geekyI don't really need four copies for my very own. So...
In my essay, I talk about my love of Buffy, and how it helped me grow into myself as both a fannish adult and a professional author. Others talk about finding community through the Browncoats, or the treatment of good and evil in Angel, or the Hero's Journey of Dr. Horrible. If you're a Whedon fan, you probably have a story of your own. Tell it! Be as detailed or as brief as you like. On Friday, I shall unleash our old friend, Random Number Generator, to pick two winners, each of whom* will receive a copy of Whedonistas.
The book officially comes out next Tuesday, so even if you don't win, you should absolutely pick up a copy for the Whedon fan in your life. Or in your head. Whatever floats your boat.
Game on!
(*North American entries only, please, unless you're willing to pay postage. I just can't afford it right now, I'm sorry.)
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March 8 2011, 17:43:23 UTC 6 years ago
So basically Buffy changed my life.
March 8 2011, 17:50:08 UTC 6 years ago
- Amazon.
March 8 2011, 17:51:33 UTC 6 years ago
For anyone in the NYC area, consider joining me at:
WHEDONISTAS AT THE WAYSTATION
Readings from the book Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them
Featuring Elizabeth Bear, Teresa Jusino, Racheline Maltese, NancyKay Shapiro, and Priscilla Spencer.
Brooklyn Waystation
683 Washington Ave
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
MONDAY, MARCH 14TH
7:00PM
Reading to be followed by signing
P.S. The Waystation has a TARDIS. Just saying.
March 8 2011, 17:54:42 UTC 6 years ago
I gamed before Buffy. But I didn't understand what a good game needed before Buffy, because Buffy fandom was the first space in which I got to learn how deconstruct what went right and wrong with a story.
I found gaming in college. But Buffy let me know I wasn't a freak because I found that some of my circle of friends would obessess about the show as much I did, and that was a first.
March 8 2011, 18:00:41 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:07:03 UTC 6 years ago
So, now I don't feel greedy asking to throw my hat in the ring--thanks! :D
March 8 2011, 18:08:31 UTC 6 years ago
6 years ago
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March 8 2011, 18:18:28 UTC 6 years ago
Seriously, seeing a kick-ass woman - hell, a kick-ass girl - made me happy. Having the show be funny and touching and interesting were mere lagniappes.
March 9 2011, 04:26:28 UTC 6 years ago
But I'll tell my story down a ways as a direct reply to the post.
6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:21:21 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:24:35 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:33:45 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:50:15 UTC 6 years ago
But I still hated Buffy. And Angel. Right?
I had quit my job to focus on writing and got up with my boyfriend every morning to gym first. And at the gym they would play reruns of Angel. While watching it I saw bits of Mal in the way Angel talked. And it fascinated me.
That summer Dr. Horrible came out and I could not stop singing the songs.
So about a year later, with another boyfriend who was a huge Whedon fanboy, I was finally talked into watching Buffy. I was in middle school when it first came out and I thought it was stupid. I didn't even want to entertain thoughts of liking it. And I didn't understand how the vampires worked.
Going back to watch it as an adult? It was amazing. The whole writing team on the show had such a grasp on character development and how to make a story work. And the vampires? They were real monsters!! And some of the episodes ranged from creepy to downright frightening.
Now I watch the show while I write (I have to watch tv or movies while writing, I'm weird) and I read the scripts to try to teach myself to write better dialog. And I'm convinced that if Joss had taken up novels as opposed to TV he would be viewed at one of the best writers in several generations. But people don't think like that about film or television.
And for the last three months I have had one song or another from Once More With Feeling stuck in my head.
So, in regard to Joss Whedon? I am a complete 180 from where I was ten years ago. (Luckily this is true in other parts of my life but those are irrelevant to this post)
March 8 2011, 23:31:56 UTC 6 years ago
March 8 2011, 18:59:59 UTC 6 years ago
I forgave the plot holes and weird character turns and wholeheartedly enjoyed the finished product, and when nobody else did* and it failed so catastrophically that it shuttered the entire studio that created it, I was heartbroken. It was one of my first real experiences with that peculiar kind of disappointment, at the loss of not so much a personal thing but rather of a communal artistic future that I had envisioned with breathtaking clarity, now indefinitely deferred.
(*) Every time I say this, I get the "Hey, I liked it too!" Rest assured I was only using hyperbole.
March 8 2011, 19:04:36 UTC 6 years ago
The only episode of Buffy I've ever seen was the finale. I had been so very enamored of the original movie ("We're immortal, Buffy - we can do anything!" "Okay. Clap.") that I simply could not get my head around the notion of making it serious, and even after the series took off, I never found the wherewithal to invest myself in it.
Now to see if the Random Number Generator is operated by the Imp of the Perverse and actually chooses me. It would somehow just kinda figure.
March 8 2011, 19:16:16 UTC 6 years ago
Buffy had growing pains, and a teenage girl who kicked ass and had her very Teenage Girl moments. So my early Buffy memories are about bonding with my mother over a fandom we could really share together.
We'd had shows we watched together, but Buffy meant a lot to both of us, and got her to open up about her 'fan' days in the 60's and 70's of the shows she'd raced home to watch. We'd tape eps, box them up and send them to my sister Rachel, hooking HER on the show, while elsewhere, my sister Christy was already happily a fan with her fiance.
Years later, when Rachel and her family needed a place to stay for awhile while starting over and going back to school, and we'd moved on to a different house, her family and our family were living in the same house, Christy just down the road. Buffy turned into family time. We'd all throw ourselves on the couch, those too slow to dive for it taking a seat on the floor. And it was magic. Angel was a different thing--only Rachel and I watched it, so my second eldest sibling, someone I'd felt like I'd never known, became someone I did, while we watched Angel together. In little blocks of time, every week, I got to know my family in ways I hadn't before.
March 8 2011, 19:18:13 UTC 6 years ago
But like many, "Buffy" was the first Joss Whedon world I entered, actually through the movie (I know, very different from what he envisioned), but my love of the world comes from the tv show. I was much more prone to feeling like Willow when I was younger, the geeky girl with little to fashion sense, but I wanted to be active and fight the bad guys with a giant ax like Buffy. I think that was the first show that I noticed which allowed the characters to have personalities and to make jokes in the face of danger and didn't take itself too seriously.
That's what really got me, there was depth, but also a lightness, and the stories overall felt balanced between the two. I still listen to the musical episode's soundtrack (and can quite James Marsters' lines from the memory loss episode, when he thought he was Giles' son: "Randy Giles? Randy Giles? Why didn't you just name me Horny Giles, or Desperate-for-a-shag Giles? God, I must hate you.")
March 8 2011, 19:20:33 UTC 6 years ago
"Just watch one," he'd say.
I insisted I wasn't into Sci-Fi, that I wouldn't like a show that took place on a spaceship.
Finally, to appease him and get him off my back, I popped one in my computer one day when the cable was on the fritz and I didn't have anything else to do.
A year later, I was organizing the Oklahoma Grand Shindig, which ran for three years featuring the Bedlam Bards and raising thousands of dollars for local animal charities. To say I was hooked hardcore was an understatement.
The funny thing is, Mom and I had watched Buffy and Angel, together. They were shows we both really enjoyed. It's utterly silly that I was so resistant to Firefly, just because it was set in space. My eyes were opened, and I even gave some other sci-fi a chance because of it.
Though I will still never trust Joss with the characters I love.
She Who Dares, Wins
March 8 2011, 19:32:37 UTC 6 years ago
“To attain the SANCTUM REGNUM, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions--an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE--such are the four words of the Magus, inscribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx.”--Eliphas Levi
To Know
By the end of Buffy's run, Willow became one of the most self-possessed members of Buffy's friends. Willow knows who she is; a geek, a computer nerd, a witch, lesbian, a smidge power hungry, longing for acceptance, capable of great evil and capable of great love. Over seven years, I watched Willow add more to her personal self, until at the end all of these selves unite to become the Goddess who releases the spell to empower all the slayers. Willow has been pivotal in accepting aspects of myself; the bad, the good, the queer and even the geeky. Before Willow, I would not identify as a geek--and then suddenly, there was someone on television like me.
Willow knows herself and that brings her great power.
To Will
Watching Willow's struggle to gain mastery of her craft has inspired me for over ten years. Willow reminds me that you can go from floating a pencil to empowering thousands of Slayers in just a few years, that there is no world that is out of reach. Her work has encouraged me on my own spiritual path and encouraged me to keep going even when I feel like I just can't. She gets me on the meditation cushion, reading the books, doing the work of integrating all my selves. Willow is an inspiration to keep going even when my body and mind have let me down. She nearly destroyed the world and came back stronger for it; she could have hidden from her power, but she didn't. She has also encouraged me on my other paths-by watching her work and learn, I can pick up the pen, the needles, the book and try again until I make it. Even though I may only metaphorically float a pencil now, there are bigger things to come.
To Dare
Daring? Willow has it. If it's not infiltrating a clubfull of vampires dressed as her "skanky" vampire self, risking a dangerous spell while ill or helping her best friend patrol for supernatural evil, it's another daring action that shows that all of us--even the shy, bookish types--have more within us than can be imagined, that we can achieve great things if we try.
Willow's most daring action, however, was to come out and open herself to a new relationship with Tara; she risked losing friends, she lost Oz and she said farewell to a normative heterosexual identity to let out another aspect of herself. Willow also opened herself to love again and in doing so, gave others a vision of love that they may have considered strange or frightening before--and perhaps gave some people the strength to open themselves to a queer identity as well.
(When we watched "New Moon Rising" in Boston, my roommate and I (both identified as bi) jumped up,screamed and cheered; obviously, we had/have some privilege, but that moment meant so much, seeing a relationship between two women honored onscreen and celebrated--well, of course we cried and cheered out loud.
Re: She Who Dares, Wins
March 8 2011, 19:33:11 UTC 6 years ago
To Keep Silent
Willow is likewise one of the most trusted of the Scoobies. She does not reveal secrets of others even when pressed (eg, she does not tell Xander any "sexy secrets" about her and Tara, she keeps Giles' idea of going back to England secret and she does the bulk of her spellwork in private space, respecting its power--and it is when she relearns that, Willow is able to pull off the greatest working of her life. We never hear what that was like for her, but the glowing smile and the half-giggled "That was nifty." tell us all.It's not a bad goal to be that trusted and I look up to it. Likewise, Willow's experience reminds me that there is a time for speech and a time for silence--and that one must know both.
Plus, she is human doing all these things; she is not a superhero or a perfect being--she falls, she is petty, has a thirst for power and still works through it all. Willow dares and in doing so, she wins. It makes me think I can, too.
FYI: "She Who Dares, Wins" is a modification of the British Special Forces motto, also used as the title of an excellent story by Kim Newman and a promotional slogan for the Spice Girls.
Also, thanks for saying "as long as you wanted":)
March 8 2011, 19:48:36 UTC 6 years ago
I love Whedon's stuff because of the strong female characters. Does that sound cliche? Probably, but it's more than kicking butt. It's a female spaceship mechanic who knows her stuff. It's intelligent women. It's the idea that sexuality doesn't have to be in the style of "puritanical hypocrites".
March 8 2011, 19:58:15 UTC 6 years ago
My Buffy moment happens in season Seven, and it talks to my basic life philosophy.
Anya is shouting at Buffy, because Buffy's the leader,but being distant and un-caring. Anya says "So, you're the chosen one. That doesn't make you better than us, it just makes you luckier than us."
That sums up my world view. I'm pretty bloody lucky. I am able bodied, educated, have never known hunger, work in a job that challenges me every day. But these things are all luck. It's important to remember access to education (for instance) is not virtue, but luck.
March 8 2011, 20:16:15 UTC 6 years ago
I just finished watching Firefly and Serenity yesterday and am now re-watching it starting at the beginning. My favorite episode is Jaynestown. I was laughing so hard. I watched it mostly because I kept getting shocked stares at school whenever I stated that I hadn't seen it. I'm glad I finally watched it.
Last year, I watched Buffy seasons 1-4 and part of 5 (and then things got in the way). I also watched the Buffy movie at a grad student's apartment with a bunch of friends, and we had so much fun watching it. There was one point where Merrick threw the knife at Buffy to prove to her what she was, and one of my friends suddenly sat up and said, "That's the fifth girl he did it to. The other four didn't make it."
Also, Dr. Horrible was EPIC. <3 My school put on a production of it, but I didn't see it. And then I saw the movie, and it was awesome.
March 8 2011, 20:21:56 UTC 6 years ago
I'm tempted now to bring Firefly with me the next time I visit her and see if the whole Trek + Joss Whedon things means she'd enjoy it. If she had more time for reading, I'd also offer her some of my urban fantasy collection.
March 8 2011, 20:49:17 UTC 6 years ago
But beyond all that, Buffy and Willow changed me as a person. As a disabled girl trying to fit into a society that didn't know what to do with me. My parents did everything they could to make me feel loved, desired, intellectual, respected, understood. But there was still that part of me that wanted... not to be normal, not to be like everybody else, but to be something more, something beyond. My body didn't work too well, so my fantasy was to have a mind that did everything. Telekinesis, for example, that was a big wish. When Willow began experimenting with telekinesis early on in the show, I was so thrilled. Willow became my favorite character on television, because I identified with her so well. Shy, mousy, quiet, unnoticed, withdrawn, reserved. Blazingly smart, intellectual, bookish, soaking up knowledge everywhere, silently observing how everything happened. I began to infuse those traits into my fictional characters, female and male. Later, when I realized I was bisexual, I turned to Willow and Tara to understand what that meant for me. Right now, one of my main female characters is bisexual and her current lover is male. In my next couple of books, I'll have bisexual women and men in same-sex relationships. And I will always look at Willow and Tara for inspiration.
I often used to say that my husband, when we were dating, was a male version of Buffy and Willow combined.
March 8 2011, 20:52:46 UTC 6 years ago
I watched Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible while living abroad feeling very lonely and depressed, they were bright spots in an otherwise very not fun time. So Whedon's work tends to be a comfort thing for me--feeling blue, grab some friends and watch Firefly, blatantly ignoring what happens in Serenity, or rocking out to the Dr Horrible Soundtrack. It's stories that stick with you that matter to me, and these works certainly do
March 8 2011, 21:09:59 UTC 6 years ago
I held out on Firefly for awhile, but when I did finally decide to sit down and watch it it was instant love. It still gets pulled off the shelf about once a year or so for a re-watch. I have the Serenity symbol cross-stitched and hanging on my living room wall.
I love Dr. Horrible, too- the songs are always on my iPod. UT has covered "My Eyes" a few times.
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