I need guidance. I need a model of behavior, a standard, a map through the forest. And I need more witty quips that I can use on people that I don’t like. I need Buffy.
Buffy wasn’t always sure she’d make it to her twenties. Truth be told, I wasn’t always so sure either. There was a strange synchronicity at times between the show and my life, like Buffy’s period of depression and my own. It gave me strength to know that this hero could be as fallible and vulnerable as me—maybe I could be as strong as her, too. Buffy taught me a lot while I was growing up. Not just the character herself, but the whole gang, the show, the message.
Since then I’ve always been mindful of the lessons I learned and the examples I was given during those seven seasons, and I’ve tried my damnedest to conduct myself accordingly. Help people that can’t help themselves. Protect them, if you can. When faced with a challenge, stand up, look it in the eye, and say something cool. Never give up, even if you’ve just been stabbed clean through the gut. And if someone gives you trouble, toss ’em through a skylight. That should do the trick.
So, here I am, about to turn twenty-five. Buffy and I are pretty much the same age now. Graduating into a global recession threw me for a hell of a loop. Like Buffy at the end of Season 8, I found myself underemployed and existentially adrift. The future was obscured, rubbed right out of my line of sight. I didn’t have a plan for this, this thing I suddenly had to do: grow up.
What I’m most looking forward to in Season 9 is seeing how Buffy navigates this new chapter in both our lives—adulthood. Real, mundane, nonapocalyptic (well, that’s debatable). I’m eager. I can’t wait to spend more time with my friend, my mentor, my fashion icon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know that I’m still “cookie dough,” and I think she is, too.
So, Buff, what are we gonna do now?
—Daniel Sheldrick