A Few of My Favorite Things: Television
Aug. 30th, 2023 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ryanreactsBuffy the Vampire Slayer
Obviously, Willow is my favorite character on this show. And one of my favorite fictional characters ever full stop. And one of the best examples of my tendency to like the best friend more than the main character. And her relationship with Tara (fun fact: my first episode was "Who Are You?," in which they keep their clothes on but still have sex onscreen) helped me realize that I was gay and that might just be okay, even though I grew up in an abusive environment where coming out would have been majorly unsafe.
However.
If I wrote a list of My Favorite Fictional Characters Who Are Absolutely Not Witches, Buffy Anne Summers would definitely be top three, if not number one. I love her more than words can say. Her character development is sublime. When we meet her she is fully denying her Slayerness, but almost immediately after moving to The Hellmouth she starts saving people from vampires again and, albeit somewhat reluctantly, accepts her destiny. Until she finds out about a prophecy that says she will fight The Master and she will die. She's sixteen years old, she doesn't wanna die. But she fights him anyway, and she dies, but thanks to Xander's breath she doesn't stay dead for more than a minute, and then she kills The Master anyway!
And that's just season one. She has so damn many more moments. Smashing The Master's bones in the season two premiere so his pesky followers can't bring him back.
Her seventeenth birthday: having sex for the very first time with her boyfriend who she has been in love with for approximately ten months, and then he loses his soul and turns evil again; killing The Judge with a rocket launcher because no weapon forged could defeat him, but "that was then"; her mom lights a candle in a cupcake and asks if she wants to make a wish, but she says she'll just let it burn and she does and then the episode ends.
"So that's everything, huh? No friends, no weapons, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?" "Me."
Killing her boyfriend, even though Willow did restore his soul at the last minute, to save the world from being sucked into Hell and then leaving town on a bus.
Coming back and flirting with Faith.
Barely surviving the barbaric test the Watchers' Council put her through on her eighteenth birthday.
Telling the Council she wasn't going to work with them anymore, then blowing up her high school at Graduation to destroy the Mayor, who had successfully "ascended" into a demon.
Joining her essence with Willow, Xander, and Giles to defeat Adam.
Fighting Dracula and asking Giles to start training her again.
"I'm fairly certain I said no interruptions."
Sacrificing herself to save Dawn - and also, the universe.
Coming back from the dead and feeling like existence is misery.
Realizing that she can defeat The First Evil by activating every potential Slayer on the planet.
So yeah, I love her more than words can say, but those are some.
Gilmore Girls
You know why I never get tired of watching this show over and over and over and over and over again? Because it did and still does have some of the funniest, cleverest, fastest dialogue of all time.
And then the third show of my top three is Avatar: The Last Airbender slash The Legend of Korra
Technically two separate shows, which technically shatters the whole "top three" premise, but I say it gets a pass because Korra is literally Aang's next life.
Anyway, this is one of my favorite fictional worlds ever, with one of my favorite magic systems in all of the fantasy fiction I've ever read or watched or imagined.
Aang and his friends ended the Hundred-Year War, then between their two shows he grew up and got married and had kids and grew old and died, then Korra was born and proved to be the Avatar much sooner than usual, and one of the many things she did was SAVE THE WORLD FROM TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS (which, the first time I saw it, saved my life).
I don't know, it's just a really really really beautiful story that I will never be able to recommend enough.
YELLOWJACKETS
Let's see, it's currently the penultimate day of August, so that's only five or six months since I discovered this show, but it is seriously one of the greatest things I have ever seen. I cannot say enough good things about the writing or the acting or any other aspect of the production, from wardrobe to hair & makeup to, um, whatever department provides the disturbingly realistic-looking chunks of human flesh that get sliced and roasted and eaten in uncomfortable close-up detail.
I'm angry that the studios have dragged the strikes out this long for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that the season three writers only had one day of work before their strike started, and now the show might never be allowed to finish, which is maddening because I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO AKILAH, OKAY???
I might add to this later, but that's enough for now.
Obviously, Willow is my favorite character on this show. And one of my favorite fictional characters ever full stop. And one of the best examples of my tendency to like the best friend more than the main character. And her relationship with Tara (fun fact: my first episode was "Who Are You?," in which they keep their clothes on but still have sex onscreen) helped me realize that I was gay and that might just be okay, even though I grew up in an abusive environment where coming out would have been majorly unsafe.
However.
If I wrote a list of My Favorite Fictional Characters Who Are Absolutely Not Witches, Buffy Anne Summers would definitely be top three, if not number one. I love her more than words can say. Her character development is sublime. When we meet her she is fully denying her Slayerness, but almost immediately after moving to The Hellmouth she starts saving people from vampires again and, albeit somewhat reluctantly, accepts her destiny. Until she finds out about a prophecy that says she will fight The Master and she will die. She's sixteen years old, she doesn't wanna die. But she fights him anyway, and she dies, but thanks to Xander's breath she doesn't stay dead for more than a minute, and then she kills The Master anyway!
And that's just season one. She has so damn many more moments. Smashing The Master's bones in the season two premiere so his pesky followers can't bring him back.
Her seventeenth birthday: having sex for the very first time with her boyfriend who she has been in love with for approximately ten months, and then he loses his soul and turns evil again; killing The Judge with a rocket launcher because no weapon forged could defeat him, but "that was then"; her mom lights a candle in a cupcake and asks if she wants to make a wish, but she says she'll just let it burn and she does and then the episode ends.
"So that's everything, huh? No friends, no weapons, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?" "Me."
Killing her boyfriend, even though Willow did restore his soul at the last minute, to save the world from being sucked into Hell and then leaving town on a bus.
Coming back and flirting with Faith.
Barely surviving the barbaric test the Watchers' Council put her through on her eighteenth birthday.
Telling the Council she wasn't going to work with them anymore, then blowing up her high school at Graduation to destroy the Mayor, who had successfully "ascended" into a demon.
Joining her essence with Willow, Xander, and Giles to defeat Adam.
Fighting Dracula and asking Giles to start training her again.
"I'm fairly certain I said no interruptions."
Sacrificing herself to save Dawn - and also, the universe.
Coming back from the dead and feeling like existence is misery.
Realizing that she can defeat The First Evil by activating every potential Slayer on the planet.
So yeah, I love her more than words can say, but those are some.
Gilmore Girls
You know why I never get tired of watching this show over and over and over and over and over again? Because it did and still does have some of the funniest, cleverest, fastest dialogue of all time.
And then the third show of my top three is Avatar: The Last Airbender slash The Legend of Korra
Technically two separate shows, which technically shatters the whole "top three" premise, but I say it gets a pass because Korra is literally Aang's next life.
Anyway, this is one of my favorite fictional worlds ever, with one of my favorite magic systems in all of the fantasy fiction I've ever read or watched or imagined.
Aang and his friends ended the Hundred-Year War, then between their two shows he grew up and got married and had kids and grew old and died, then Korra was born and proved to be the Avatar much sooner than usual, and one of the many things she did was SAVE THE WORLD FROM TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS (which, the first time I saw it, saved my life).
I don't know, it's just a really really really beautiful story that I will never be able to recommend enough.
YELLOWJACKETS
Let's see, it's currently the penultimate day of August, so that's only five or six months since I discovered this show, but it is seriously one of the greatest things I have ever seen. I cannot say enough good things about the writing or the acting or any other aspect of the production, from wardrobe to hair & makeup to, um, whatever department provides the disturbingly realistic-looking chunks of human flesh that get sliced and roasted and eaten in uncomfortable close-up detail.
I'm angry that the studios have dragged the strikes out this long for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that the season three writers only had one day of work before their strike started, and now the show might never be allowed to finish, which is maddening because I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO AKILAH, OKAY???
I might add to this later, but that's enough for now.
