#(and yes i know she technically was in the sixth episode but it doesn't count)

[coraniaid]

School Hard is, in retrospect, one of the pivotal episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  

In this episode, Buffy is trapped in Sunnydale High School, forced to confront one of the most significant villains the show has yet introduced; one of the most iconic and memorable of the show’s seven seasons.  Somebody who, the first time he speaks to Buffy this episode, casually threatens to kill her and walks away without so much as a scratch.  Somebody who we’re meant to see as an altogether different proposition than his Season 1 predecessors.  Somebody whose attempts to destroy Buffy this time around are only foiled thanks to unexpected support from her mother, leaving him free to try again and again for the rest of the season. 

A villain who, unlike Luke and the Annointed One and all the other Season 1 monsters of the week, actually seems to be having fun while he does his best to ruin Buffy’s life and inflict misery and torture on the population of Sunnydale. Somebody who relishes in inflicting pretty cruelty.  Somebody who was originally intended to be killed off after only a few appearances, but who – thanks in no small part to his performance in episodes like this one – will instead continue to appear on the show for years to come.  A character it is impossible to imagine Buffy the Vampire Slayer without.

I am, of course, talking about Principal Snyder.

(Also there are some new vampires in town this episode I guess but whatever.  This post isn’t about them.)

I didn’t talk about him much during my Season 1 rewatch, but I really enjoy Principal Snyder as an antagonist.  I think he might actually be one of my favorite minor characters.  He’s incredibly well realized from his first appearance in The Puppet Show: instantly this note perfect pastiche of a self-important petty little bully with just barely enough power to be really dangerous.  The show uses him as a contrast to the other adults in Buffy’s life (Giles, Joyce) to such good effect (especially at the beginning of Season 3).  And Armin Shimerman is fantastic in the role: you can see why the writers gave up on their initial idea of Sunnydale High having a whole string of different principals who got killed off every few episodes.

He’s such a well done comic character too: funny, but never slipping up and giving the impression of being in on the joke.  We’re only seven episodes in, and we’ve already gotten gems like “I can smell trouble – it’s like a sixth sense.” and  “What are you, ghouls?  There are no dead students here.  This week.”.  All delivered with this perfect growling sneer and no acknowledgement at all that what he’s saying is ridiculous.

He’s just fun, in a way that I really don’t think any of Buffy’s other non-supernatural antagonists are.  Yes, Buffy will continue to find the non-supernatural parts of her life hard after high school, but it’s all so impersonal after this.  Other than Maggie Walsh (who is really part of the supernatural world anyway, as head of the Initiative, so barely counts), none of the bad professors she has to deal with in college are recurring characters.  Neither is her bank manager, or her boss at the Doublemeat Palace, or Dawn’s security worker. (Okay, very technically her second manager at the DMP is recurring, but you know what I mean.) 

Of course, being a Slayer still causes Buffy problems in her day to day life, but for whatever reason – I don’t know if it was a deliberate choice or just a result of the later seasons becoming increasingly serialized and story-arc focused - the show becomes less and less concerned with showing us that everyday life.  (Is Parker the last recurring character of any importance who never finds out that Buffy is the Slayer?) And when Buffy goes back to work at the high school in Season 7, everything’s so tied up with her being the Slayer that we just don’t get the same juggling-two-lives thing anymore.

And ... well, I guess Buffy doesn't miss Snyder. I can hardly blame her. But I do.

#btvs #buffy rewatch 2023 #principal snyder #they should've made Lorraine Ross a proper recurring character is what I think I'm saying here #(and the fact you had to google that name is proof that they didn't)

[leixinyus]

Pansa Vosbein as Ink in Bad Buddy the Series (2021)

#milk pansa #bad buddy the series #thai drama #manydramagifs #tdramaedit #missing her #it's only been one episode without her but that's already one too many #(and yes i know she technically was in the sixth episode but it doesn't count) #also join me on my journey as i try to decide on what names i use for thai actors otl #i have yet to come to a final conclusion #but i'll probably continue to tag them with nickname + first name #but put their first and last name in the actual captions #but we'll see #p.s. that moment in the second gif is etched into my brain #and i couldn't be more honored