TTS - 013. TEN (best/biggest) triumphs or victories // 014. TEN (worst/biggest) mistakes or failures
So I was writing my little list of triumphs, 'cause I mean, obviously, there's plenty of both in my life. Victories and mistakes. But, seeing as I like to focus on the positive lately, I decided to go with the former. Then, as I was actually compiling it, I realized a lot of these were both equally triumph and failure. And I figured, why not acknowledge that? So, here I am. Witness me acknowledging:
1. Lothos. My first real big bad. And, consequently, my first defeat of one. Too bad my first Watcher, Merrick, died in the process. Not to mention the part where it's how I set my high school gym on fire. Which is what got me kicked out. Ending up in Sunnydale wasn't as bad as I originally thought it was. But I knew long before I moved there just how much sacrifice goes with success. (See, Giles? Could've spared you like half of your original lectures.)
2. The Master. He was destined to kill me, I was destined to kill him... you know this doesn't end well for one of us, right? Well obviously I'm still here, typing this, so it was me who things ended a little better for. But not much. He still killed me, if only for a few minutes. Thus creating the alternate Slayer. The whole 'heir and a spare' thing.
3. Angelus. My least favorite on the list. Because he wasn't really Angelus when I killed him. He was Angel. I could sit here all day, trying to make myself feel better by telling myself how I did what I had to. That never made it easier. even if it had been Angelus, and no matter what he said or did while he was practically stalking me, trying to make me pay through everyone I loved, it never would have been any easier. Never really felt much like a victory either.
4. Mayor Wilkins. Another demon I destroyed my high school for. Thankfully I had already graduated because I seriously doubt I'd have gotten in anywhere after that. Still, he ended up dead, and we all walked away. Except for Faith. Truth be told, I blame him for that. For what she became. Hard not to. I just feel like I could have helped her if she hadn't been so far gone.
5. Faith. Look, I'm not using the words 'triumph' or 'victory' in the sense that most people use them in. That positive, heroic way that's all things both goodness and light. 'Cause there's a much darker side. Again, not going with the whole 'what I had to' excuse. It's pretty much self-evident that the majority of things I've done were because I had to. But if I hold myself up to the same moral standards I hold everyone else too, then it was never really okay to almost kill another human being. Didn't matter what she had done or tried to do. She told me that if I killed her, I became her. Faith was wrong. It took less.
6. Adam. Half demon, half robot, all messed up. Professor Walsh was a real piece of work, so it's not really any big wonder. I don't think she could have came up with a worse combination. And even though defeating him took a power I didn't really know I possessed, (mostly because I didn't possess it and had to have it conjured up), I don't think I ever really blamed him as much as I blamed her. He was supposed to be the perfect being. Instead, Professor Walsh turned him into a monster.
7. Dracula. I guess this one's more of a series of failures than anything else. He bit me. I was totally enthralled by him for awhile and I let him bite me. I almost let him give me immortality. And in the end, staking him didn't really kill him. He just kept coming back until I pointed out that I wasn't leaving. Still, he did finally float away. And getting him to leave, even if it wasn't as a pile of ashes, was much more of a success than my combined failures.
8. Glory. Simplest to explain, and not unlike The Master in some ways. Destined to kill each other, means one of us is definitely getting shut down. Okay, so it was more like she felt that she had this destiny to kill my sister. Which then made it like my double destiny to kill her. But in the absence of any real way to defeat her, it took death to stop her. Sacrifice. My death. At best, you could say I broke even. Or even that I technically won. Then again, at worst, I died. This time for real. For awhile, anyway.
9. Myself. It's no secret that I wasn't myself when I came back. I was still stuck back in my grave but I was walking around as if I'd never been there. It took so many horrible things to make me finally wake up, to realize I had a choice: take the second chance and actually live or just take death. It was a huge accomplishment. But also, a loss of an entire year of my life. Time I got back that I should have spent living.
10. The First Evil. The last truly big bad so far. One of those things where no amount of win can ever really make up for what was lost in the process. You vanquish a particularly indestructible kind of evil, and you have to be grateful for that. But you can never quite just cut your losses. The most bittersweet kind of victory there is.
Buffy Summers
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1. Lothos. My first real big bad. And, consequently, my first defeat of one. Too bad my first Watcher, Merrick, died in the process. Not to mention the part where it's how I set my high school gym on fire. Which is what got me kicked out. Ending up in Sunnydale wasn't as bad as I originally thought it was. But I knew long before I moved there just how much sacrifice goes with success. (See, Giles? Could've spared you like half of your original lectures.)
2. The Master. He was destined to kill me, I was destined to kill him... you know this doesn't end well for one of us, right? Well obviously I'm still here, typing this, so it was me who things ended a little better for. But not much. He still killed me, if only for a few minutes. Thus creating the alternate Slayer. The whole 'heir and a spare' thing.
3. Angelus. My least favorite on the list. Because he wasn't really Angelus when I killed him. He was Angel. I could sit here all day, trying to make myself feel better by telling myself how I did what I had to. That never made it easier. even if it had been Angelus, and no matter what he said or did while he was practically stalking me, trying to make me pay through everyone I loved, it never would have been any easier. Never really felt much like a victory either.
4. Mayor Wilkins. Another demon I destroyed my high school for. Thankfully I had already graduated because I seriously doubt I'd have gotten in anywhere after that. Still, he ended up dead, and we all walked away. Except for Faith. Truth be told, I blame him for that. For what she became. Hard not to. I just feel like I could have helped her if she hadn't been so far gone.
5. Faith. Look, I'm not using the words 'triumph' or 'victory' in the sense that most people use them in. That positive, heroic way that's all things both goodness and light. 'Cause there's a much darker side. Again, not going with the whole 'what I had to' excuse. It's pretty much self-evident that the majority of things I've done were because I had to. But if I hold myself up to the same moral standards I hold everyone else too, then it was never really okay to almost kill another human being. Didn't matter what she had done or tried to do. She told me that if I killed her, I became her. Faith was wrong. It took less.
6. Adam. Half demon, half robot, all messed up. Professor Walsh was a real piece of work, so it's not really any big wonder. I don't think she could have came up with a worse combination. And even though defeating him took a power I didn't really know I possessed, (mostly because I didn't possess it and had to have it conjured up), I don't think I ever really blamed him as much as I blamed her. He was supposed to be the perfect being. Instead, Professor Walsh turned him into a monster.
7. Dracula. I guess this one's more of a series of failures than anything else. He bit me. I was totally enthralled by him for awhile and I let him bite me. I almost let him give me immortality. And in the end, staking him didn't really kill him. He just kept coming back until I pointed out that I wasn't leaving. Still, he did finally float away. And getting him to leave, even if it wasn't as a pile of ashes, was much more of a success than my combined failures.
8. Glory. Simplest to explain, and not unlike The Master in some ways. Destined to kill each other, means one of us is definitely getting shut down. Okay, so it was more like she felt that she had this destiny to kill my sister. Which then made it like my double destiny to kill her. But in the absence of any real way to defeat her, it took death to stop her. Sacrifice. My death. At best, you could say I broke even. Or even that I technically won. Then again, at worst, I died. This time for real. For awhile, anyway.
9. Myself. It's no secret that I wasn't myself when I came back. I was still stuck back in my grave but I was walking around as if I'd never been there. It took so many horrible things to make me finally wake up, to realize I had a choice: take the second chance and actually live or just take death. It was a huge accomplishment. But also, a loss of an entire year of my life. Time I got back that I should have spent living.
10. The First Evil. The last truly big bad so far. One of those things where no amount of win can ever really make up for what was lost in the process. You vanquish a particularly indestructible kind of evil, and you have to be grateful for that. But you can never quite just cut your losses. The most bittersweet kind of victory there is.
Buffy Summers
Buffy the Vampire Slayer