fray_adjacent12

Title: Never Look Away
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Song: Never Look Away by Vienna Teng
Summary: "you are made of nebulas and novas and night sky" (AKA a love letter to Buffy Summers by fray-adjacent, age 33 2/3)
Premiered at VidUKon 2015

Content Notes: Fast cuts and flashing lights, speed changes. Depression and vague references to suicide. Show-typical violence. Feel free to ask specific questions about content.

Download: 133 MB mp4 with subtitles | 56 MB mp4 with subtitles

Subtitles are included in the download .zip files. You can delete the .srt file if you don't want subtitles. They are also available in the youtube streaming versions.

youtube | tumblr | archive of our own



comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/87530.html.

kikimay asked for my Top 5 Buffyverse women!

Buffy Summers: For the ways she both resists and embraces her calling. For her kindness. For her determination. Because I love her sweet, silly early season self and her relatively hard, battle-worn late season self. Because she loves cheesy puns and figure skating and has a stuffed pig named Mr Gordo. Because the mission matters to her. Because she gets a visceral joy from slaying, and she knows that if she wasn't the Slayer, she'd lose an essential part of herself. Because she loves as deeply and brightly as the First Slayer tells her she does, and she expresses that love most fully not to a boyfriend, but to her sister.

Because her lot fucking sucks, and when she realises she can change it, can share her power and responsibility, she does.

Willow Rosenberg: I don't admire Willow the way I do Buffy, but I feel a lot of affection and sympathy for her and am in awe of the quality of her character arc over the show's seven seasons. Willow is intelligent, hard-working, ambitious and arrogant. She's insecure and in need of approval, and unlike Buffy and Tara, she doesn't have a super strong internal moral compass. She wants to fight the good fight alongside her friends, but she also wants to be important. She doesn't want to be wrong about anything ever, because if she isn't perfect then who will ever love her? If her friends don't need her, why would they want her around? She's at once complex and multifaceted yet very consistent. Sometimes she makes me angry, sometimes she makes me sick, but she is so very human and beautifully written and performed.

Cordelia Chase: it's possible I have a soft spot for pretty girls with hidden depths. She makes me laugh, she plays off other characters in a group incredibly well, and I love her transformation from selfish oblivious rich girl to a member of the team in Angel.

Tara MacLay: she brings a strength and emotional maturity to the Scoobies that no one else on either show possesses, with the interesting possible exception of Oz. The support she gives Buffy from "The Body" to "Older and Far Away" is wonderful and I love her so much for it. You deserved better, Tara.

Anya Jenkins: this last one was tough because I also love Dawn. Which matters more, my involuntary empathy for Dawn and admiration for how she grows in later seasons, or how much Anya makes me laugh? The episode "Selfless" was the eventual tiebreaker. Hands down my favorite character study episode -- when the character being studied isn't Buffy anyway.

Honorary mention (in addition to the one for Dawn) for Faith Lehane. She's a fantastic character, though funnily enough my favorite incarnation of her is on AtS S4/BtVS S7, when she's all emotionally mature and repenty. And when she arguably gets the least narrative attention.
.
comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/78265.html.

ETA:  This is probably as many posts as I can handle in a month, but if you still want to leave a prompt, feel free and I'll get to it after the New Year!

Last year I did the December posting meme in January because I had out-of-continent visitors for much of the month, but this year I can do it at the same time as anyone else! So:

Pick a date below and give me a topic, and I'll ramble on. It can be fandom-related or not. Pretty much anything you've ever seen me post about unlocked, or comment on in other venues, is fair game. If a topic is uncomfortable for me (too personal or potentially identifying) or simply something I know very little about (unfamiliar canon, say), I may ask you to make a second choice. If you want to request more than one topic feel free, but in the unlikely event that I get more than 25 or so requests I may pick and choose between them.

(Wording snagged and adapted from various versions of the meme, but mainly renay's.)


ETA:  If you want a really specific date, keep in mind that I'll post on the day you request in my time zone -- nearly a full day ahead of North America and half a day ahead of Europe.

December 1: books (chaila)
December 2: worldbuilding in The Steerswoman books (frith_in_thorns)
December 3:
December 4: favourite ships (endeni)
December 5: if you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be? (siria)
December 6: Top 5 Buffyverse women (kikimay)
December 7:
December 8: US/Aussie living (st_aurafina)
December 9: BUSY WEEK, NO MORE POSTS
December 10: Elementary: Joan, Marcus, fic (akamarykate)
December 11: Top 5 changes you'd make to Buffyverse canon (velvetwhip)
December 12: BUSY WEEK, NO MORE POSTS
December 13:
December 14:
December 15: Catherine Weaver, Savannah, James Ellison and John Henry: the OTHER family in The Sarah Connor Chronicles (selenak)
December 16: Indigo Girls (raven)
December 17:
December 18: dead vid bunnies (rbfvid)
December 19: vids that inspired me most (rbfvid)
December 20:
December 21: favourite weather (umadoshi)
December 22:
December 23:
December 24: Climate change (isis)
December 25:
December 26:
December 27: Xena fic (luzula)
December 28: Sarah and Mrs. S (goodbyebird)
December 29:
December 30: Offline
December 31: Offline

comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/75651.html.

Sorry if a bunch of posts from the last year came across your flist today. I decided to cross-post some of my BtVS-related DW posts here, assuming that since they had old dates they wouldn't all show up on your reading list at the same time. Oops.

Mr. Adjacent and I started a BtVS rewatch (his first full rewatch, my...fifth?) about a year ago. This time through, S6 has been kind of a rough slog. It's taking us months. And months.

Not surprising on Mr. A's end, as he doesn't go much for heavy stuff in his television. I, however, generally count S6 as one of my very favorite seasons. But for some reason at the end of the work day I just don't feel like watching my favorite character be miserable, and I guess after so many rewatches the mental and emotional satisfaction of such strong character drama is hitting a diminishing returns sort of thing. (I've seen most S6 episodes a lot more than 5 times.) Or something.

Anyway, last night we finally watched "Older and Far Away" (Mr. A fell asleep) and: you guys! There were entire scenes that I had no memory of! Like pretty much the entire teaser. And a lot of that is because OaFA was one of the few S6 episodes I didn't rewatch obsessively, but still. This has got me particularly excited for late S6 and S7, because at this point it's been at least a couple of years since I watched those episodes (and the last time would have been clipping for Tightrope, which I did at double speed and without sound). There might be more stuff I don't remember. Something might surprise me. My various long-held views about points of fannish discussion and contention (including my relative indifference to the next episode, As You Were) could *change*.

I'M SO PLEASED.

After posting about a year ago that I was leaving LJ and going DW-only, I'm back on LJ. And I'm going to keep these accounts somewhat separated. Basically, DW will be my place for vidding/various multifannish discussions, and LJ will be my Buffy journal. Because I long for active Buffy discussions and just haven't found them much on DW.

So, if you like to talk about Buffy and I just friended you, that's why!

Um, I may or may not have spent 6 hours reading old BtVS meta last night. One of the things I happily came across was one of my favorite visuals about what rocks about BtVS and Xena: gabrielleabelle's Women, Connecting graphic showing the many relationships among women on those shows. I know I've linked to this in the past but I still think it's awesome. Besides, a fangirl should always cite her sources.

Because I've been thinking: one of the things I've been loving about Sleepy Hollow is the many relationships it shows among people of color. Like, at the point I'm at in the show, Ichabod is basically the only white character, at least in the present day scenes (and the Revolutionary War flashbacks hardly count as part of the show in my head). I thought it would be awesome to do a graphic like this for characters of color in Sleepy Hollow, but since I haven't caught up on the series, I thought that for contrast it'd be interesting to do something similar for characters of color in BtVS.

( Images beneath the cutCollapse )

ETA: I've since realized that Gabrielle did an update to her Women, Connecting graphic that's pretty on par, in terms of major/minor characters used, with my first one. Perhaps more interestingly, she did one for men and shows that what's unique about BtVS is not that relationships among women outnumber those among men, but that they're roughly equivalent, unlike say Star Trek TNG. I do suspect that in Xena you would find that women majorly outnumber men, but maybe that's just internalized sexism speaking.

</user> comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/71484.html.

Restarting a meme from...January (!) to help me get back in the habit of posting.

Day 11 - A show that disappointed you:
Oh this is maybe why I stopped this meme! I dunno, the world is shitty right now and I don't feel like knocking anyone's fandom. So I'll just say that Doctor Who fans are my favorite part of the show.

Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times:
Lol, most of Buffy. Like seriously intently watched, and within the last 6 years. /o\ The episode I've watched the most is probably "Once More, With Feeling". I still love it so, but I had to back off because the impact was starting to wear off. It's beautiful, it's funny, it makes me cry. Especially when Buffy sings, "well that depends/ on if they let you go". Shit. Shit shit shit. Now I'm all full of love and sorrow for my girl.

Also, I used to listen to the soundtrack (along with my "Buffy playlist", which is what I called it before I knew that fanmixes were a thing, and which by the way sparked my first vid ideas) while bicycling to and from work on the Burke-Gilman trail. So now I associate specific songs with specific parts of the commute. E.g., "I'll Never Tell" immediately makes me think of riding in the dark and cold of a winter evening under the Aurora Bridge and around the corner past Theo's chocolate factory. I always skipped "Rest in Peace", which is the only song on the soundtrack I dislike.

(In case you're wondering, I listened with only one earbud and, um, usually took it out when I was riding on streets with cars. Usually.)

I'm trying to think if there are any non-Buffy episodes I've watched more than five times. Possibly some X-Files or Star Trek: Voyager episodes, because I had a few on tape so I probably rewatched them a bunch, but that was so long ago I don't remember them well. Maybe a few episodes of the US version of The Office, because Mr. Adjacent cycles through sitcoms while he cooks -- which is most of the time -- and there are few I can't resist. Mainly "Boys and Girls", "The Dundies", "Duwali", that beach party one. I like when everyone goes somewhere else together.

( Links to previous answersCollapse )

( the rest of the questionsCollapse )
comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/65956.html.

Day 09 - Best scene ever:

My non-definitive answer is the scene between Buffy and Giles in the training room in The Gift.  A scene which next_to_normal iconned for me!! :D

( Fray gushes, with spoilers.Collapse )

( 30 QuestionsCollapse )

comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/55529.html.

Oops, I'm getting behind!

Day 07 - Least favourite episode of your favourite TV show:

Everytime people talk about the bad BtVS episodes, all I think about is the things I like about them.  Even "I Robot, You Jane" has Giles/Jenny fun, plus that great final scene:


(This image comes from tumblr, but I can't seem to track down the maker to credit them.)

Hmm.  Maybe "Bad Eggs".  That episode is pretty boring.  Or "Wrecked" -- not because it was as bad, in and of itself, as some other contenders, but because it threw Willow's arc a bit off course.  Before that, I think Willow had one of the strongest character arcs I've seen on television.  After "Wrecked", it was still strong, but it never worked quite as well for me.

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch:

I don't believe such a thing exists.  Sorry.

( 30 QuestionsCollapse )

comments at http://frayadjacent.dreamwidth.org/55225.html.