Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a few Buffy season 6 cast promotional photographs

I realized that in my haste to find more than one photo from season 5′s group shot, the first of the season 5 photos I did was from season 6.   That and I’m almost positive that some of the actors were photoshopped in for some reason, which I’d thought.  Oh well.  The color analysis is still legitimate. This difficulty likely arose because it is damn near impossible to find group shots from seasons 5-7, which is odd.  Instead, I’m going to look at individuals (and now that I’m doing that, I’m going to have to go back and look at the differences with individual shots from the earlier seasons if there are any).

Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): For one, I am fascinated by how ghostly-pale she appropriately looks in this photo.  Not all of the pictures from this set look quite this pale, and one of them is even strangely of her grinning, but there you go.  Here, the color focus is dark red, “vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.”  Vigor, which she has to regain after being dead, willpower, which she has a hell of a lot of to get over being brought back from the dead, rage and anger, which she sure has because she was brought back from the dead, leadership and courage, which she has always, longing, which she has because she was in heaven before she was brought back from the dead, malice and wrath, which she deals with after being brought back from the dead.

Willow (Alyson Hannigan): No, I’ve never, ever been able to figure out why she is wearing a midriff top in this photograph.  The “fire and blood… energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love” of red all go quite well with Willow, but the top cinching it all together… less so.  Anyway, though, season six is Willow’s snapping point, where blood and danger are very much found in her problem with the magicks and all of the violent badness that come of it, where power and determination set her on this path, where passion, desire, and love are the reasons she uses to justify some of her bad choices.

Xander (Nicholas Brendon): Xander’s wearing blue.  Some things never change.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a couple of Buffy season 5 cast promotional photographs

Spike (James Marsters): Black.  Duh.  Obviously.
Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg): A nice quantity of black as well, for the mystery of her existence and situation, for the death that her existence is purported to and does bring, for the evil that surrounds her circumstance.  Denim because it’s easy (I don’t usually count denim when analyzing colors, honestly).  And just a tiny bit of “normal”-girly pink, because normal is something that Dawnie very much wants to be.
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): Black.  Again, duh, obvious.  Not because she’s gonna wear it always, but because, well, this is the season where death is her gift and whatnot.
Tara (Amber Benson): Combo breaker?  I honestly don’t know why Tara is wearing a black top with a wolf face on it, but she is.
Willow (Alyson Hannigan): I’m 90% sure that’s dark brown patterned with white/ivory.  Stability for brown, since this is before she goes all down the dark path for the most part, I assume.  (Also, I don’t know how but I had never noticed the fish tattoo on her just-above-the-ankle area and my goodness, now my heart is actually aching a little.)
Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): A suit.  A suit that is dark blue.  And seriously, am I the only one thinking that he looks very Photoshopped?
Anya (Emma Caulfield): Red!  I feel like someone’s always going to be wearing red in these pictures.  Anya gets red for determination and also passion, I think.
Xander (Nicholas Brendon): And back to “look I’m a boy!” blue.

Willow: Wow, darling!  What colors aren’t you wearing right now?  Dark red (willpower, courage, wrath) and dark-ish blue (expertise, stability) are the main ones, though.
Giles: Oh, buddy, what is your face doing?  I can’t even focus on the glimpses of generically-colored suit.
Buffy: Half-and-half black and white.  Evil/good experience/innocence negative/positive wow she is in emotional turmoil.
Tara: This is more like it.  “Health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness” for light blue is in many ways dictionary Tara.
Dawn: A richer blue for Dawn, possibly for things like trust and faith.
Xander: Dark blue/black for the usual reasons.  Xander is so very predictable in that way.
Anya: Gold-orange, which is very straightforward, really.  Orange for energy, bits of gold for wealth and whatnot.
Spike: What is that sweater.  Brown for manliness and such under black for mystery and death and he too is making a funny face.
Riley: Simple, easy, brown/black/gray.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a couple of Buffy season 4 cast promotional photographs

Oz (Seth Green): Dull purple and gray.  Oz has always been a mysterious guy, so it’s no wonder that he’s wearing mystery purple; if light purple is romance and nostalgia and dark purple is gloom and frustration, I assume gray-purple is somewhere between those two things, which is appropriate to Oz’s season 4 arc, yes.
Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): The first time a promo shot hasn’t had him in a snappy suit.  If white is innocence and safety and black is formality and power, gray must be somewhere in between those two things.  Which suits Giles, probably; he’s innocent not in the traditional context but season 4 is also his unofficial “what is my life direction” season, so the blend of things is appropriately ambivalent.
Xander (Nicholas Brendon): Finally, promo!Xander in a color that isn’t blue or orange!  Not that red isn’t right next to orange on the color wheel, but still.  Xander is also having a “what is my life direction” season, where things like willpower, leadership, and courage are things he wants to achieve, so his dark red is more of an aspirational color than anything.
Riley (Marc Blucas): Also gray.  Bluish-gray, but gray.  I suppose the obvious thing here would be to point out that gray often signifies ambivalence, and that is Riley’s moral state to an extent.
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): Strength and mystery black all the way.  Very straightforward.
Spike (James Marsters): Also black, though more with the death and evil (attempted) significance.
Willow (Alyson Hannigan): Actually a similar color scheme to Xander’s, but college is more of a flourishy time for Wills.  She’s coming into her own with the magicks a bit, she’s comfy in the academic environment.  And willpower, well, need I remind you of “Something Borrowed”?

Giles: Oh, and the reliable brown suit jacket is back.  Over the same gray sweater, but there’s no particular new message here.
Riley: Look who’s repping the manly blue now!  Riley, for whom masculinity is a key personality component.
Xander: And Xander has returned to the orange as well, cutting a larger amount of dependable tan.
Buffy: Black and dark blue.  Is it just easy to put the heroine in black because it’s straightforward?
Spike: Considering that Spike doesn’t wear really colors but black and red until season seven (unless he’s dressing up, as with the Hawaiian shirt incident) it’s not really a surprise that he’s wearing black and red.  For the usual vampire reasons.
Willow: A brighter red this time, which is still for power, and a brighter, lighter blue, which is always going to be intellect with her.
Oz: Growing, healing green, because that’s what Oz needs to do this season.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a couple of Buffy season 3 cast promotional photographs

Xander (Nicholas Brendon): The trend of keeping Xander in blue continues.  Oh, Xander.
Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): A reliable, official-seeming gray suit.
Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter): That is quite orange!  Here, that possibly means “determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.”  With some dark blue, possibly for integrity.
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): Well, that’s a romantic and nostalgic light purple if ever there was.  Interesting.  (This is also the outfit in some of the Buffy/Angel promo photos, and it makes sense given that context.)
Angel (David Boreanaz): For some reason, also reliable gray?  Despite the fact that he’s almost always wearing black in the show.
Willow (Alyson Hannigan): Her color scheme is the reverse of Cordy’s, though her dark blue is on top for emphasis; hers likely represents knowledge. Her pants are more red than orange, for danger, strength, and emotional intensity.
Oz (Seth Green): Healing, safe green, for some reason.

Angel: And now we’re back to the dark, mysterious all black all the time Angel we know so well.  It’s something of a comfort, really.
Giles: And Giles is never going to change.  All of the gray and brown suits all of the time.
Oz: “Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red,” says Color Wheel Pro, and that sounds like a very accurate description of Oz.  Oz is a very stable dude, and though his “energy” is not in the traditional hyperactive sense, it is nonetheless vital.  (It could also be the energy of wolf-time Oz.)Willow: Blue for knowledge again, lightened for understanding, and brown for potential extra stability.
Buffy: Pure romantic pink, soft and feminine.  Using pinks and purples on Buffy is a contrast to what the viewers know about her, of course, since while Buffy is very “girly” in many ways, she also kicks ass in ways that silly people don’t associate with femininity.  In this way, it’s showing the multifacetedness of her.
Xander: Enthusiastic, fascinated orange feels much more like Xander’s true personality, though there is still plenty of blue to contribute to the image he wants to present.
Cordelia: Light blue, in its softness-but-not-weakness, is much more Cordelia, too.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a few Drusilla-specific Buffy promo photographs

I love Drusilla (Juliet Landau) a lot, and I’m sure I don’t talk about her enough.  And the sets of promo photographs from season two of Dru and Spike (James Marsters) are possibly my favorite sets of promotional photographs ever.  I’m not even sure why this is, exactly; they’re not particularly out of the ordinary, as far as promotional photographs go.  I think it might in part be that I get very nostalgic about back when Dru and Spike were a thing, because they were so wonderfully malicious and weird, and I think it is also that while lots of promotional photographs have the cast assumedly in-character and posing in standstill, these sets are so on, so active.

Anyway, I also think it’s fascinating that Drusilla’s photographs (and indeed her entire season two wardrobe) fall into three distinct color palettes, each of which represents a separate part of the puzzle that is her.  There is the white dress; “white is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection,” and therefore this reflects the Drusilla that was.  The whole story of Dru is, after all, that she was so innocent and good that Angel (and Darla) just had to ruin her, and in presenting so as to suggest that kind of innocence and goodness that she no longer has, she misleads observers.  Opponents do not take her so seriously at first, because what danger is a crazy child and really that’s what she is.  There is also a part of Dru that does, to whatever extent, remain that crazy child, that retains innocence, though it is corrupted.

Then you have the shades of red.  Red (and black) are the colors that most often get associated with vampires in general, regardless of mythology or canon or personality; this is pretty obvious.  Black for darkness, red for blood.  Variants of this outfit probably get the most overall screen time, and it’s decidedly the most eclectic: top like a corset, long skirt, fur-trimmed beaded jacket, very appropriate-to-the-90s shoes.  It’s capital-r Romantic but not nearly so literally vintage as the white dress.  Red is also “emotionally intense,” which — yes, obviously, of course, the majority of crazy fictional characters (and “crazy” ones, but there’s no “” necessary for Dru, as she is 100% insane) have that particular thing in common.  Red is danger — of course, she’s a vampire — and red is strength — again, vampire — and red is “passion, desire and love” — well, yes, I’ve discussed vampire sexuality before, but Dru is one of the Buffyverse’s more overtly sexual vamps to be sure, and what with the “we can love quite well, if not wisely” business, she’s one of the vampires who arguably was in a kind of love with another vampire.  Dark red additionally has “longing, malice and wrath,” the first of which foreshadows the inevitable fate of her relationship with Spike and matches the fate of the Whirlwind as a whole, the latter two of which are fairly inherent, though hers is less of a directed malice and more a malice-for-fun’s-sake.

And finally, you have Drusilla in black.  Black for darkness (she is a vampire, she is of the night), black for mystery (who in the heck knows what she’s talking about half the time?  Also, she is a vampire), black for evil (again, vampire, and one with a reputation at that).  There is something to putting vampires in black old-fashioned outfits, highlighting a certain level of inherent mourning that comes with being the undead, but it is especially potent with Drusilla, who either wants to mourn or to kill, maybe to kill and then mourn by dancing in the ashes.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a few Buffy season 2 cast promotional photographs

First, I would like to point out that this photograph is shot so as so seem mostly blue naturally, likely for power and seriousness.

Angel (David Boreanaz): Dude is wearing black.  Spoiler, you probably won’t find a promo picture of him where he isn’t wearing mostly black, which represents “power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery.”  Check, sometimes check, sometimes check, check, check this season, check.
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): Blue pants because seriousness again, white to contrast Angel’s black.  White which is “light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity.”  Kind of check, check, check-but-not to the last three.
Willow (Alyson Hannigan): All you see here is green.  Growth and healing are probably the green buzzwords this season, both in relation to her magicks: growth because, oh look I can magick, healing because, hey even though I don’t know it surprise look Angel’s soul!
Xander (Nicholas Brendon): Mostly blue, probably for loyalty and also masculinity.
Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter): More whites and grays, innocence also.

Xander: More blue.  Buddy really likes to remind us he’s a guy, I suppose.
Willow: Dark blue, probably for knowledge and power.  Again because of magicks, probably, since she is knowledge girl but also she is getting knowledge of magicks, and she is a novice but she is more powerful than she knows.  This knowledge/power is contrasted to her almost sheepish facial expression, for example.
Buffy: Appears to be wearing the same outfit as in the above.
Cordelia: Also is wearing the same outfit, though the lighting for this picture reveals its actual color scheme, mostly yellows (dingy ones such as this for “caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy,” which is debatably applicable this season, but there is also an implied normalcy.)

Willow: Green!  Also black, but most noticeably green.  Definitely back to the growth and healing.
Oz (Seth Green): Black and white, and color theory be damned, it’s just for being snappy.
Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): Brown for stability and masculinity like last week, blue for knowledge.  Brown and blue is really the color way of saying “look, I know things that are important!”
Cordelia: Shades of red this time, which on her are visibility, power, desire, strength, determination, and most of the other positive connotations.
Xander: 4/5 of these pictures have had Xander in blue so far.  He wears blue inseries, of course, but not this overwhelmingly often.
Buffy: Her blue, however, is daintier, girlier; it almost looks periwinkle.  With it and white, this is an “underestimate me at your peril” outfit.
Angel: Black, black, a dark red shirt underneath I think (and a giant, humorous belt buckle, but that’s neither here nor there).  Dark red is, in his case, likely malice and wrath.
Spike (James Marsters): Also black.  These guys have the same basic color scheme.
Drusilla (Juliet Landau): Black for evil, red for blood, after all they are vampires.  Dru’s red also has a more romantic feel to it, one of emotional intensity and extreme passion.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: color theory as it applies to a couple of Buffy season 1 cast promotional photographs

Because I am fascinated with the idea of seeing how (if) color presentation changes over the seasons.

Willow (Alyson Hannigan): Willow has a gift for wearing every color at once, she really does.  This is may be because Willow is pretty defined by her cravings for self-definition (I mean, everyone is, and Willow knows a lot of things about herself, but she still wants to be something else/more a lot of the time I think).  From the top down: blue for “consciousness and intellect,” green probably for ambition, brown for stability, and just a bit of blink-and-you-miss-it red for her latent/undiscovered power and temper.
Xander (Nicholas Brendon): Xander is less of a colorsmash (since I figure Willow is kind of the wardrobe equivalent of a keysmash sometimes).  He’s orange for encouragement and stimulation, yellow for energy and loyalty.
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar): Aside from her brown-for-stability boots, here she is blue all the way.  Light blue is usually health and softness, which is less applicable, but “in heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity,” which is interesting.  She is not a spiritual person per se, but she is very much defined by her powers-given destiny and is devoted to it, though nontraditionally.
Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): This man is the definition of brown for stability, here with some red for leadership and courage.
Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter): An interesting palette of yellows, anywhere from prestige to joy to jealousy.

Xander: Here the blue is for loyalty and also to an extent faith (in Buffy and her cause).  Also perhaps masculinity.
Giles: In addition to being stability, brown is masculinity as well, though of a less in-your-face kind.
Buffy: The same boots, but here she is sporting pure gold.  Illumination, prestige, high quality – all that whatnot.  She is not wealthy and she is not bookish-wise, but she is world-wise and also she is noble as they come.
Cordelia: She’s smarter than she wants you to believe, which is partially reflected here; the light blue is also soft i.e. feminine, and Cordy is fairly girly in ways.
Willow: Yellow for intellect and to an extent happiness, orange for endurance, and again the hints of red.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: life’s a show and we all play a part [a sartorial analysis of Once More, With Feeling]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that does not inherently invite sartorial analysis.  It invites sartorial giggles, yes (“oh, look at that wacky 90s outfit!”) and the characters do have fairly distinct styles and memorable outfits, but honestly, some of the outfits are totally out of left field.  (See: mostly everything that Willow wears, bless her heart.)  The interesting thing about “Once More, With Feeling” is that since it’s the ~musical episode~ you have often more deliberate and exaggerated costuming, because, well, they’re all playing parts.  The parts are themselves, of course, but themselves in extremis.  Mostly.

This isn’t really true of Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the traditional sense.  Her wardrobe is normal, perhaps hyperconsciously so.  Her source of tension is just wanting to feel alive, wanting to feel normal, and so she is dressed normally.  The blue top and red top have semi-interesting necklines, at least, but the white tops are the plainest that can be.  And pairing a colorful top with a leather jacket (short or long as the case may be) is pretty much standard Buffy.  Her normalcy is almost a parody of itself.

But then you have Anya (Emma Caulfield).  The first outfit I include two pictures of, because it is just that absurd.  And as far as the characters go, Anya is the one who’s probably more likely to wear something weird in that way, but a satin midriff top with a giant sequin butterfly?  That’s extreme.  That is “Anya is about to sing possibly the most ridiculous song in this entire episode, so let’s give her the most ridiculous top we can think of.”  But from her “retro pastiche” “book number” onward, she’s dolled up, well, rather retro.  Despite the fact that you don’t see Anya (or any character) wearing lingerie like hers during the entire rest of the series, it’s very reminiscent of 60s movie musicals, and while her later dress is plainer, her hair stays vintageesque the entire time.

Xander (Nicholas Brendon) gets matching silk jammies, the likes of which he’s never seen in again, and in keeping with the 60s musical theme, they’re even appropriately colored (red for girls with Anya’s, blue for boys with Xander’s).  They don’t really seem very Xander, though.  Anya’s lingerie-jammies at least seem like something she might wear in “real life,” maybe, but Xander’s are definitely costuming.  Later he’s back to something that’s a little more him, though, because he’s one of those Whedonverse men who wears ridiculous button-up shirts.  (There are several of them.)

Basically every positive meaning of the color yellow (joy, happiness, intellect, energy, warming, cheerfulness, freshness, thank you Color Wheel Pro) is applicable to Tara (Amber Benson).  She is often the kind of character who gets dressed in sweaters or tops and long skirts, so structurally her outfits (particularly the second one) are not out of character in the slightest.  The corset, though?  Well, it’s part of that costuming.  “Under Your Spell” is the closest that this episode gets to a love song, and the corseted outfit is fairly ~romantic~.  Tara is also the most olde-timey magicky of the bunch, rather spiritual and feminine, so it makes sense that here, where the dial is turned up on everyone, for her to be wearing the most standardly costumeyRenaissancey (and memorable) costume.  (With extra notes of aqua for “emotional healing and protection.”)

And then you have my dear Willow (Alyson Hannigan).  She’s got a bit of the mystic magic Wiccan thing going in the pinky-purple tree dress, not as traditionally so as Tara, but still definitely not something she’d be wearing in a different episode.  Then by the end, she’s good old “what the heck are you wearing, baby” Willow.  Giant purple duster sweater with… furry?… collar, purple skirt, purple texture-patterned top.  And here, I’ll bring out those analyses of light and dark purple again: “Light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings.  Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings. It can cause frustration.”  Romantic and nostalgic, because though she’s going about it in way the wrong way as per addiction, romance and nostalgia is what she’s going for in the beginning.  And, well, Willow doesn’t let go of her worry face for the entire time she’s wearing the second outfit.

Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) is pretty standard, too.  He doesn’t wear suits so much by this point, but there’s nothing unusual about Giles in a suit.  And there’s really nothing unusual about Giles in a sweater.  Giles is an emotional constant, and his wardrobe reflects this.

(Also, the sweater that Dawn [Michelle Trachtenberg] wears in the beginning number is a similar shade of blue.)  Dawn’s outfits are designed for purpose: the sleeveless turtleneck and black capris are functional for dancing, the strange prom dress thing is functional for being… shown off and discussed as a demon child bride?  Good old pale blue with its straightforward innocence.

And then there’s Spike (James Marsters), whose outfit doesn’t change.  And really has not changed up to this point and will not change often at all.

–your fangirl heroine.

be nicer to yourself, you

Fictional Friday :: 6 ruling bodies that have made me wary of fictional ruling bodies as a whole

I am not, as I have said before, an inherently political person.  I have opinions, but there are only certain debates I feel comfortable getting into.  But I have learned, maybe this is just the nature of the fiction I partake of, to be exceptionally suspicious of the ruling bodies therein, especially the ones who say that they are doing things for the good of their citizens.  They might think they are, even, but I tend toward skepticism nonetheless, because it almost never ends well.

6. The s2-current and recent past political crowd of King’s Landing (Game of Thrones and also the books)
Because I don’t think anyone’s pretending that Robert (Mark Addy) was exactly aces as a king, and Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) is so very much not a good king.  And while the others are interesting, and some of them like Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) actually know what they’re doing sort of, and some of them like Cersei (Lena Headey) are cool in an antagonist way, and some of them like Ned (Sean Bean) had good intentions, it’s a mess.  Political crowd: actual rulers, those on the council, others.  Also, I am inherently suspicious of any group of thinkers that Baelish (Aidan Gillen) is a part of, because he is interesting and maybe reading more will change my opinion, but right now he just makes me uncomfortable.

5. The Watcher’s Council (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
There’s a reason, after all, that Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) disowned them.  I like to imagine a nicer world where the Council could be this cool thing where people who aren’t Slayers but are dedicated to fighting supernatural evil an really like books and whatnot could band together to help Slayers do their thing, but that isn’t the way of it in canon.  The Council is controlling and generally not with the times, these or any other; they’re more concerned with the superficial acceptability of circumstances than the reality of what the Slayers do, and that’s not helpful.

4. The Authority (True Blood)
I think I’ve made this point plenty of times, no?  Even before season 5, when all we really knew of them was Nan Flanagan (Jessica Tuck) and a group of vampires sitting before a screen with their backs to us, the Authority seemed ominous.  The sitting before a screen thing is actually not unlike the SHIELD board in The Avengers (they are not on this list because I don’t know enough about them to discuss them beyond this mention, but I’m sure they very well could be did I know more) and tends to be a good visual representation of, again, those who are Not With The Times.  They’re detached from the reality of their constituents.  And as season 5 teaches, yep, the Authority is very much that.  Nora (Lucy Griffiths) says as much, and while she probably was being snarky because of her at-that-point secret Lilith thing, it was an apt observation.  Roman (Christopher Meloni) was so focused on an ideal that he wasn’t 100% dealing with what was actually being done, and then it all went to Lilith hell and they were all wonky because of that.  So, kind of a lose-lose.

3. Rossum (Dollhouse)
I should also clarify something: Rossum, like Angel‘s Wolfram and Hart, is a company.  Yes.  Rossum is on this list and Wolfram and Hart isn’t because (I still don’t know all of the ways that Wolfram and Hart is heinous yet and) Rossum canonically infiltrates the government, i.e. their world’s technical ruling body.  And then they start an apocalypse and preside over that.  Starting a full-blown apocalypse so you have a sad little hill (or, you know, whole world) to be the sad little king of is one of the lowest possible things you can do.  And that’s what it basically comes down to with them.

2. The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter)
The distrust of the Ministry is established pretty early overall, and it just gets worse and worse.  These guys are easily corruptible, they’re highly fallible, they’re highly shallow, and eventually, they get pretty malicious.  It’s a fairly convoluted issue, the Ministry (or rather the British Ministry; other countries have Ministries of Magic too, but they don’t get much discussed), so if you want, here’s the wiki page.  Half of the items on this list are Whedonverse, because there is an innate distrust of ruling groups in Whedonverse mythologies, but I think it’s interesting that overall, this distrust spans a reasonable range of fantasy/sci-fi subgenres.  Fake medieval times, technology issues, vampire issues (on both sides), magic issues, future governments.  Network TV, epic series novels, cable TV, novels for adults and novels that at least started as being for children.  It’s found in many places.

1. The Alliance (Firefly/Serenity)
These guys get to be number one because they hit every single reason that other items are on this list.  They’re an evil government, they meddle, they directly and adversely affect the lives of characters, they are the sole overarching antagonist of their canon, they have many sub-contracting evildoers involved, they don’t start an apocalypse per se but they are responsible for the creation of evil space zombies, they do start a war.  They are the essential questionable ruling body.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: on makers and progeny (or sires and children, or whichever combination you prefer)

Because I’ve discussed the individual sexual habits and proclivities of individual vampires before, many of whom were makers-sires/progeny-children, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the different kinds of maker-sire/progeny-childe relationships, but I wanted to properly list them out and analyze them.

Shockingly, this list is not going to be canon-sorted.  Since it’s about different kinds of things, I’m sorting it that way.  So.

Sexual relations from the start

• These are the makers (okay, from here out I’m just going with makers and progeny, since quantitatively there are going to be more on this list who are thusly called in canon) who are banging their progeny, period.  They sire (but see here I’ll use that term as a verb, because I like it) a vampire because they like them and want to be with them intimately.
• Sometimes these maker-progeny relationships end; this is often due to choices made by the progeny.  They want to live a different kind of life, so they ask to be released and basically dumped, or they do something to cause the maker to feel they have no choice but to set such a scenario into motion.
• Both pairs of consistently coupled makers and progeny who constitute Buffy and Angel‘s Whirlwind, Darla/Angelus and Drusilla/Spike, could be made to fall under this category.  (Angelus/Drusilla is a more complicated issue.)  Darla (Julie Benz) seduces Angelus (David Boreanaz) and turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time (though not exclusively, of course), their relationship is then terminated by Angelus and his acquisition of a soul.  Drusilla (Juliet Landau) is enchanted by Spike, who is then William (James Marsters), then she charms him and turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time (though not exclusively, of course).  Their relationship is terminated technically by Dru, but because she observes a change in Spike’s behavior.
• The best example I can pinpoint from True Blood is Lorena/Bill.  (While certain other couples, i.e. Russell/Talbot, technically fall into this category, many of the details are ones that are not given much airtime, so I’m just going to mention it and move on.)  Many of the details of Lorena’s (Mariana Klaveno) past are similarly fuzzy (though according to the True Blood wiki, there are several things in common with the Drusilla situation) but the details of her relationship with Bill (Stephen Moyer) are fairly straightforward.  He shows up at her cabin on his way home from the war, she appreciated his “strong moral character” (quoting from the wiki there, because I think it’s funny), she turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time.  In 1935, then, Bill asked to be released, being fed up with Lorena’s being, well, a prototypical murdering seducing vampire.
• Oh, and I guess there’s plenty of this in Twilight, because sex is okay as long as you’re in a committed relationship and maker-progeny situations seem to sometimes lead to committed relationships in Twilight.  Or committed relationships lead to maker-progeny situations.

The fuzzy gray area that involves sexual relations, but

• There are three types of these.
• Angelus/Drusilla, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because, well, there are sexual relations, there are a lot of sexual relations, but they are technically in relationships with their own other halves.  The Whirlwind is this big polyamorous mess of vampire sexin’, but it’s mostly that they like to share.  Also, Angelus/Drusilla is never a proper relationship, because the proper relationships that come from the sex in these other cases involve(d) some degree of officialness.  Angelus was with Darla, Drusilla was with Spike, and there was never really any time when the four of them were together and that wasn’t true.  And here the father and daughter thing is very intentionally creepy.
• Eric/Pam, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because yes, they partake of the sexual relations when Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) turns Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten).  They also partake of the sexual relations before she is turned.  But while they eventually stop having these relations, they don’t ever actually have a “break up” like the above couples.  They stop banging, but they stay together, and their relationship gradually shifts into one that the True Blood wiki says is “comparable to that of a father and a daughter,” though never entirely.  They stop banging, but they stay really, really close.
• Pam/Tara, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because the circumstances of their turning involve no sex whatsoever, but their attraction grows naturally.  Pam turns Tara (Rutina Wesley), but Tara makes the first direct move sexually.  There is an aspect of mother and daughter to their relationship, though it’s really only as much as you would see with a little girl “mothering” a doll, dressing her up and scolding her for purported misbehaviors.  Mostly they are just two women with a definite power dynamic that eventually enter into a relationship.

Pretty much familial

• I feel weird saying that the Master (Mark Metcalf) was properly fatherly toward Darla, but there’s really no other place to put them, because I’m pretty sure they never banged?  “Darla,” a nickname given her by him, means “dear one,” but that could just as likely be a dearness born of some sort of platonic familial affection.  She was his protégé, and that was pretty much that, I think?
• Also, Bill and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll).  This is the most overtly daddy-daughter relationship that really is between a maker and progeny, and honestly, the only times I’ve ever felt fond toward Bill was when he was playing good dad.  I’m positive I’ve mentioned that before.  I imagine that Bill’s reasons for not sexually relating to Jessica were several: for one, he remembered how unhappy he was in a romantic relationship with his maker.  For another, he was in a relationship with Sookie (Anna Paquin) at the time.  For another, Jessica was a teenage kid, after all, and Bill used to have scruples and whatnot.  But while he was a pretty awkward dad at first, and he obviously turned into a huge jerk in regards to the whole Lilith mess, there was a period in the middle where he was just an affectionate father, and she was happy to call him her dad, since in that in-between he was way less of a douche than her human father.
• I’m pretty sure this is mostly true of Godric/Eric and Godric/Nora?  In their conversations about Godric (Allan Hyde), Eric and Nora (Lucy Griffiths) tend to refer to him as “father,” and they do seem to (have) compete(d) for his affections like siblings do.  I don’t know if we’ll ever know how much maker-progeny sexin’ was going on in that situation (personally, I suspect there was some, but that it eventually faded out over time a la Eric/Pam, and while Eric/Pam’s eventual form was something almost father-daughter but also decidedly not, the vibe of Godric’s relationship to his progeny was much more strictly familial at the end).
• Oh, and I guess there’s some of this with Twilight and Carlisle the wonder vampire doctor dad.

Surrogates

• Angelus was somewhat of an extra maker for Spike; this is mentioned sometimes.
• Eric and Pam both stood as substitute makers for Jessica for that little while (and I understand why it wasn’t part of the show, but I kind of wish we’d have seen those shenanigans at least a little, just because I love the ridiculous cool older cousin/enthusiastic little cousin vibe that Pam and Jess have).
• Salome (Valentina Cervi) was basically an extra maker for Nora.  Because Godric may have taught her how to vampire, but Salome taught her how to do many other things, I’m sure.
• Oh, and this is true of Twilight and Carlisle the wonder vampire doctor dad too.

–your fangirl heroine.