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.)
March 9 2011, 04:31:42 UTC 6 years ago
Now, my TV watching was limited to which channels regularly came in. We had a huge old antenna on our roof for the entirety of my childhood, because my father didn't believe in paying for the privilege of rotting one's brain. (He left his copy of The Glass Teat lying around for us to find.) We also had several migration patterns pass straight over our house, because that antenna was apparently awesome for perching when one was a bird, and had a song to share with the world.
I can't remember which channel Buffy was on, but it was not one that came in, even on a night when we got good reception. I decided it couldn't possibly be better than the movie, anyway, and paid it no mind.
But then college happened. In college, there was free cable in the dorms, and TV watching nights huddled around in common areas. I fell in with the weird crowd, and, among them, a young man named Joshua.
Initially, Joshua creeped me out, because, well, he clearly liked me, and I was in a mental head space where people liking me was reason for immediate suspicion. But he and I got to talking, and one of those subjects was about the merits of Buffy. And I chattered on for nearly an hour before I realized he was talking about a TV show.
In the end, I gave both him and the TV show a chance. Long story short, Josh and I are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary on March 24th, and the Buffy box sets are one of the few possessions we made sure to budget for. Even when we could rarely make time for one another, we still made sure to prioritize that one hour of TV watching together, back when the shows aired. We made parties of the season premieres and finales, and befriended people just because they also liked and watched Buffy. We tended to find that it was a quick litmus test for locating our kinds of people.
And so, I owe most of my memorable relationships of the last decade to Buffy, in a way. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I didn't give it a chance earlier on.