To-do list: Buffyverse Essays

Eventually, all of these will be redone and up on my site. But if you have the urge to wander through my thoughts on various things, I've just created this list to help myself keep it all straight. I was going to have it as a private entry, but eh, might as well go public. One list, behind a cut-tag, will hurt no one.

Many of the entries will be combined to form single essays, some will be separated into different pieces, etc. And there's a bunch of cross-linking as many entries cover more than one subject. Any of the essays may contain spoilers up to Origin -- at least one essay title does.
( comprehensive list of essays to be written, complete with links to what's already started )

(no subject)

I'm a mess of contradictions. We all are -- it's a result of living in the world we've created. We (western society, for the most part -- almost all agricultural or industrial societies) live in a culture that attempts to go against the rules of the world.

We're failing. More people, more pollution, more war, more hate, more fear. And we just keep on pumping more energy into the old machine, just keeping trying to keep the system going, make the system better.

As a genre, I dislike reality tv. I dislike what it says about people's priorities. I dislike fame for the sake of fame. Everyone is so desperate to be noticed, to matter, that they will go to any lengths to have people talk about them. It's not new -- we've had talk shows for years. Throwing your dirty laundry on stage so that someone else will see the stains, will see that you exist.

In general, the citizens of this particular country are miserable. So many people work jobs they hate for money that isn't worth it and they can't see a way out. People bury themselves in alcohol, drugs, pain, sex, in anything that takes them out of their lives for a few moments.

Self-medicating against depression and anger and lack of hope.

So many people are Angel. Trapped in a hell that they don't know how to get out of. Are Lindsey, trapped in routine and walls, getting their hearts ripped out every day. People who always come home dirty.

Joss Whedon speaks to the disenfranchised, to the unempowered. To the huddled masses yearning...

For something real. For happiness, for acceptance, for love, for equality, for choice.

Yearning to be free from fear and doubt.

The system only does that for a select few, and even then, it's a precarious freedom, if you care at all about status or money or security.

Sometimes, it seems like the only way to get ahead is to work the system.

But that only gets you further into the system. Further into accepting the world the way it is.

And heroes don't do that. And if Buffy taught me anything, it's that any of us can be heroes.