Full circle...Buffy.
I've been rewatching Buffy. From the beginning and it's just as good as it was in 2000 when my old friend whose name I cannot even remember (god save me!) turned me onto it. "Oh," she said, "this part of Witchblade reminds me of Buffy and Angel." And this was on chat because she lived in New York (she was actually the person who informed me that the Trade Centers had been hit, it having been my birthday and me having slept in and not having heard the news on the radio), Niagara to be exact. Isn't it strange that I can remember where she's from but not her name? Ah well. The mists of time and all that. So I said, "Buffy and Angel? What's that?" And she said, "Oh it's this cool show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And the main characters are a vampire and the girl who's supposed to kill him and they love each other." And I said, "Hmmm. I might have to check that out." The conversation that changed my life. I was already aware of fandom because of WItchblade...the TNT forum boards are no longer there but they linger in my memory a bit. That was where I began to beta read and become aware of how far-reaching and amazing fandom could be. And how absorbing and rich and beautiful and deep and interesting. I digress.
So it just so happened that FX was beginning to air back to back episodes of Buffy from season 1 and so I tuned in. And turned on and dropped out. I scheduled my entire life around those 2 hours every day. It was a revelation. I had never fallen so deep down a rabbit hole. I had no idea rabbit holes like this existed. The writing, the performances, the magic, the romance, the fun, I just loved every second. And then I was caught up and watching the current seasons and falling even more into the whole thing. And my online life was growing too. I found this amazing site called All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS which is no longer being updated but was then this vibrant, exciting community of people who THOUGHT about Buffy and Angel using way more thinky thoughts than I ever had but it was so great to be around them! And I made friends...good friends who are still in my real life to this day. Tina and Kelly and Jessa. Oh my dears. You are such stalwart chums. And the fic. Oh the fic. Life changing amazing gorgeous sexy sexy sexy. I just loved it to pieces. And the beta-reading. Goodness. I think if you google me you'll see a few fics with my touch. It was so fun and felt like I was contributing to this nutty wonderfulness that was going on. It was so alive!
And then it ended. The show ended and I eventually lapsed--my fever for online life waned and I dropped my old lj name and friends and life shifted and changed and moved on. I know that part of that had to do with my mother's death. What a segue! But when she died, I had the hardest time figuring out how to write about it and eventually the days, the weeks, the months passed and I couldn't ever figure it out. So I disappeared. I kept thinking I'd write a huge post about how her death happened and what was going on with me but I couldn't and didn't and finally years later, I re-surfaced as la_tante because there's something so comforting about livejournal and fandom and Stargate happened to me and I needed fic....ha!
And now I'm revisiting Buffy. It was bound to happen. It made me wander through some of my old haunts and look at my old flist and see some old names and feel oh I don't know, what do you feel when you run into an old friend who you no longer know? Sort of guilty and hurt and guilty for feeling hurt? I guess it's the construct of online life. Oddly, deeply intimate and completely impersonal at the same time? Able to drop in and out of relationship at single bound? And the funny thing is that it makes me want to reconnect not so much with the people who I was connected to back then but with my journal-posting self. With the person who needed to share the fannish experience and the sweetness and silliness that is part of being part of the online life. With the people who've been part of this length of the journey...the Stargate folks, the LO:SVU folks, the HIMYM folks, oh just all of you....but I also get how this works. I'm a dabbler and that makes me not safe for work as it were. I'm not a sure thing. So I get it. But I'll be around and I'll poke my head in as is my wont. And I'll just be over here--not in the corner because that's just where no one puts baby! But you get the picture. And I'll be loving Buffy and fandom and all the parts of my history and life here in the intarwebs.
And in real life news..if anyone's paying attention or still reading this ridiculously long post that is, my family is moving back from Orcas Island which makes me happier than just about anything I can think of! They just made an offer on a house here in town so they'll be back in May! Enzo turns five this Friday which knocks me right off my feet since part of the reason I reestablished this journal was to chronicle his life with me as his aunt and then I nearly promptly stopped tracking him and began re-fanning myself! Ha! But he is a grown little guy these days and Luca is nearing 3 which blows my mind as well. The two of them still make the sunshine as far as I can tell. Enzo will be entering kindergarten in September, but at the moment all I can think of is this little beautiful angel with enormous brown eyes drooping shut and falling asleep in my arms as I rocked him and scatted "I've been working on the railroad" into his pretty ear.
Well Stella's snoring a bit...silly kitty for snoring. And it's far later than I thought it would be when I started writing this. So I shall say good night sweet peeps til it be morrow.
So it just so happened that FX was beginning to air back to back episodes of Buffy from season 1 and so I tuned in. And turned on and dropped out. I scheduled my entire life around those 2 hours every day. It was a revelation. I had never fallen so deep down a rabbit hole. I had no idea rabbit holes like this existed. The writing, the performances, the magic, the romance, the fun, I just loved every second. And then I was caught up and watching the current seasons and falling even more into the whole thing. And my online life was growing too. I found this amazing site called All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS which is no longer being updated but was then this vibrant, exciting community of people who THOUGHT about Buffy and Angel using way more thinky thoughts than I ever had but it was so great to be around them! And I made friends...good friends who are still in my real life to this day. Tina and Kelly and Jessa. Oh my dears. You are such stalwart chums. And the fic. Oh the fic. Life changing amazing gorgeous sexy sexy sexy. I just loved it to pieces. And the beta-reading. Goodness. I think if you google me you'll see a few fics with my touch. It was so fun and felt like I was contributing to this nutty wonderfulness that was going on. It was so alive!
And then it ended. The show ended and I eventually lapsed--my fever for online life waned and I dropped my old lj name and friends and life shifted and changed and moved on. I know that part of that had to do with my mother's death. What a segue! But when she died, I had the hardest time figuring out how to write about it and eventually the days, the weeks, the months passed and I couldn't ever figure it out. So I disappeared. I kept thinking I'd write a huge post about how her death happened and what was going on with me but I couldn't and didn't and finally years later, I re-surfaced as la_tante because there's something so comforting about livejournal and fandom and Stargate happened to me and I needed fic....ha!
And now I'm revisiting Buffy. It was bound to happen. It made me wander through some of my old haunts and look at my old flist and see some old names and feel oh I don't know, what do you feel when you run into an old friend who you no longer know? Sort of guilty and hurt and guilty for feeling hurt? I guess it's the construct of online life. Oddly, deeply intimate and completely impersonal at the same time? Able to drop in and out of relationship at single bound? And the funny thing is that it makes me want to reconnect not so much with the people who I was connected to back then but with my journal-posting self. With the person who needed to share the fannish experience and the sweetness and silliness that is part of being part of the online life. With the people who've been part of this length of the journey...the Stargate folks, the LO:SVU folks, the HIMYM folks, oh just all of you....but I also get how this works. I'm a dabbler and that makes me not safe for work as it were. I'm not a sure thing. So I get it. But I'll be around and I'll poke my head in as is my wont. And I'll just be over here--not in the corner because that's just where no one puts baby! But you get the picture. And I'll be loving Buffy and fandom and all the parts of my history and life here in the intarwebs.
And in real life news..if anyone's paying attention or still reading this ridiculously long post that is, my family is moving back from Orcas Island which makes me happier than just about anything I can think of! They just made an offer on a house here in town so they'll be back in May! Enzo turns five this Friday which knocks me right off my feet since part of the reason I reestablished this journal was to chronicle his life with me as his aunt and then I nearly promptly stopped tracking him and began re-fanning myself! Ha! But he is a grown little guy these days and Luca is nearing 3 which blows my mind as well. The two of them still make the sunshine as far as I can tell. Enzo will be entering kindergarten in September, but at the moment all I can think of is this little beautiful angel with enormous brown eyes drooping shut and falling asleep in my arms as I rocked him and scatted "I've been working on the railroad" into his pretty ear.
Well Stella's snoring a bit...silly kitty for snoring. And it's far later than I thought it would be when I started writing this. So I shall say good night sweet peeps til it be morrow.