says "Y'know what I think? I think you gotta get off your high horse and stop talkin' like empathy's a fuckin' mental handicap."
Image description: A frame of Hazbin Hotel of Alastor in his radio tower, siting behind his desk, sprawling sidelong. He is kicking his feet up to the right and has and one hand gesturing palm up towards the ceiling. In his other hand, he's holding his microphone, which he's singing into with a huge smile. The text "You're not special just because you have more mirror neurons than I do. Everyone does." is pasted word by word in a choppy collage style over him and to the right of him. End description.
Text is copied and pasted from Anguish of the Marrow, and is a reference to Charlie telling Alastor that he's not special because he made her cry. (This reply/callback to that has been bouncing in my brain for over a month). Image is from Hazbin Hotel, specifically the song "Stayed Gone".
