I first got into Buffy in about Grade 10, when my brother showed the series to me on DVD. We watched them together and I found I really took to the series. It was easy to connect to and I was the same age as the characters in the show so I found I was able to really relate to many of them.
I burned through both Buffy and Angel, and really, really enjoyed it. Angel was my favorite character and Bangel was the relationship I liked the best (even though I enjoyed almost all of them). I found that Buffy and Angel together struck a chord with me in large part because that type of passion and pure love is, corny as it sounds, something I've always wanted to find in my own life. It helped that I've had a huge thing for Buffy the character since the day I saw her. If I could design a perfect girlfriend, it would be Buffy Summers.
After I finished the series though, it kind of drifted to the back of my head I guess. I was watching Smallville at the same time and LOST right after high school ended, and both of those shows were really big for me, especially LOST. It was another show I found I was really able to identify with, and the ending helped me, not let go, but move on from some tough stuff in my own life.
I didn't really a show that felt that personal to me for a while after LOST ended. Smallville always had the nostalgia factor working for me, but I felt it drifted quality wise once Lex and Lana left.
About a 14 months ago, I decided to re-watch Buffy. I hadn't seen it, or Angel, in years and I was looking for something to do. I was saving every penny to get away to school by working two jobs, and things had been beyond horrible in my life in the previous year or so. Everything had just collapsed all around me. I just decided to watch Buffy again on a whim as a distraction.
And without question, that show, and Angel, just saved me. I'd forgotten a lot about both series, so they were basically new to me again. I found I liked it way, way more than the first time around. It became a therapy, that's the best way I can describe it. Buffy became my favorite character of all time, and more than just that, she and Angel became like role models to me in a way, much more than before. I know they're fictional characters, but I came to a bit of a realization that, real or not, these are the people I really admire, and want to be like. I have a few other characters like that from other shows (namely Robb Stark, from Game of Thrones), but I can't think of anyone I'd want to be like more than Buffy and Angel.
I've been beyond hooked ever since. I'm constantly re-watching both series and about two months ago I got a tattoo under my right shoulder which is a combination of Buffy, Angel and Game of Thrones (as soon as my tech skills catch up to everyone else on the planet, I'll upload it on here). It's kind of hard to explain, but Buffy and Angel has made my life better. I still have problems of course, everyone does, but even the big ones are easier to bear and deal with now. I have no shame in saying that Buffy and Angel gave me the tools to do that.
My favorite characters haven't changed all that much (still in love with Buffy 😀), but what the show means to me has. If I can narrow it down to one instance, it was Angel's line in "Deep Down", which is part of my tattoo: "We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be". No doubt, that line changed my life.
