My Buffy retrospective

[aadler]

 
So, my personal contribution to “Ten Years of Buffy and How It Affected Me”. A bit late, but — as is frequently the case these days — my posting access is on an opportunity basis.

Unlike many of the people whose retrospectives I’ve seen, I was there in Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning. I watched the movie, and found it occasionally fun but vaguely disappointing in the aggregate; when I saw ads for the coming television series, I thought, Hmm, that might be interesting, depending on how it’s handled.

My wife had filed for divorce the year before, and I was seeing our children only when my personal schedule made it possible; with full-time college classes and two jobs, that wasn’t as often as I would have liked, nor for as long. When the two-hour series premiere of Buffy was telecast, I videotaped it to give me something to share with my kids the next time I had visitation.

I wasn’t vastly impressed with the new show, but it was entertaining and showed possibilities. My kids were slightly more enthusiastic, but only slightly. Still, it was enough. I continued taping the episodes, and we continued watching them together.

It was two years later — halfway through Season 3 — that I accidentally, in a random Google search, discovered something called ‘fanfic’. It wasn’t until I began investigating the depth and extent of the fans’ involvement with the show that I realized just how much of a fan I had myself become. And it was at this point that my own deepest involvement with the Buffy phenomenon truly began.

I wrote my first Buffyfic in May 1999. I kept taping the show and watching it with my kids, and they became the first (and remain the most appreciative) audience for my stories. I posted on archives, joined mailing lists, downloaded episode transcripts, bought all the seasons on DVD. I attended the first WriterCon with my daughter (sroni2004), and the second with my son. I made some really good friends online, lost a few, made some more. And I continued writing; I’m currently international.

What’s the breakdown so far? Well, not counting drabbles:

  – 14 stories completed in the U.S.
  – 7 in Afghanistan
  – 6 in Iraq
  – 2 in Kuwait
  – 1 in Germany
  – 1 in Kyrgyzstan

How did a single television show (well, two, because I consider Buffy and Angel to be parts of a single consolidated reality) come to loom so large in my life? I won’t break any new ground with my answers.

The first season was successful, showing originality, humor, striking characterization, and the introduction of a promising mythos. But, though the essential foundations were laid then, the show as we came to know it didn’t really begin until Season 2. Almost everything that made Buffy a standout either originated or first came together then.

It’s hard even to remember what TV was like back in 1997! So many things have changed since Buffy’s advent (and in many cases because of it) that television itself is different now. Even the West Wing, which for a long time was the only thing that could seriously be called better than Buffy, didn’t begin until two and a half years later. Buffy broke so much new ground that it blurs my own memory of what quality was (or wasn’t) there before it.

What it amounted to, ultimately, was that I came to love the characters and care about their lives. To get a feel for their stories. To begin sensing other stories about them that wanted to be told.

My total word output in Buffyfic is now the equivalent of six short novels (or one really long one). I still have more stories to tell, but I’ve begun to think seriously of attempting original fiction. I got burned out on that many, many years ago, but the long-term immersion in fanfic has shifted and softened my attitude. I think it could happen now.

If the only thing I had gotten from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was shared pleasure with my son and daughter, along with ten years of personal entertainment and enjoyment, it would have been more than worth it. But it appears that I may derive yet greater benefit.

It was just a show. It was just a show. But damn, it made an impact.