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actuallylorelaigilmore · 7 months

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2022 MOVIE OF THE WEEK #33

disenchanted. i......have been avoiding this review since literally months ago because just thinking about reviewing this movie makes me sad and tired. if you loved this movie, which i think some people must have because i’ve seen the occasional gifs from it on my dash, feel free to skip this. it’ll go behind a cut, because i suspect it’s gonna get long.

(spoiler alert: it got ridiculously long. how did i have five thousand words to say about this? and if anyone besides leander reads this i’ll be shocked but that’s fine cuz they were the one encouraging me to make it through this rant and if they hadn’t i definitely would have given up even trying a long time ago.)

and it is pretty much universally negative, because i could not have been more looking forward to this sequel featuring literally my favorite disney (noncanon but still mine) princess and it not only let me down (as sequels tbh do a lot so that’s not even surprising) but it sincerely broke my heart.

in a ‘wow i’m being really overdramatic about a disney movie’ sort of way, but it’ll make more sense after i explain it, i promise. you had to be there, i think, to care as much as i do, and only @actuallylukedanes was, so it was also pretty convenient that i ended up watching this with them when they were gonna watch it with their partner and invited me to join. cuz they felt the same way i did about the sequel, which is how i knew i was not overreacting.

it was also leander who advised me to start posting completed reviews of other 2022 movies since i was stuck on this one, even though i never posted them out of order before. (i ended up realizing in january that i totally forgot a movie from 2022, so it’s good i wasn’t as obsessed with perfect chronology anyway.)

the first warning sign i had with this movie was honestly its release. they had been talking about an enchanted sequel for so long that i had stopped hoping for one, and then when it was really happening they wouldn’t even put it in theaters!! i was so pissed off about that, because enchanted felt like a magical (pun intended) experience for me in 2007.

it came out exactly on my birthday, when i turned 23, and @actuallylukedanes and i saw it in the theater to celebrate. we lived in utah then, and were happy rather than homeless, and we paid for the movie using a card that had a ‘reward’ system like a lottery where they told you they would at some random time choose a single purchase you made, and reimburse you for it. out of everything we paid for with that card, it was the tickets to enchanted that they made free.

and i couldn’t have been more excited to see enchanted back then, because it was a real live musical, and those have always been rarer than i wish they were, and the cast was ridiculously great. long before amy adams was making bigger movies, she had played tara’s cousin on buffy and a memorable one-episode character on charmed, and i had just always loved her an unreasonable amount like i had been waiting for her to be a movie star. plus i had discovered wicked in college and dove deep into other idina menzel musicals as well as every one of her solo albums (and singles that weren’t sold anywhere, which i downloaded illegally because that is called devotion) and was just generally obsessed with her for years.

and then there was patrick dempsey, reliable dreamy star of grey’s anatomy (which i gave up on quickly but he was good in) and james marsden of the x-men trilogy i had watched a zillion times. (his character was not one i liked in that, but he was great as a comedic part of this.) i had grown up with susan sarandon and wasn’t used to her as a villain but she brought just the right level of Too Much, and her henchman was perfectly cast. they somehow managed to even make the child in the story not annoying, which can be really rare, especially when she has an actual role--but she’s great.

the mix of animation and live-action was really fun, and when giselle’s dress goes from cartoon to sparkly 3d it was so swoony. truly like a disney fantasy sort of moment, they brought so much to life. and they did so even where it shouldn’t have worked! the basic plot of ‘two couples aren’t meant to be so they switch partners amongst themselves and then it’s perfect’ is not one i like in other movies, but here i’m just like, yeah absolutely, dance with patrick dempsey in your pretty dress, and let idina menzel go live in a fairy tale.

but in addition to all of that, and the catchy, catchy music, what i really, truly loved about enchanted, and why it was one of my all time favorite movies to put on that i never got sick of (along with mamma mia and a few others, i really like musicals okay), is how much it turned out that i identified with giselle. how much she not only made sense to me, even as she was supposed to be this wide-eyed disney princess, but how she gave me language for things i was still figuring out, and i got so attached to that.

i was 23 years old. i had left home less than two years earlier, and i didn’t know i was autistic yet, let alone bipolar/anxious/adhd/disordered eating all knotted together. i hadn’t begun thinking about what it meant to be ‘developmentally disabled,’ and how unprepared that made me for adulthood, independence or being in a relationship. I had just leaped into all those things, and i wasn’t necessarily all that good at any of them.

but there was giselle, singing her way through a world she didn’t understand how to navigate either, and it was okay because there was somebody who loved her for her exact weird self and a child who needed her. (substitute cats for child and you see where i’m coming from.) she was relentlessly optimistic but also cursed by forces outside her control, and she was full of creativity.

my absolute favorite moment that giselle has in the whole movie, when it comes to why it was important to me, is when she experiences anger. at first she can’t even name it, and then there’s a kind of joy she finds in it, in having a new feeling...in having the FREEDOM to feel that difficult feeling, and not need things to be perfect all the time. until i saw that scene, i had never realized that my childhood had trained me to not be angry--before i was even conscious that had happened. and once i saw that scene, i started to wonder if maybe anger was something i was allowed to feel, after all.

i think if you’re not me, or you didn’t know me at 21 (a fragile adorable unstable bby desperate to be rescued from my life), it might be hard to understand that, how i didn’t just love giselle for being giselle, but loved her for being the most me a character played by amy adams could be.

up until i fell in love, and was loved in return (my only real wish thanks to moulin rouge), i collected tv and movie characters, made little lists of them, and they were always the ones i wanted to be like, ones i wanted to grow into. usually the snarky best friends, the deadpan wits, the ones who pined but never got the guy. (bby me didn’t think anything but ‘guy’ was an option.) i didn’t spend time claiming characters that were like me, that made me feel seen, until i was older. (i couldn’t, when i didn’t know who ‘me’ was.) so giselle felt like one of the first ones, with her autistic literalism and trust in humanity and her joy in everything.

then flash forward fifteen years and they’re continuing the story. even more amazingly, they’ve brought back the whole central cast (minus the child actor, who i assumed they replaced because New Morgan sings and dances, but i didn’t look it up or anything). idina is much more famous now thanks to her frozen work and of course amy adams is amy freaking adams now, nominated but never oscared, but they both came back. the direct-to-streaming release worried me, but i saw a trailer and the movie looked way better than i kind of expected, so i was excited after all. and as mentioned above, i settled in to watch it with my family.

^^^^and that is where this review left off, almost a year ago--because it was still so hard for me to wrap my brain and my heart around writing it. but at this point i’ve reviewed all the other movies i watched in 2022, AND i’ve watched almost 20 movies this year and reviewed most of them, and those reviews are just sitting in my drafts waiting for me to post them once i finish this. so here goes:

this movie was bad. obviously that’s a personal opinion or value judgement or whatever, but like...it was really, really bad. it bore no resemblance to the original and painfully reminded me how disney’s moviemaking these days is so soulless when it comes to trying to squeeze more money out of its existing IP. and i can handle fairy tale/princess modernizations that aren’t all that impressive (idina was in one of those as well, cinderella), but even those had parts that i liked or that were fun once i was grading on a curve for the whole movie. i can’t say the same for this one.

first of all, we’ve skipped time since the original, which makes sense, since everybody’s older. but nothing about the time progression makes sense, because offscreen fifteen years have passed, making amy adams 48 when this movie came out. giselle and robert have just had a newborn whose royal inheritance is what leads to the movie’s plot--at best, i guess we can assume amy was supposed to be playing giselle a lot younger than she, the actress, was. or maybe her andalasian genes make her immune to fertility averages?

either way, though, that still doesn’t explain morgan. who in addition to becoming literally a different person (and i hope they only replaced her because the original actress opted out, because she was so great in the first movie i’d resent disney for dumping her just to make the new one sing and dance, or whatever other justifications they might have) is a teenager now. Original Morgan was nine years old in enchanted, or the actress was, anyway. if we assume they meant for Original Morgan to be only seven or eight as a character, that still doesn’t explain a now-high-schooler morgan in this movie. it has been literally twice as many years in real time as it would have to have been in this movie world for morgan to be this age! and unfortunately for the movie, it’s mainly about adults, who have aged the fifteen years you would expect. so that’s ridiculous.

but anyway. somehow, all the adults from enchanted look fifteen years older but morgan’s a teen, and her parents have had a shiny new baby. idina’s character moved with prince james marsden to his world, and literally everyone is depressed now except prince james marsden (and presumably the baby). giselle sees a billboard and decides that’s a plausible reason to uproot her whole family from the city she fell in love with and that the others were from even before meeting her...to move to the suburbs.

at first, because of the impression i got from the trailer, i thought she would be moving to a perfect-seeming little enclave that was secretly evil, like a magical stepford or something, and that it would turn her evil and throw her family into peril. but the real plot is not that creative. it’s literally just the three of them moving to an ordinary suburb that (gasp!) doesn’t automatically fix their lives. instead, robert has a slog of a commute now, and in their own ways, giselle and morgan both struggle to fit in with their new local peers.

everything establishing this movie’s setup baffled me because it felt so random and flimsy, when the original was a beautiful sendup of classic disney tropes that managed to be subversive but still magical. i referred earlier to giselle deciding on a plausible reason, and i felt the same way about disney and this sequel: it felt like they decided this concept was a plausible reason to bring the cast back together, mix in a few new actors, and try to make money off the result (in this case by locking it inside their streaming service as though that would force new subscribers to disney+ instead of what i’m guessing actually happened, having less viewers for the movie than they would’ve gotten in theaters--cuz even i, the biggest fan of the original, wouldn’t have subscribed just to watch it).

but their ‘plausible’ setup is therefore that everybody’s feeling a bit meh in new york city. robert’s not excited about his job, morgan’s a sullen teenager, and giselle misses the days when everything felt magical and new and perfect. instead of recognizing that they have a freaking newborn, which i may not have experienced personally but have certainly heard is a difficult phase of life (especially the first time, for giselle), and that they simultaneously have a teenager, which anybody who’s ever been or met a teenager can tell you is a difficult phase of life for both the teen and their parents--heck, instead of just going to THERAPY when new york city is one of the few places it may still be easier to find access than everywhere else these days--they move to a random place where they know no one for truly no reason.

the movie wants us to believe that the reason is giselle seeing a billboard and believing its promise (or still being unusually literal?) but neither of those makes any sense because even if we had reason to believe that giselle hadn’t learned anything or grown in the last mysterious number of years and would truly treat a billboard like a promise rather than an advertisement (and i don’t think what we see of her in the sequel supports that idea) it’s still robert she’s married to now, and we know he’s always been someone who lovingly but firmly points that stuff out.

morgan’s unhappy because she’s a teenager, she doesn’t actually want to move, and as much as robert loves giselle, i don’t believe at all that he would just let her have her fantasy of a fresh start without injecting reality into the situation--so i think the real explanation is that both robert and giselle, for their own reasons, are desperate enough to try it despite knowing it won’t be a magic fix. but then idina menzel and prince james marsden (i should remember their character names but i really don’t at the moment) pop into their new, still-unhappy-just-in-a-different-time-zone, lives and make everything even worse. way to go guys!

continuing the flimsy plot setups, they’re visiting to give a gift to the new baby, to basically proclaim how special she is and make morgan feel like she’s neither special nor giselle’s ‘real’ daughter. giselle is thrilled by the gift from her childhood home and her former prince remains as hilarious as ever (the acting in this movie is good, they’re just not given as much to work with; ‘campy humor’ was the only element they could successfully recreate for some reason). but nancy is clearly already Over It, the former new yorker not exactly as enchanted with prince james marsden as she used to be now that she has to live with his personality 24/7.

you might expect this to be woven in with the central family’s ennui in some way, but you would be disappointed--that general intermittent eyerolly energy is never directly addressed and as far as we know by the end of the movie, she’s still with him. and i guess will remain so forever? because that’s the rule when you choose a fairy tale life?? even though giselle’s story was entirely about leaving fairy tales behind when they weren’t what she wanted???

maybe we’re supposed to read nancy’s reactions as like, lovable occasional annoyance at How Very Much her guy can be sometimes. but it didn’t come across that way to me; it seemed intentionally to mirror the dissatisfaction giselle and robert were struggling with. i could have been giving them too much credit there, i guess, in assuming deliberate parallels.

but the real point is that the adults were unhappy in the city, and now, in the suburbs, they’re still not very happy. after the gift-givers go back to andalasia, giselle makes a wish using her baby’s magic present, wanting to make their family into a fairy tale...and she gets her wish. morgan goes from a strugglng teen to a cheerful girl again, running around singing and eventually having to be the savior of her family. robert goes from a commuting lawyer to a wannabe monster slayer, and giselle slowly transforms into an evil stepmother--while the women in town who’ve been snubbing her turn into an actual villain with henchwomen in tow.

from then on, it only gets more ridiculous. amy adams is an immensely talented actor, and like i said, i’ve loved her since she was on tv. but she is not doing her best work here, switching between normal giselle and evil stepmother giselle in response to a chiming clock in a way that reminded me of one of those over-the-top acts where a guy hypnotizes people and then can trigger them to be a chicken or something. it was just so over the top, and lacked any of the emotional depth the original movie brought to her character that made me care.

and poor robert, it was clear, they did not know what to do with. a convoluted exchange with prince james marsden before the wish created circumstances where he was carrying a sword around on his commute. that, i’m sure, was supposed to help make it seem like it made sense for him to become a giant fighter or whatever. but really, they had a sequel to make in which he had to be there because he was her happily ever after in the first one, except now robert isn’t a love interest anymore, there’s no drama between them--and the actor was never meant to be a major contributor to the musical part of these movies, so what’s the point of his story? to run around looking for monsters, totally separate, and mostly unnecessary, it turns out.

the fairy tale transformations mean that we go from watching giselle being sad and hurt in response to morgan’s attitude to morgan’s being mistreated by her now-evil stepmother--neither of which is fun. in giselle’s intermittent ‘good’ moments, she tries to encourage morgan to be free of her and get help, and eventually morgan does end up in andalasia with nancy (she’s also a cartoon at that point, i think). nancy helps her understand what might fix things, and the fact that it’s up to their teenage daughter (whose complaints the whole time have honestly seemed the most reasonable to me compared to her parents’ vague ennui) to save not just her own family but both worlds from doom...it doesn’t seem at all fair. but okay.

the solution for making giselle good again involves morgan’s memories and singing and the idea that with the power of love it’ll all be fine, but what i remember most about it is that the scene is really just a vehicle for idina menzel to get her own song. which, duh--i was very disappointed that she didn’t sing in the original, and given the success of frozen, it would’ve been crazy for them not to showcase her more this time.

but the song she’s given? it’s so bad. so very bad. the others i was watching this movie with spent a significant portion of the song time mocking it, and i couldn’t blame them. at a certain point, it just devolves into idina belting the words ‘love power’ over and over and over. you know how some words or phrases become completely meaningless if you say them too much? this definitely felt like that, like the big drama’s ‘solution’ was flimsy to begin with, and then they forced a song into it that wasn’t even a good song, and got idina to sing it. she’s so much better than that! it genuinely made me wonder if she has some kind of disney contract that left her stuck dealing with this.

somehow thanks to morgan, though, giselle does stop being evil by the end--i don’t remember exactly how that scene plays out so i doubt it matters too much--and ending the sort of wish curse she inflicted on everybody means they go back to living in a normal suburb. the woman who briefly became her villain nemesis apologizes in a ‘sometimes i’m a lot oops’ way, and giselle is just like ‘hey, me too, no big deal.’

and this brings me to my two biggest problems with the movie, outside of how much it felt like it was trying to destroy any love i still held for the original.

this movie has no real villain. unlike the first one, where susan sarandon was camping it up in a delightfully appropriate way, and was defeated in the end...this movie falls into the same hole that so many New Disney Movies are determined to, for unknown reasons. we can’t have classic straight-up evil anymore; our heroes have to instead be facing antagonists that are less specific or even less corporeal. it’s family! who of course will no longer be in conflict by the end, and don’t actually need to be ‘defeated.’ or it’s emotions! and once they can be accepted rather than avoided then things will be okay again.

i’m not saying that’s a bad thing, in general. i love encanto, and i thought turning red and inside out were great. but when you’re dealing with a now-franchise whose original style was to reference and gently mock and lovingly rework classic disney tropes...why would you toss that out completely and make a sequel that feels like the other movies disney makes now? why can’t people appreciate that beloved movies are beloved for a reason and you can’t just slap the ‘brand name’ on whatever you want and act like it’s just as good?

but yeah. this movie decided to have no villain by way of having two villains, both of whom were only temporarily villainous due to indirect magic and who became normal again once it stopped. they bear no real responsibility for being villains, because after all, they aren’t really. post-movie, it seems like they may even become friends! all’s well that ends well.

which really annoyed me, lol, because it felt so incredibly pointless once i knew that was how it ended. our main character accidentally makes herself evil, makes somebody else evil, has to be saved from being evil while fighting the other evil, and the grand conclusion is that they just finish back where they started? how is that a story that moves forward, let alone a good story with some kind of point or even just a good-versus-evil win, fairy tale style?

it’s like the main conflict of the movie is created by them having problems, but then the problems they were having...are solved because they’re no longer in conflict. which brings me to my second issue with the movie’s ending: apparently the ultimate lesson of this follow up to enchanted is that growing up means learning to settle, rather than believing in happily ever afters.

despite the cheerful singing at the end of the movie that tries to make us believe it’s just as great an ending as enchanted got, i was so underwhelmed and disappointed and tbh freaked out, that they reached that conclusion. the story we were given was giselle and robert and morgan are a family now just like they wanted but they’re all unhappy, so they move out of the city to seek happiness elsewhere. and it fixes nothing which instead spirals giselle into cursing the town but in the end everybody’s okay and there are no consequences and nobody’s mad at giselle cuz she didn’t mean to do it...so she and robert and morgan commit to trying even harder to be happy in their new suburban life.

and all i can wonder is, why is that the lesson? why is that the right place to end up? why couldn’t they go back to the city and figure out their problems there, since clearly suburbia wasn’t a fix on its own? there didn’t seem to be a real reason for requiring giselle, who loved the sparkly harsh city she landed in years ago, to become a suburban mom--or for uprooting morgan, or making robert become a ‘small town practice’ kind of guy.

i guess what grates on me about it is that it has such a hallmark christmas movie vibe of just assuming their real happy ending would naturally be escaping the city, no matter how central it was to their original story and lives. whatever their deeper issues were that made them unhappy in the city, they haven’t addressed those by the end of the movie; they’ve just somewhat improved the issues that moving TO this new place piled on.

therefore my logical brain goes, you were unhappy and tried to fix it by moving but that only made things worse. why wouldn’t you reverse the making-it-worse part by going back, and then continue trying to figure out how to fix it? i just don’t get it. and i may be kind of offended by it, because the giselle who i have always adored is a completely different person in this movie, and not because of some wish curse.

she’s older, and sad, and it’s like nothing about her life is fun anymore...and maybe there could’ve been a way to craft an interesting story out of that, though i don’t know what it would be off the top of my head. but we don’t get whatever that could’ve been. and we don’t get a sequel about our faves from enchanted having more hijinks and having a to fight a new tropey villain, in the style of the first one. what we get is a story about everybody from the first one not liking their lives and having to fight the fallout from that and then concluding that hey, at least the world didn’t end so they must be better off than they thought, time to make the best of it. it deeply depressed me.

and look--i’m not saying i demand happy endings always. i don’t even require happy endings mostly! but unless there is some requirement i’m not aware of that post-pandemic we are no longer allowed happy endings at all, this was not the movie world to bring back just to say ‘the best you can hope for is meh. good luck.’ giselle and everybody else deserved better.

i will say that there was one thing about this movie that i liked. exactly one thing, sadly, or at least only one i clearly remember. i was really excited about the casting before this came out, because i love jayma mays, and maya rudolph is reliably good always. once i actually saw the movie, i was bummed that jayma mays and the other henchwoman didn’t have roles worth including, but maya rudolph was as good as i expected.

and since this movie was such a mess, she also just really stood out. she’s a ‘can do it all’ kind of performer, in a way that makes it look easy, and i feel like that’s the difference between amy adam’s background in a lot of dramatic roles and maya rudolph’s background in snl. they’re both super talented and both have range, but are a good fit for different things because of that.

so there is one song in this movie and one performance (cuz it’s the performance of it that makes it good) that i genuinely enjoyed. it’s basically a face off between the two not-actually-villains, kind of like ‘anything you can do i can do better’ but sillier and maximum camp. it’s the only part where it felt like that was what the movie was deliberately aiming for, and both actresses are fully going for it while sometimes we’re watching them parallel on splitscreen...it was ridiculous but in an entertaining rather than cringe-inducing way.

so that part is great, but also highlights even more what this movie could have been. if only they had let maya rudolph be a proper villain, the leader of a trio of new antagonists for our faves to face, that would’ve been potentially a great movie. she could have gone evil after getting her hands on the baby’s wand, then gone down fighting after the family consulted with their andalasian friends on how to deal with magically corrupted humans. the ending could have been more interesting with bigger stakes than ‘everyone survives and decides to play nice.’

heck, i could write that version of that movie! lol. but i won’t. because it would probably necessitate rewatching disenchanted and that is something i never ever want to do. that was a piece of my heart you fucked with, you jerks. and i’m gonna stay mad.

#disenchanted #rant #amy adams #idina menzel #patrick dempsey #james marsden #susan sarandon #actuallylukedanes #actually autistic #autistic #jayma mays #maya rudolph #negativity #enchanted #2022 motw #my formative years

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specialagentlokitty · 3 months

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Giles x teen!reader - the family you need

Part 15:

The time grew closer to meeting the academy, and you felt nervous about going, wondering if they were going to try anything stupid.

Maybe that’s why your friends let you go there alone, you walked to the nearby street, and you turned around to face them.

“Wait here.”

“You can’t go in there alone!” Tara whisper yelled.

You glanced to her then looked at them all.

“I can’t risk them trying to attack you all.”

“It’s fine, Tara and I can set up a barrier if we have to.” Willow said.

“Yeah, I’m not exactly a big fan of walking into a bunch of demon hunters but we’re not letting you go alone it would be rather stupid of you.” Anya said.

You laughed a little, and you shook your head at her.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Anya, fine, but you all stay behind me, got it?”

“Lead the way.” Giles said.

You gave a small nod, and turned around, taking a deep breath you rolled your shoulders, and stretched a little.

“Get ready then, they’re not going to back down so easy.”

You began to walk, your boots echoing among the quiet streets.

Rounding a corner, you saw the large group of exorcists who immediately trained their weapons on you ready to attack.

You reached to your left, grabbing the hilt of your sword you drew it, letting your power out as you walked towards them.

Twirling your sword a few times, you smirked a little as you stopped a few feet in front of them.

“Quite a welcoming committee.” You said.

“We could say the same to you, are they aware of what they’re protecting?”

“Yes, we are.” Buffy said.

They all stood behind you, and you rested the tip of your sword in the ground, eyes watching as the crowd in front of your parted.

The director the academy walked up, standing in front of you with his gun raised at your forehead.

“Give me a reason I shouldn’t put a bullet in your skull right now.”

“Because, Thomas, I would take out half your men here before you could even graze me with that gun, or I could just light you all on fire right now and watch as you burn to ashes.”

He hummed a little bit.

“You don’t have that kind of power, we know that.”

“Don’t I?”

You glanced at his feet, lighting a flame and he jumped back, everybody raised their weapons and Willow and Tara stepped forward, raising a barrier.

Giles placed a hand on your shoulder, moving you behind him.

“You will not harm them.” He said coldly.

“You’d protect a demon?!” Someone hissed.

“(Y/N) is not a demon!” Xander yelled.

“Looks like one.”

You placed a hand on Giles’ arm, moving him aside so you could see them all.

“You know why I called you here, we both have a common interest and we can’t make it work if you’re trying to kill me every second.”

“How do we know you won’t just turn on us?” Thomas asked.

You sighed, gesturing for Willow and Tara to stand down, so they brought the barrier down, and you put your sword away.

Stuffing your hands into your pockets you looked at him.

“Maybe you and I should talk privately.”

He gave a nod of his head, and you both walked aside while the two groups were left alone watching.

Walking over to the school, you sat down on the destroyed steps and he stood in front of you, his gun still out.

“Do you think you can do it? Destroy the gate between here and hell?” Thomas asked.

“I know I can, that’s not the issue. The issue is I need to make sure that nothing escapes this area when I do that, between your guys and mine, you can create an unbreakable seal that’ll keep anything inside of it inside.”

“Why should I agree to this? If I kill you now then that solves the issue.”

You shrugged a little.

“Maybe so, but eventually there will come someone else who’ll do the same, Satan won’t stop until he has taken over this world. If I destroy that gate, then he can’t get here.”

“I presume you already have a plan in mind?” He asked.

You nodded.

“Yes, but I don’t think you’re going to like it, which is why I need you.”

Thomas studied your for a moment, then he looked back at his group.

“There’s something they don’t know about this plan.”

“There’s a few things they don’t know about this plan, because I know they wouldn’t be able to go forward with it.”

He hummed.

“Tell me.”

“I need to accept my role as the demon king, whether I want to or not.”

“It was said that either way you will become the demon king, it was also told that you needed to decide which kind demon king you were to become.”

“I need the power of being a demon king in order to destroy the barrier, but with that much power there’s no telling if I were to stay in control of my own body, my own choices.”

“Whether you give in to the demonic temptation or not, you will either be the one to save this world, or destroy it.”

“Yes.”

Thomas raised his gun, aiming the barrel at your forehead once more and you looked at him.

The others tried to rush to you, but you drew a line of flames separating you from them, so they couldn’t get in the way.

Slowly you stood up, looking down at Thomas from your position on the stairs.

“Is that a chance you’re willing to take? A choice you can make?”

“I have no choice, it is something I have to do Thomas, you and I both know this. When I first went to the academy you told me that if I didn’t die there then it would one day come to this, and I would have to choose. This is me choosing. This is my world, and I’ll be dammed if I let some demon fucked try take control of it and destroy what my friends try so hard to protect.”

“And if you become the demon?”

“Then you kill me, it will close the gate but it won’t destroy it.”

He nodded.

“If you don’t become the demon? If you remain in control as the demon king?”

“I will destroy the portal, and more than likely die.”

“So, either way you die?”

“Yes.”

Thomas tucked his gun back into his uniform.

“Those terms are acceptable.”

“I know the elders can give you whatever you need to help get this done, I need you to ensure nothing happens to them. That no harm comes to them.”

Thomas studied you for a moment.

“You care about them?”

“They’re my family.”

You looked over famous, just hearing them calling your name.

“I need your word that if you have to, despite what they say, what they threaten you will kill me.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

You nodded.

“Protecting those humans, this world is my first priority.” Thomas said.

“And mine.”

You took a small breath.

“At the end of this, either way I will die, there’s a next to impossible chance that I’ll survive. They don’t know that, they think it’ll all be right as rain, you can’t tell them about this.”

“I won’t, it will only distract them.”

“We need a place where we can research, train, more so then than me.”

“The academy can help with all of that.”

He turned around and you followed him, breaking the barrier of flames to see everybody looking at you both.

“We will work together with the spawn of Satan in order to destroy the gates to hell.” Thomas said.

You turned to face the others.

“They’ll give you everything you need, train you the way you need to be trained in order to do this.”

Thomas walked over, looking at you.

“The elders will want to speak to you tomorrow.”

You gave a nod, and you all went your separate ways.

As the following day came around they were taken and showed around the academy, given a small tour so that they could get started, and you were taken somewhere else.

Standing in front of three people who wore robes, you clasped your hands behind your back.

“We’re amazed that you managed to survive this long.” The one in red said.

“So am I, but I have a mission here, and I won’t die until it’s done.”

They nodded.

“Destroy the gates.”

“Yes.”

The one in green stepped forward.

“We’ve come to understand that if you accept your role as demon king and lose control we have every permission to kill you.”

“That is correct, you have to kill me, without hesitation, before I hurt somebody.”

“We have no issue with this, we agree to help on the confidence that either way you will die, and the world will be rid of all demons.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Your friends do not know of this?”

You shook your head, taking a deep breath.

“No, and they can’t. If they find out they’ll try find a way to save me and get themselves all killed.”

The elders all nodded their heads in agreement.

“We’ve issued an order for you to be kept alive until the moment you must be killed, your friends will be trained, but you must tell Thomas everything you know.”

“I will.”

The meeting was quickly concluded and you were taken to another.

Nobody saw anything of you, you never returned to your apartment, you were constantly in meetings they couldn’t attend.

Whatever they needed to know was passed along to them, and sometimes they would catch glimpses of your training when they went to get more books or scrolls from the academy.

Time passed, slipping into nearly a month and a half, and finally everything was ready.

You stood in front of the school with an army of exorcists behind you, your friends at your side.

“This is the night either the world ends, or we win.” Thomas said.

You gave a nod of your head.

Turning your attention to you, he sent his men to their positions and he stood next to you.

“I’d say what you need to say now… don’t die with all that hanging over your head…”

“I know…”

He walked away and you turned around to face everybody, smiling at them.

“I hope you’re all ready for this, because it’s not going to be easy.”

“We’ve got your back.” Xander grinned.

“Yes, even though we won’t be allowed to go in with you we will be cheering you on from out here.” Anya said.

You laughed a little, nodding your head.

“I know.”

Taking a deep breath, you looked at them all, all ready for battle, to help if they had to, covered in sigils and other things to protect them all.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens, and I’ll keep you all safe, I promise. And I.. I want to thank you for being my family.”

“You’re going to be okay, right?” Willow asked.

“Yeah… yeah I’ll be okay.”

You glanced at the school, then you gestured for them to get into their positions.

“Giles, can I uh.. can I talk to you before you go?”

“Yes, yes of course.”

You both walked over to the curb and sat down.

You clasped your hands together, and you looked at the ground.

“I.. I wanted to say thank you, for everything really. It was actually nice having somebody who cared for me, I forgot what that was like.”

Giles smiled at you.

“After all of this, I’ll still be here to look after you, even if you may be some big demon king with immense power.”

You laughed softly.

“I don’t think I’ll need much looking after, but it’s nice to know the fact I’ll be a demon won’t change that.”

You smiled at him and turned around.

“Whatever happens here, nothing will change.” Giles said.

You took a deep breath.

“I don’t think that’s true, I think a lot will change to be honest. There’s… I want you to do something.”

“What’s that?”

Placing your hands on your knees you pushed yourself so you were standing up, and he did the same.

“Whatever happens, please don’t try to change the outcome, don’t try anything stupid, make sure those morons don’t do anything stupid either. Don’t blame yourself either, because it’s not your fault, it’s just how it has to be.”

Giles furrowed his brows in confusion.

“Whatever happens, I just… I hope it doesn’t change how you guys feel about me… the way you saw me..”

“Of course it wouldn’t, we know what’s going to happen.”

You smiled slightly.

“Yeah…”

Walking over you hugged him, and he hugged you back, placing his hand on your head.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this…”

“I know…”

You clenched your jaw a little, fighting the tears that were burning your eyes.

“Giles I.. I never meant what I said to Buffy…”

“I know you didn’t, and when you come back we can talk about it some more, alright? We can talk about what will happen after, what you want to do. If you want me to take the role as your father I’m happy to do that, but we’ve got time to talk about that later on.”

You nodded your head, and he chuckled a little.

“It’s alright, go in now, show them who’s boss.”

You laughed, pulling away and you wiped a stray tear from your face.

“You’re my favourite person Giles, I.. care about you, all of you.”

He chuckled.

“We care about you too.”

You walked away, drawing your saw and you stood in front of the barrier, watching as a door opened, and you took a deep breath, stepping inside and it closed behind you.

This was it, this was where everything ended

#buffy the vampire slayer imagine #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy the vampire slayer x reader #buffy the vampire slayer x you #Rupert Giles #Rupert Giles x reader #Rupert Giles x you #Rupert Giles imagine

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sunnydaleherald · 2 months

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The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Thursday and Friday, February 29 - March 1

MAYOR: Ah. And you say he has the Books of Ascension, or will soon, and he was, what, willing to sell them? FAITH: That's what I said. MAYOR: Hmm. You know what I wish? I wish you'd pull your hair back. I know, I know, fashion's not exactly my thing, but, gosh darn it, you know, you've got such a nice face. I can't understand why you hide it. FAITH: Yeah, sure. Whatever. It's just a matter of time before this demon guy is gonna spill. Then Buffy and the superfriends are gonna... MAYOR: You know, you worry too much for a girl for your age. That's unnecessary stress. Luckily, I've got just the thing. (pours a glass of milk and hands it to Faith) There you go. Now, first you load up on calcium. Then find this demon, kill the heck out of him, and bring the books to me. (Faith looks at the milk and sets the glass down, untouched.)

~~Enemies ~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Blood, Salt, and Heartflesh by CoffeeHunt (Angel/Darla/Drusilla/Spike, other pairings within group, E)

Hunter x Slayer by FairlandFae (Buffy, Dean and Sam Winchester, Supernatural xover, G)

Deadline Misses and Vampire Kisses by Greensword101 (Angel/Wesley, T)

I'd give you the world if you wanted to by punch_kicker15 (Willow/Giles, T)

Nothing Not Romantic by nursinggeek (Willow/Kennedy, G)

Musings from the Bronze by Lori2279 (Willow/Oz, G)

Go To Page... by cmk418 (Willow, G)

there's a reflection (mine or yours) by ripslayer (Buffy/Faith, G)

indulgences by CindFourth (Buffy/Faith, T)

You are the bad girl I always dreamed of by doumekiss (odd__girl) (Buffy/Faith, G)

Tangled in HelLA by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, M)

Bite Mark by Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Warlock by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Ever After After The Fall - Ch. 1-2/30 by aboutafox (Buffy/Angel, M)

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN SUNNYDALE??? - Ch. 1-2 by Humanzoul (Willow/Tara, Angel/Spike, Cordelia/Doyle, others, M)

Lie to Me - Ch. 14 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

A Little Poet in Her Monster - Ch. 6 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, R)

To All We Guard - Ch. 17 by simmony (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Dusk Rising - Ch. 29 by HappyWhenItRains (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Rise - Ch. 27 by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Burn - Ch. 3 by violettathepiratequeen (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Seeing Clearly - Ch. 1 by JoeB (Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Anime xover, FR13)

Burn - Ch. 3 by violettathepiratequeen (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Service Unit - Ch. 1 by hulettwyo (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Oblivious - Ch. 8 by hulettwyo (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Lie to Me - Ch. 14 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Coming Through - Ch. 45-46 by hulettwyo (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Love Lives Here - Ch. 29 by Passion4Spike (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Cherry On Top - Ch. 28-31 by Maxine Eden (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Massacre at Carabon Hill - Ch. 4 by myrabeth (Buffy/Spike, M)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: so i've got a very specific pitch for you by genericaces (Fred, Illyria, Wesley, worksafe)

Artwork: no thoughts are happening behind either of their eyes. by yarboyandy (Spike, Angel, worksafe)

Artwork: You Shouldn't be anything like me, You'll never be anything like me by yarboyandy (Faith/Xander, cartoon violence)

Fanvid: If That Worth Dying For | Buffyverse by Taco_ld

Gifset: darla/drusilla + pink&blue, for a dreamwidth event by sunbelieved (Darla/Drusilla, Angel, worksafe)

Gifset: Things change. Yeah, they do. If you make them. Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 1997 - 2003 by spikedaily (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Alphabet ↳ Z ✫ The Zeppo by buffysummers (Xander, worksafe) Series Complete!

Manip: It's A Rom-Com! by all choseny (Spuffy, worksafe)

Artwork: Stab in the back - Ch. 19 by MelG_2005 (Spuffy, NSFW per Adult Only rating)

Manip: It's A Rom-Com! by all choseny (Spuffy, worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

random 'Inca Mummy Girl' thoughts by inconsistentlywritten

I think Buffy and Angel as shows ultimately reject the concept of the "redemption arc" as a journey from point A to point B... by justafriendofxanders

[worldbuilding and character consistency from S1 to S7 in BTVS] by coraniaid

What is everyone’s opinion on season 4? [BTVS] by ukcountrylover

S4. So upset. [ATS] by Maybe_Warm

[Community Announcements]

Discord Server [link and instructions] by Buffy-Boards

[Fandom Discussions]

[Buffy movie] Whedon's Version Part 1/3: Changes to the Script and Story by shortlyafterthat

POLL: Vampire Media Guys Round: Spike or Severen? by vampirewrestlinglover

[Buffy and Xander end S7 as best friends but they would be so good together romantically] by suncaptor

I feel like Buffy ignored a lucrative career option in season 6 [spuffy] by aphony-cree

[parallels between Jack and Xander in The Zeppo and Faith and Buffy in Enemies] by shewhosleepalotincemeteries

the thing is that while gunn staking [his sister] alonna is a great character beat for him... by moistvonlipwig

the buffyverse... largely manages to avoid moral reductionism... by justafriendofxanders

theory - dawn haters are more likely to be younger siblings who hate the reflection of themselves... by justafriendofxanders

the tragedy of dawn btvs and connor ats is that their lives are both "lies"... by justafriendofxanders

Ive been thinking about the parallels between buffy and the potentials. by finalgirl1984

Don't worry, Amy Madison, one day I will retroactively give you something resembling a consistent characterisation... by coraniaid

[Amy Madison: did she only become a witch to survive her mother?] by coraniaid

[if there was a reboot here's how to improve several minor characters: Jesse, Amy, Owen, etc] by coraniaid

Make the comments look like Cordelia Chase's search history by jdpm1991

It’s movie night, what movie do you think everyone would pick? by Heart_Throb_

How long would Buffy and thee Scoobies survive on Angel without main character plot armor? by sadhungryandvirgin

Buffy and the Scooby Gang... decides to explore Smith's Grove Sanitarium and run into CoT Michael Myers. Who’s winning? by Walter_Stennes_15

Slaypires by Ghostsintheafternoon

Spike love by Slayer_fit

Enemy to lover doesn't work for me [Spike focused] by M2yvesthegamer

I think what makes Buffy so amazing is also how beautiful each of the “first” romances were. by redditwatcher11

Who would be more interesting for Toth to split? by DifficultRice7075

Magic in the Buffyverse by Eldon42

A New Man - S4E12 - Treacle and a Headmaster meaning by Nearby_Competition49

Lyric to Xander/Anya duet... by _Skayda_

What piece of advice would you offer to your favorite character? by jonaskoelker

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

If you haven't seen James' [Marsters] 2007 horror movie SHADOW PUPPETS, it will be available to stream for free on @Crackle_TV from March 1! via dontkillspike

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

#btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #fan fiction #meta #fan art #ats #angel the series

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