Go here, read the letter, be amused.

Fin.

Dear Joss

I just met you, like, 20 minutes ago. I'm still shaking and my heart is beating fast. I told you how Buffy changed my life (you asked, "in a good way, I hope?") and I just gabbled questions at you – why are you in London (please let it be for Ripper), when is the next installment of Dr Horrible? – and told you I was sorry about Dollhouse.

Then I pretty much ran away because meeting your heroes is too overwhelming. And you were so charming about being pounced upon!

"Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are. You'll see what I mean."

Here's what I wished I had said:

Buffy really did change my life. I wish I'd had the wits about me to tell you how much it meant. Buffy and I are the same age, both born in 1981. She saved the world. A lot. She also saved me.

Being the same age, I grew up alongside her. I was a supremely dorky teenager and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my salvation. That Buffy could face the worst of adolescence writ large in demons and death, the heartbreaks – and not just romantic ones – and survive, was incredibly important to hear as a hugely depressed teen.

"When it's dark, and I'm all alone, and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think - 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero."</i>

Then there was Angel. If Buffy got me through being an awkward teenager, Angel got me through being an awkward adult. (Though I've still not quite forgiven you for how things ended with Lorne. And I still can't watch the final episode. Once was enough; it's just too painful, even for you.)

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on violence in romantic comedies; I had a whole chapter on Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike. I love how things ended between Buffy and Angel; that she wasn't done baking yet. The acknowledgment that maybe it was okay to be on your own; that having Scoobies was enough, for now.

I wrote my master's thesis on teenage television, inspired by just how devoted I was to Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles. How wonderfully strange and giddy and dark it was. (And Veronica Mars, which can't help but owe a debt to the original perky blonde outsider trying to save her friends.)

What can I say about Firefly? The manqué promises of what could have been. Being a Browncoat. My friend Fliss made me a coffee mug with Nathan's picture on one side; the other reads, "I ♥ Captain Tightpants". It gives me joy every day.

It's not just the shows. It's that I made friends because of the shows. You meet fellow Buffy fanatics (and yes, I admit we can be scarily fanatical) and we know each other, because we know the Hellmouth. I saw Serenity for the first time with friends I had made because of Buffy. (They were the ones to pour gin down my throat afterwards, inconsolable at the loss of Wash.)

While on that subject – do you have to keep killing the ones I love? Couldn't Dr Horrible have just been a jolly little musical adventure? Wouldn't that have been nice? Quit breaking my heart, dude.

(I don't mean that. I've loved every hateful, horrible moment. The pain and the glory. Maybe Xander could have kept his eye, though. Aaargh.)

And, incidentally, when are we going to get a Serenity sequel? You can't stop the signal.

I pretty much signed up in support of Dollhouse the minute news of the project broke. I had my issues with the premise and I took a while to warm to it, but then, oh then. Man On the Street. You had me at "the third flower is green". Epitaph One was… I'm running out of superlatives. Season two hasn't arrived on UK terrestrial yet; I'm in mourning for the end already.

And……… can you stop making programmes for Fox, please?! It's hard enough that you kill the ones I love (even when you bring them back – The Gift isn't any less sad for Buffy's return); you let Fox kill everything, completely. This is what will happen when you sign up with Fox again: sure as I know anything, I know this – they will cancel it again. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make your shows... better. And I do not hold to that.

We want you to misbehave. We need you to misbehave. We need a show that, like Buffy, takes us through seven years of a universe. Gets deeper and deeper, creating its own mythology and weaving its way into our lives, until we don't realise we're quoting from it; it's just part of us, we're breathing it. I can't tell you how many times I say something, only to realise later why it seemed familiar, and much more quippy than anything I could come up with myself.

Buffy. Willow. Xander. Giles. Cordelia. Angel. Spike. Drusilla. Dawn. Anya. Joyce. Tara. Jonathan. Oz. Faith. D'Hoffryn. Oh, hell, even Andrew and Riley. Wesley. Fred. Gunn. Lorne. Harmony. Connor? Why not. Mal, Zoe, Wash, Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, River, Book. Echo, Boyd, Topher… fuck. You know I mean everyone. Every. One. I hope that the memory of our friendship will be everlasting.

Anyway. That's all I wanted to say when I stopped you in the street just now and chattered like a monkey. I just wanted to say, finally: thank you.

With love,
Harriet

I've made a few cuts to my friends list, on the basis of simply not having the time to keep up with it all: nothing personal, blah, blah, standard disclaimer here, but the boxes I've unticked (I refuse to say 'de-friended' because it's THE INTERNET) are simply journals I rarely exchange comments with or whatever. It's likely that said unticked journallers will never even notice.

Please don't do a Reg-from-The Bill over it!

Peace.

I know everyone just filled out a survey for me, but that was to pass my proposal.

This one is to go towards my actual project, etc, etc, blah blah blah, go fill it out. Puh-lease!

Thanks for voting, you guise!

My tutor loved the idea and I can present on Monday to the MA peeps with no major (or minor, for that matter!) changes to my proposal! Plus he's recommending I take it to publishers after I propose and see if I can sell it. Wouldn't that be cool? Then I can make lots of money and give up this life of crime.

Feel free to carry on voting and commenting and arguing about whether Veronica is awesome or a bitch (the correct answer being of course that she's awesome), and whether Party of Five was dull, or really dull! I can always use the poll results in my MA. Who said homework was as dull as Dawson? Not me! Nerds are still in, right?

Don't forget to keep voting in zooby's bracketology and make sure Buffy SLAUGHTERS EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!ONEONEONEONE! and head to swsa's bracketology also for celebrity OTP fun. Pete 'n' Kate 4evah!

Huh. This post looks like a 14-year-old wrote it. :o)