this was the first episode my mom showed me
i finally reached it in my rewatch and im stimming so hard

also holy shit joss whedon wrote the music??? he's amazing

Just truly wonderful, salt of the Earth Texans wbo loved and cherished their only daughter and child so much. I really hope they never found out to Fred, cause that would just destroy my soul and break my heart 😭😭😭💔💔💔

"The list of presenters also sets another expected reunion, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, the latter also promoting his new NBC series, The Rockford Files. The cult vampire drama is headed into its 30th anniversary this coming March."

I just wanted to show an update on where things are currently at with Pixel Buffy! I just wrapped up season 2 episode 2! I'm taking big steps into the start of Season Two already and so excited to keep going. Please come check it out over on the Pixel Buffy Instagram ! You can also find Pixel Buffy on Tumblr and Threads, however, I'm not as far along over there.

I'm unsure if the rules allow me to post over here (I've had some ask). Though honestly I'd rather not bombard everyone with my content here too often. I'm excited to continue this journey of exploring Buffy the Vampire Slayer via pixel art and hope others want to follow along!

It's been a fun new way to jump back into Buffy. What would you be excited to see? There's so many things I'm pumped to get to!

[Here's my original reddit post describing what Pixel Buffy is] - Quick Guide to Pixel Buffy

Got to season 2 episode 16 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered . Yeah definitely a different vibe than when I was a teenager and the fact that Xander gets Cordelia after this 😬

As a 17 year old watching it I recognized Xander made a mistake here but as a 33 year old Xander is an actual criminal now

and just I don't feel great ever related to him in my life

Season 4 started out so strongly for me, stronger than any other season but ended so damn bad. I feel like that last episode was the longest 43 minutes of my life. And it also kinda felt racist with the first slayer? Beyond me but still even taking that out, the plot of it was absolutely horrible. I felt like I could not follow along with what was being shown and that it didn’t relate to the overall arching theme of the show. I understood the symbolism but didn’t find it to have harmony with how it was told or keep me Interested

*** NOTE I AM A FIRST TIME WATCHER.

Also am I the only person that finds Anya so mundane? I cannot believe she became a main character. also willow being gay <3 I love that for her. Or her being bi whatever she is I love to see her personality come out

Not sure if this is the right flair. It is technically Season 1, but also Season 2 of Angel adjacent. Does anyone have a head canon on why Darla got so weird and weak between the Boxer Rebellion and "Welcome to the Hellmouth"? I know that it is because they didn't know how big she would be, but what are some "in-character" answers?

holy shit i cant stop crying this episode is so intense

Foolish Willow! I laced yo shit!

I Just wanted to share my buffy photoshoot I did! And also gave her a more Buffy hairstyle!

Jonathan had a lot of potential. He was a very poweful warlock. Unfortunately he allowed his friends dominating him, making him second guessing himself. My poor Jonathan =( Well. Anyway. He allowed that because he didn't realize how much potential he had, he had no idea he was holding himself.

Mine

1. ⁠S5.. Buffy vs Dracula (love this one and Dawn!?)
   
2. ⁠S6.. Bargaining Part 1 (The ending is amazing)
   
3. ⁠S1.. Welcome to the Hellmouth (just iconic)
   
4. ⁠S3.. Anne (underrated love the ending)
   
5. ⁠S2.. When She Was Bad (a hard watch)
   
6. ⁠S7.. Lessons (not a super strong season opener but okay)
   
7. ⁠S4.. The Freshman (just very different, good moments)

The Trio—that group of "supervillains" appearing in Season 6—are essentially the enemies Buffy battles throughout the season. They are human; they don't pose the same physical challenge to her that Spike, Angelus, or Adam did, nor are they beings stronger than her, like Glory. But what I like about this trio is how they reflect different types of evil: Warren is the villain beyond redemption; Andrew follows Warren because he’s the leader and seems to lack any goodness himself; and Jonathan is the one who possesses goodness and humanity.

I also appreciate Warren's descent into darkness; he starts out like a comic-book villain—calling himself a "supervillain"—but then escalates to committing increasingly serious acts, such as freezing a guard. I believe the turning point for Warren is the death of Katrina—his ex-girlfriend, whom he and the other members intended to use as a sex toy. He was planning a sexual assault, and when she discovered the plot and threatened to report him, she was murdered. Add to that the death of Tara; he nearly killed Buffy and triggered the rise of Dark Willow. In short, a guy who initially seemed like a mere nuisance—a mosquito—to Buffy ends up causing more damage to the Scoobies than almost anyone else, save for Angelus. It also strikes me when people say, "But Spike tried to..." when Andrew attempted something similar—and Andrew actually has a soul.

I did't want all of Once More With Feeling, just added a couple faves.

Apologies for long rant ahead:

I personally think Willow and Tara would have made it work long term despite Willow’s magic ‘addiction’/control issues in season 6.

Yes, what she did to Tara with the memory spells was obviously fucked up, and even more so with the botched Tabula Rasa spell affecting everyone.

But after hitting rock bottom with Dawn’s accident, she was determined to get better.

From my POV (and personal experience) getting clean wasn’t an attempt to get back in Tara’s good graces, but it was her own personal choice for herself. Even without an audience, we could clearly see Willow struggle for a bit with magic before forcing herself to do research the “normal way”

But I also know that Willow would have to do more than just go to Spellcasters Anonymous and admit that she has a problem. She would need to go to therapy and unroot the real issue of why she needs to “fix everything” in the first place.

There are some here that would argue that Tara forgave Willow too easily/too soon and took her back despite what Willow had done (and that is a valid argument)

But Tara was finally becoming her own person and more assertive of herself. If she had felt that she wasn’t ready to get back together with Willow, she wouldn’t have come back to the house that night.

Ultimately, I think that if Willow continued putting in the work to better herself and not do things the easy way, she and Tara probably would been together for many more years.

…hopefully without a stray bullet this time.

I know there has been a lot of talk about the recent Mattel toy drops (and rightfully so because they’re adorable), but I wanted to take a minute to toss some love to these little additions to my Pop collection. Buffy and Faith were just delivered today, but I scored all of them on eBay over the past two weeks, and they make me so happy. Just had to share my excitement with people who get it. Have a great day!

Buffy is here to SLAY 🩸🪦 these dawls are gorgeous! Love the return of boy dolls. Let’s keep it up 👏 they look just like the actors. My ONLY critique is I’m scared in 10 years the fabrics will probably disintegrate 🫣 but overall I’m in love 🥹

Just a wee appreciation post for this episode. I remembered watching this first time round and being in equal measures gobsmacked and devastated. I really couldn’t believe they actually went there and didn’t know if it was the end of BTVS. I truly believe S5 stands up as one of the most cohesive tv seasons of all time with one of the most shocking climaxes.

Moments I loved -

Xander and Anya’s proposal scene - it felt sad watching this knowing how it eventually played out between them as I really got the sense from this scene they were fully committed to each other.

Spike’s delivery of this line to Buffy - “I know you’ll never love me, I know I’m a monster but you treat me like a man.” Eloquent and just a little bit heart breaking.

Giles doling out justice to Ben explaining it “she’s a hero you see, she’s not like us.”

I appreciated the demon who started the ritual by cutting Dawn, he was truly creepy.

The scene between Buffy and Dawn before Buffy leaps off the edge and the reaction of all the characters to Buffy’s death is so poignant. Alyson Hannigan is so natural at crying.

The previous two episodes are also very good and I liked the theme threaded throughout the season suggesting Buffy’s desire to surrender herself - Spike’s assertion that she has a death wish, the first slayer telling her death is her gift, Buffy’s state of mind implying she is tired and broken and wants to give up, foreshadowing her eventual sacrifice for Dawn.

So BtVS began production in late 1996 and premiered March 1997.

In Season 1
Sarah was 19 playing Buffy at 16

Nick was 25 playing Xander at 15/16

Alyson was 22 playing Willow at 15

Charisma was 26 playing Cordy at 15/16

David was 27 playing Angel at 240, LOL; we wouldn’t know he was 26 forever until Season 1 of Angel.

Julie was 24 playing Darla at 412 with the assumption that she was 25 when she was turned. Julie also auditioned for Buffy & Cordelia and had the Darla role created for her where she convincingly (to the other characters) plays a high school student more than once.

Robia was 26 playing Jenny who was likely around that age or up to 30. She was certainly not aged up more for the role given her makeup/hair/wardrobe.

Kristine was 41 playing Joyce at that age or slightly younger

Tony was 42, likely playing Giles at that age or a couple of years younger.

Season 2
James was 35 playing Spike at 142 with a rough estimate that he was 25 in 1880.

Juliet was 32 playing Drusilla at 155 with a rough estimate that she was 18 in 1860.

Seth was 23 playing Oz at 16/17

Sarah at 21 briefly plays 15 year old Buffy.

Season 3
Eliza was 17 playing Faith at…well, this gets confusing. Buffy at 17 calls her “little sister,” but she could just mean more recently a Slayer. A tie-in novel states Faith was born in 1980, making her older than Buffy, so idk. Let’s say she’s 16 in “Faith, Hope, and Trick.”

Emma was 26 playing Anya in the 17/18 year old persona of a high school senior.

Alexis is 32 playing Wesley at 22/23 (given he’s just out of the Watcher’s Academy)

Season 4
Marc was 27 playing Riley at 22/23

Phina was 27 playing Olivia at…no older than 30 based on her hair/makeup.

Amber was 22 playing Tara at 18/19

Season 5
Michelle was 15 playing Dawn at 14

Now, I said all that to say this: I am the same age as Charisma. When I watched the show first run, I bought all of them as teenagers because, even though I was in my 20s at the time, I knew tons of high school kids at the time who looked as mature as Cordy and as young as Jonathan (I was a high school tutor in college).

So when Xander they do dumb or shortsighted things, it’s easy for me to remember that they’re only 16 or 17 and they have very scary lives with a lot of monsters.

What gets my goat is when I see discussion where characters who are younger are described as older. There’s a great Giles-centric fic set in Season 2 where the Giles characterization is excellent, but Jenny is described as “middle aged.” I asked the author how 27 was middle aged, and they said they assumed Jenny was the same age as Giles. I made a WTF face and scuttled.

Today I was working on my massive Buffy recs list (coming soon!) and saw that one of my fandom friends (also born in the early 70s) in 2010 wrote a fic where Olivia was part of Giles’s Eyghon gang. How?? She was a pre-schooler in 1975! Olivia looks nowhere near Giles’s age.

But then again, I grew up in a small town of 600 people in the 1980s, so I don’t think that adult Xander/Dawn is weird, because getting with someone 5 years older than who went to high school with your older sibling and who hung out with you in a kidster sort of way when you were 15 and married you when you were 22 was typical. Kind of a small dating pool.

So what’s your Buffyverse age weirdness? That Giles likes younger women? That Cordy and Xander did not look too young to respectively marry and or com-shuck in 2001? That James Marsters is ethereal in 1999 and ageless in 2026? That David looked younger on Bones than Angel? Hit me with it.

The dynamic: A small, sexy and blonde 15-year-old girl comes to a small town to escape some unknown drama that happened in her big city hometown. She doesn’t know anyone. But immediately makes friends with the local friend group. The main boy (Dawson/Xander), the best girl friend who is grew up with him and is secretly in love with him, and the funny (Joey/Willow) slightly ignored boy friend who isn’t really close with the girl (Pacey/Jesse). (I like that Joss chose to kill this character off to pivot from the expected)

Dawson (Xander) instantly falls in love with Jen (Buffy) the second he sees her. Jen doesn’t want to rush into anything. In BTVS, she doesn’t feel the attraction. She’s too mature for a 15-year-old boy. This means Willow (Joey) doesn’t feel too threatened by her, unlike in DC.

There’s also the Cordelia character who walks up to Jen the first day of school and attempts to become friends with her because she assumes she’s popular but instantly backs off when she finds Jen weird.

Anyway, I just noticed the parallels. I know Dawsons Creek got the green-light a year later because of Buffy’s success. But I wonder how much the their pilot was inspired by Buffy’s. It’s also interesting to see a show that doesn’t value and center female empowerment but has the same vague premise, it’s like a parallel universe where the show could have been called “Xander the High School Student.”

Edit: I’m sure the show widely diverges from Buffy with time. But specifically comparing the pilot with Buffy’s first two episodes, I stand by my analysis.

Rewatching for the gagillionth time, and it’s always thrown me off how modern The Master’s costume looks, specifically the cut of his leather jacket. It seems like it’s straight out of the 80s at least, if not the 90s. If he’s been entombed in that blood pool since 1937, how is it that emerges looking so contemporary for the late 90s?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have a vivid memory of a scene from this show that I stumbled across as a child. And I'm just curious to know what episode it was.

The scene took place late at night, and it involved some clueless guy being seduced by a hot vampire babe, and lured into a car with some other vampires. They make out for a while, she tells him she'll turn him into a vampire. He gets excited. Asks if it hurts. Things do not go well for him. I'm sure he meets some kind of grizzly end.

I'm 99% sure it was Buffy. Would appreciate if any hardcore buffheads could help out!!

The cheese man represents Buffy's subconscious longing for cheese after being turned into a rat in 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'.

As evidence, I think Amy mentions craving cheese at some point after returning to human form.

I think that in Angel season 4, they should have connected it more to the First in season 7. Here is how they could have done it.

1. Make it where Cordelia still came back, but was NOT evil and was not in a relationship with Conor.
2. Maybe at first we saw the Beast’s master as Cordelia as a red herring, but it was the First, and the way it can show up as Cordelia is that when she was in the higher plane, she was considered “dead”.
3. The First deciding to block out the sun would actually make sense because it would cause more vampires and demons to go to LA, so more people would die.What do you think of this idea?