Z is for Daniel HoltZ

It's the last day!  We've survived yet another year of this challenge.  But before I can celebrate, there's one last post to right, so...

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

Z is for Daniel Holtz

Daniel Holtz was a vampire hunter in the 18th century.  He spent 20 years tracking the vampires Angel and Darla across Europe and North Africa after they killed his family.  Eventually the demon Sahjhan made a deal with Holtz to place him in suspended animation and send him to a time when it would be possible to exact revenge - the year 2001.

Meanwhile Angel and Darla (once again human) had sex and Darla became pregnant.  Darla was then turned into a vampire by Drusilla, but the fetus acted like a soul.  In order to give birth (and not lose her soul), Darla staked herself and baby Connor was born.  After much fighting and not killing Angel, Holtz kidnapped Connor, and took him to a hell dimension, where he raised Connor to hate all demons, but especially Angel.  Time moved quickly in the hell dimension, and Connor and Holtz returned to Los Angeles mere months after they had left, but with Connor now age 15. 

As a final act of revenge (and to cement Connor's hatred of Angel) Holtz had a friend kill him and stage it as a vampire attack, inciting Connor to attempt to kill Angel.

The whole character of Holtz never sat well with me.  He was not a character I liked, or enjoyed hating.  He just made me angry and annoyed and dislike the show Angel, mostly because it meant we wound up with Connor, who I disliked even more.  It was around this time I stopped watching Angel.  I'd forgotten how much I disliked this season till I started writing this post.  Darn you Holtz for being the only character in the entire Buffy-Universe to have a Z in your name.

And on that unsatisfied note, the challenge is over!!

Hurray!!

Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the completed alphabet and share about my two weekends at Supanova, and getting to meet David Boreanaz.  

Happy Stitching

Y is for Riley Finn

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

Y is for the Riley Finn

Riley in his Initiative gear

Riley Finn was born in Huxley, Iowa.  Not much is known about his early years except that he had a fairly typical demon-free upbringing.  Riley joined the army prior to 1999, and was trained in a special operations unit that became known as The Initiative.  The Initiative were a USA Government operation whose mission was to capture and research demons, or "sub-terrestrials".  Their base-of-operations was located below UC Sunnydale, and Riley lead a double-life masquerading as a college student by day, soldier by night.  Riley began dating Buffy before discovering she was the Slayer (or revealing he was a soldier).  Riley eventually left The Initiative when his boss attempted to kill Buffy, and the operation was closed down not long after.

Riley attempted to lead an ordinary life, assisting Buffy in fighting demons, however he eventually returned to the army (and a secret mission in the middle of South America) when he realised that Buffy didn't care for him as much as he cared for her.  During his time in South America, Riley met and married fellow soldier Samantha.

The Buffy-Riley relationship seemed to be the biggest thing affected by the arrival of Dawn.  Throughout season 4, Riley and Buffy both seemed to be pretty committed to each other, however in season 5 Buffy seemed to drift - distracted by Dawn and by her mother's health problems perhaps.  I liked Riley as a steady, strong character and was not impressed with how his character seemed to take a nose dive in season 5.  But maybe the writers needed to get rid of him to make room for the Buffy-Dawn relationship, and the Buffy-Spike relationship.

Happy Stitching

X is for Xander

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

X is for Xander Harris
I love that this is a genuine X and not a stretch like most of my other 'X' posts have been!

Yes I included the eye-patch.

Alexander "Xander" Harris was born in Sunnydale in 1981 to rather negligent, if not abusive, parents.  He attended the local kindy (where he met Willow) and primary school, before attending Sunnydale High, where he met Buffy Summers and became a founding member of the Scooby Gang.  Xander harboured quite a crush on Buffy for a number of years before turning his attention to Cordelia, and later Anya (who he left at the alter, as explained in the E post).  

After High School, Xander drifted from temporary job to temporary job  before discovering building and carpentry, at which he excelled, and was eventually able to move out of his parents' basement into an apartment of his own.  Xander fought (albeit not very skillfully) alongside Buffy for seven years.  He eventually lost an eye during an altercation with the priest Caleb (played by Nathan Fillion) in the final season, before helping Buffy blow up the town, and riding into the sunset with everyone else on the big yellow bus.

Xander was the non-supernatural member of the Scooby Gang, never gaining any magical powers or special strength or brilliant intelligence.  He was often uncoordinated and unskilled, but witty and funny and caring.  Xander was "us" in the show - the people without any abilities who wanted to fight alongside Buffy - he was our "in", how we could be part of the Scooby Gang.  Not being magical or powerful, Xander was able to see and recognise the strength in others, the struggles they were going through, the times when they needed a shoulder to cry on or needed someone to tell them to stop acting like an idiot.  Or when they just needed a one-liner to break the tension.

One of my favourite Xander episodes occured in season 5, when a demon splits him into two people.  Nicholas Brendon (the actor who plays Xander) is a twin, so his twin brother, Kelly Donovan, played his other half.

Nicholas and Kelly

Nicholas came to Brisbane Oz Comic Con in 2015 with Emma Caulfield.  He's still gorgeous all these years later, and very friendly.

With Emma Caulfield and Nicholas Brendon

Happy Stitching

W is for Winifred

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

W is for Winifred "Fred" Burkle

This outfit is from Fred's first episode, but I couldn't find the source picture I'd
originally used.

Winifred “Fred” Burkle was born in Texas, and moved to Los Angeles where she attended graduate school at UCLA.  Fred’s physics professor, jealous of her talent, created a portal and banished Fred to Pylea – which is the same portal that sent Lorne (from the H post) to Los Angeles in her place.  Fred spent 5 years on Pylea as a human slave until she was rescued by Angel and his friends. 

On returning to Los Angeles, Fred joined Angel Investigations, where she helped solve problems and fight demons with her brains rather than any physical strength.  Ultimately Fred was killed when the essence of Illyria (remember her from I?) took possession of her body.

Fred was one of my favourite Angel-only characters.  She was Angel’s version of Willow – shy, quiet, un-coordinated, very smart, grew in strength as the show progressed.  She helped to off-set Cordelia, as well as provide some more female talent for the show.  It’s bugging me that I can’t remember more about her – I really need to re-watch Angel one of these days.

Happy Stitching

V is for Vampire Drusilla

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

V is for Drusilla the Vampire

After I finished stitching this, and framed it, I found the spelling mistake

Drusilla was born in the mid-19^th century in the East End of London, and had the ability to foresee the future.  In 1860, Drusilla caught the attention of Angelus, who tortured her to insanity and eventually turned her into a vampire, calling her his “masterpiece”.  Twenty years later, Drusilla sired Spike to turn him into her play thing.   Drusilla always maintained a childish insanity, caused by Angel’s torture of her mind.

After tormenting Europe for a century or more, Drusilla and Spike moved to Sunnydale, where, along with Angel, they became the Big Bad of season 2, and Drusilla killed the Slayer Kendra.   When Spike cut a deal with Buffy to get rid of Angel, Drusilla left Spike for a Fungus Demon, claiming he was not enough of a demon for her. 

Drusilla eventually went on to play a much larger role on Angel, including siring a re-born Darla, who technically was also her ‘grandmother’, given that Darla had originally sired Angel – it all got very confusing.

Drusilla was a fun character to watch on screen.  She was completely insane, which resulted in some of the best one-liners, and total bewilderment of the other characters.  However, I’m also glad she was a short-lived character on Buffy.  She had a time and a place, but would have become very tedious if she’d stuck around trying to kill Buffy every week – rather like Lindsey did on Angel.  She also wore some awesome outfits.

Happy Stitching