Twiglimmer/StarTwi/TwiStar Stuffs (because I'm So Twiglimmer-pilled Right Now)

Twiglimmer/StarTwi/TwiStar stuffs (because I'm so twiglimmer-pilled right now)

Slightly half-assed designs because I just wanted to draw out the prompt, but yes... all love to Twilight who wears both dresses and suit and tie, and Starlight suit and tie... this mostly focuses on an au-ish (is it called canon divergent) type of setting? but it's very based off from the fact that Twilight and Starlight work closely since Twilight took Starlight to live in her castle with her and spike (domestic... but I digress)

no matter how terrible my day is. i can always end my day in bed imagining fictional characters making out sloppy style and fucking raw. and that's beautiful. there's some good in this world mister frodo and it's worth fighting for

most of these are useless and probably inconvenient - certainly wings are going to be both - but imagine being able to hold something in both hands and still have free hands you can use

okay, so she's definitely the Rani, right?

I’m way behind on posting about my rewatch - there’s plenty I do want to say about S2, and there’s a whole essay about gender and Phases that I’m probably never going to write - but I’m into Season 3 and I really want to note how much early S3 establishes the issues that are going to drive Buffy’s long breakdown in seasons 6 and 7.

Firstly, Buffy's tendency to pull away from her friends, feeling she has to take care of everything for herself and protect them from her problems and her feelings rather than sharing them. It’s a consistent pattern, and we see it in her running away at the end of Season 2, and continually refusing to talk about what happened with Angel with both the Scoobies and Faith. When she eventually does try to talk to her assigned school counsellor about Angel, she explicitly says she can’t talk to anyone else about what’s happening (only to find him dead, which I’m sure didn’t help).

Of course, this isn’t just a flaw of Buffy’s - her friends have a pretty big role to play, especially Xander. His sanctimonious, judgemental whining about Buffy leaving, as well as anything to do with Angel, does a lot to push Buffy away. (Not to mention the first thing he does when he finds out Angel is back is try to manipulate Faith into murdering him.) It’s also hard not to suspect that Xander’s lie back in Becoming did a lot of damage - because of that, Buffy thinks even Willow hates Angel and wouldn’t understand her continued feelings for him. ‘Kick his ass’ made Buffy feel like literally no-one is on her side.

Regardless of the reason, here we see the beginning of the split that will make Buffy feel increasingly isolated and unable to trust or rely on anyone as the series continues into the depression years, especially Season 6. But we also see the start of a pattern that will become a central flaw in Season 7 - her inability to express empathy or care for anyone who she sees as a reflection of herself.

I’m actually not talking about Faith here - that’s related, but it’s also a whole can of lesbian worms I don’t want to get into right now. But aside from Faith, in the first few episodes of Season 3 there are two girls who mirror Buffy, specifically in her relationship with Angel. In Anne, we have Lily/Anne, who’s wants to spend the rest of her life with her older boyfriend, who has a criminal past and seems a little crappy but also genuinely loves her and is trying to be good to her, and who ends up being sent to hell. Then in Beauty and the Beasts, we see Abby, who started dating a guy who seemed nice at first, but who turned out to be an abusive monster. Both are very obvious parallels to Buffy in her relationship with Angel (in soul-having and soulless forms), and serve as ways for her reflect on that relationship.

But what I want to focus on is the fact that, while Buffy does try to help both girls, she’s also unusually harsh and unempathetic towards them. Her attitude is ‘This is how things are, and you need to set aside your emotions and just deal with it immediately and without emotional support’; it reflects how she treats herself, but it’s also a pattern in how she treats people whose challenges reflect hers. Which will come to a head in how she treats the Potential slayers in season 7, and the way she alienates everyone around her in part through her treatment of them (and therefore also her treatment of herself).

It’s just interesting to see these issues that will dominate the last couple of seasons come across so strongly in this early part of Season 3.

hate how much the lyrics to this fit Faith

she'd hate this. what the fuck