Oh, hey, did the map thing of states visited (thanks, Nancy!):
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - from the ridiculous to the sublime
Let's see - I love 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. I started watching it about a year ago and caught up enough just in time to watch it end. Bummer.
When I obsess into anything I tend to research the crap out of it - what the *hell* did I do before the internet? - and Buffy has a massive following, just like the X-Files. As someone who was a huge X-Files fan I deeply appreciate Mutant Enemy striving hard to maintain continuity within the show(s). Of course like any following there's always a group who screams about something. Some people are still sore about season 6. Personally I think some of the best eps came out of season 6 - and some of the worst, I'll agree to that. Loved the musical, the Buffy/Spike snogging, her nerd nemesiseseses, flayed Warren, and Joan the Vampire Slayer. Hated the magic as drugs, the insane asylum, Xander's cold feet, and the return of Riley.
Now I have few and far between women heroes. The ones I do have are precious to me, and I hate the fact that so many of them have had poor endings. Case in point: Ellen Ripley from Alien. As far as I'm concerned, that series ended with Aliens. When they got back to earth, the Company was sued and Ripley, Hicks, and Newt got enough cash to live comfortably and fix Bishop. Ripley married Hicks so they could adopt Newt, and they all lived happily ever after, with no bad dreams. Trite, yes. Better than Alien 3, infinitely!!!
Sorry. Where was I? Wimmin heroes. Clarice Starling. I loved Silence of the Lambs. The book moreso than the movie. Starling was more tough and not so anxious. Her fate in the book Hannibal sucked. I am one of the few people who was glad the movie was made - she might be out of her FBI job, but at least she's her own person at the end of it.
Dana Scully. Kidnapped, made barren, cancer, gets pregnant and has a kid that she can't keep... Argh!
Buffy Summers. A true flawed hero - brave, strong, arrogant, shallow, thinks with her fists more than her head, but always righteously defeats the bad guys. Despite moments of self-pity when it came time to fight, she always did her job. I couldn't ever blame the self-pity: slayers don't have that long of a life span. Her shining moments to me were in season 5 - she defeated a god, fer pete's sake. While I'm not a fan of sacrifice, in this case it was justified. All she did she did for her sister, to a lesser extent her friends, and to a lesser extent the world. She had her priorities straight. Still, I'm not a big fan of self-sacrifice so I'm glad for her resurrection in season 6 as messy as it was. And the season 7 end game Was a kickass ending - she found a way to free herself from her fate without losing her slayer powers.
Gotta admit I'm a Spike fan - he's a remarkable character. Traditionally I hate vampires. They are parasites; I enjoy it every time Buffy slayed one. But with Spike I'll make an exception. He's (was) remarkably evil, but capable of noble acts not all of which can be written of by his crush on the Slayer. Someone (er, something) that is capable of that great a love (twisted that it was) is definitely worth watching - there were many points in the show where Buffy would have been justified in driving a stake in his heart, but he always managed to find a way to keep it from happening. Note I said worth watching, not worth saving or loving back. Plenty of bad shit is done in the world in the name of love - and in this case Mutant Enemy was right in forcing Spike to ultimately save himself: I hated the ep where he tried to rape Buffy (but the ep where they beat the ever living shit out of each other then schtupped the house down is one of my favorites), but he finally figured out that what made him a monster was that huge gap where his soul should have been. So he went on a quest to get his it back. He paid a great price for it and is still paying. I do like the fact that Spike is now whole - he *is* a vampire but his human and demon sides are joined together in something greater than its parts. Very heavy stuff. He is worthy of someone's love now but in any romance traditionally that means - I hate living in East Bumblefuck, Alabama. We don't get Angel here for some reason.
Grr. Argh!
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