#btvs memories

[vamptvgirl]

[greensaplinggrace]

spike without his memories just absolutely convinced he has a soul is so fucking funny. lamest vampire in existence

[liam-summers]

Soulmates + their one (1) shared brain cell fighting for its life while under a spell

[pzyii]

i love dawn and willows relationship like- so much. So honestly one of the things i spend most time thinking about is like times theyve bonded in the fake memories.

you want examples? well, i will provide:

the first time they met. willow is over at buffys house for the first time. she has no clue buffy has a sister cause buffys embarrassed. dawn has heard all about willow cause buffy thinks willow is fucking awsome. dawn pretty instanly very much agrees. Willow eats dinner at the summers, the whole family is bickering and apologises for it but willow being used to quiet and cold or just lonley dinners adores it.

Halloween in s2. Joyce is out of town (like in canon) and buffy sure as hell doesnt want to take dawn. and joyce doesnt want her with a stranger so willow offers to take her with the rest of her kids. Dawn who hasnt hit her growth spurt can wear the same costume as last year(a witch) and stays herself the whole night. When willow leaves the group to talk to giles she puts dawn in charge to make sure no one gets themselves or anyone else killed, her included. cause with slayer princess, shooty xander and cordelia, shes the most reliable and she knows dawn can be responsible if it calls for it, sometimes. Dawn loves willow more than ever and when its all over she quietly admits she was terrified and willow says she did wonderfully.

the end of s2. dawn is staying over at the hospital while willow is in her coma (and that way misses buffy and joyces fight). Shes as terrified as the rest. shes there when willow does her first spell, she thinks its so much cooler than being a slayer.

between season 2 and 3. joyce is depressed and spending alomst all her time looking for buffy. willow is guilty cause she thinks she failed the soul spell, and therefore caused buffy running away. she comes over with cookies and realises dawn is kinda being neglected, so she offers to babysit. Joyce appreciates it a lot. willow thinks its nice too, takes her mind of her guilt and this way she can get out of her empty house and almost pretend she has a family.(she does, the scoobies, dawn and joyce included, but like yk what i mean, normal family)

gingerbread. MOO never tried to kill dawn but they stopped her from interfering and kept her close saying stuff like "were doing this for you, the children". She doesnt talk to her mom to at least a week and when she bumps into Sheila in the street she spits on her.

[herefortheships]

Buffy has totally ruined me for any other show. Because in Buffy there are consequences to things. And I feel like few shows actually give the characters lasting, realistic consequences to things that they have to deal with. It's all a rush to solve everything before they have to move on to the next season's plot.

In Buffy, for example, when Willow went Dark Witch and almost killed everyone and destroyed everything, she had to deal with the consequences next season. Her character is affected in a very tangible way by what happened. And so are all the other characters around her, with regards to her. And they all have to get used to each other again and work through it. The show dedicates time to deal with what happened and for the characters to get through it. Because it matters! It matters to the character arcs, to the story, and to the viewers! We WANT to see the consequences and the aftermath and how characters are dealing with things! Not only because that's where the "juice" is in the show, but also because it helps us deal with our own shit in some way. Like, it's cathartic, I guess.

We want to see the aftermath, because it was a very dramatic, huge thing that happened and we want to see the characters recovering from it; we don't want the show to skip over it.

Then there are other shows where the characters deal with massive, insanely dark things, and then next season they're totally over it because that's last season's plot... It's like they can't "dwell" on last season's plot except for a throwaway line or two because they have to move on to the next big bad...

No! I want to see how it affected the characters!! Don't you see that's where the juice is?? I WANT to see how the characters are dealing and getting through what happened! I want to see consequences and how characters heal!! I want to see them changed by their experiences for better or worse.

Yeah. Buffy totally made me expect other shows to give that kind of attention to detail to their characters and their personal arcs.

[rainsongdean]

ANYA JENKINS & RUPERT GILES | BTVS

—"and i feel compelled to take some vengeance on you!" "ow! god, no wonder i'm leaving you!"

[raven--stag]

God Buffy is pissing me off!!! Ooooo Spike is so bad oooo a vampire a demon A THING(!!!) I shouldn't want to fuck him mee-mee-mee

Like, bitch?? He's hot, get over it!

Also the fact that at the beginning of season 6 she was all buddy-buddy with him and then randomly started behaving like an asshole makes no! damn! sense!

As a side note: this rant isn't about me being upset on spike's behalf because he bewitched me body and soul in fact it's not about him at all. It's about me not understanding Buffy and her motives because the writing is kind of strange and silly. It doesn’t really match her character development imo? I feel like at this point she should be a bit more mature🤷‍♀️

[secretsofthewilde]

Sexual intimacy in seasons 1-3 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - continued

@girl4music asked me to write a section on Willow, so here is my very quick initial look into Willow's relationship with sexual intimacy in the first three seasons of Buffy. okay wow this ended up much longer than intended

The original post with my points briefly covering Buffy, Faith, and Cordelia is here (x).

Willow Rosenburg

As I touched upon in my actual essay, I think that the introduction of Tara marks a difference in how gender norms come into play in the depictions of sexual intimacy in the show. For this section, as with the others, I am going to be sticking to the first three and how they depict Willow's relationships.

When first introduced to Willow she is a shy and often meek character, who we know has a heart of gold and are supposed to sympathetic towards. Comparatively to Buffy and Cordelia, Willow could be seen as the true "good girl" of the Scooby for the most part. While she attempts to emulate Buffy's confidence or more risk taking tendencies, when it comes to her role in relationships in the first two seasons she still defaults to gendered stereotypes for the most part.

Upon the very first episode of the show we are introduced to her as having an unrequited and rather hopeless crush on Xander. Despite the fact that it's puppy love she feels for him, we are meant to still view her love for him as pure and good. When Buffy urges her to try seize the day in those first episodes, she then decides to go against her heart and goes out with a boy she just met at the Bronze, who is then of course revealed to be a vampire. This first attempt of Willow's to seek an intimate relationship is one she is punished for (though it may not stick out to us, it is an important moment for her), because it doesn't have the emotional connection that the show requires of it's female characters to have.

I'm not going to get into Moloch (the demon that possesses a computer) too much, but I will just quickly say I think that an argument could be made that the relationship between them was punishing Willow for attempting to form a relationship with someone through means that went against the norm for teenage girls at the time. Obviously the key theme of that episode is a sort of 'Online Stranger Danger' but at the same time it's interesting that Willow's key strength (the supposedly feminist aspect of her early character) lies in her computer skills in these early seasons, but she is unable to use those skills in order to establish an intimate relationship.

Her relationship with Oz is arguably presented as the most healthy of the Scoobys' relationships at this time. He respects her and routinely informs her that he doesn't want her to feel the need to change herself or present a certain way in order for him to remain interested in her. His more mellow personality and constant praise towards Willow often makes us forget the dominating traits he has in the relationship - i.e. his age, experience, and the fact that he is a werewolf. I also think it's interesting to note that due to his werewolf status that we see her falling into a more submissive feminine lover role; she is a beauty who loves the beast and believes that the power of her love is strong enough to perhaps tame him one day. When she does initially attempt to initiate sex into their relationship, Oz rebuffs it, suggesting that they take their time with introducing sexual intimacy, as he believes she is primarily initiating it out of her personal insecurity at her lack of experience. He primarily makes the decisions in how they move forward in their relationship, but because we know that Willow is intellectually superior to many of her peers and Oz presents himself as not at all domineering, we don't question whether it's right for him to speak for her as to whether she really feels ready to have sex yet. 

When it comes to Willow and Xander cheating on their respective partners for one another... I'm not going to rewatch that story line just for this post, so this will be based off of my memory (about a year a two since I've last rewatched). While we are made to understand that Xander and Willow are both in the wrong for their emotional affair, the show does constantly remind us that Willow has held love for Xander for several years and in doing so it tries to make us more sympathetic towards her actions. While Willow is (from my memory at least) the one who initiates and pushes them to continue their behavior, she is the one the show expects us to be forgiving towards. This brief dominance she displays with Xander breaks her usual passiveness and in doing so also appears to be playing against gender roles in their relationship. However, when the pair are caught kissing by their respective partners they quickly revert to their expected roles; Willow becomes a passive and submissive partner to Oz again, wracked by the guilt of her actions and wanting to repent. While she isn't granted instant forgiveness by Oz, it's relatively quick that the two resolve their conflict and go back to being the Scooby's representation of a "good relationship". It is very interesting to note that the show forgives Willow for her cheating behavior, whereas it could be argued that Cordelia is punished for not forgiving Xander for his behavior. This reinforces the idea that Willow is supposed to be a passive participant in her relationship, as we see Cordelia, who refuses to do so, gets exiled from the Scooby gang and narratively punished.  

The first time that Willow has sex in the show is with Oz and it's one of the rare times we see sexual intimacy being portrayed as both loving and without punishment for the women during these early seasons. As Buffy and Angel's first time was presented as being a reflection of their love, so too is Willow and Oz's. One could argue that the show even rewards Willow for returning to Oz and submitting herself to him sexually. At the end of season three their relationship, the one which appears to fit gender roles, is the only one that remains. From this we can see that though Willow attempts to contest gender roles through the same strengths that grant her position in the Scooby gang, when it comes to relationships and intimacy she is often pushed into the role of being the token "good girl" of the group; even when she does navigate contesting this role, such as in the case of cheating with Xander or expressing the desire for sex casually, we will see her revert back into a more submissive characterization afterwards.  

To draw this all back to my original post; the female characters are able to challenge gender roles in many ways in the first three seasons, however this isn't extended to sex. Willow is allowed to desire sex and even enjoy it, however it is on the provision that she fulfills certain heteronormative conventions, or is at least perceived to do so during these times.

[beatriceeverytuesday-old]

The fact that Dawn Summers' favorite sandwich is salami + peanut butter (5x19) will never not be funny to me because the monks did that to her ON PURPOSE!!!!!!! Like why??

They were trying to create a human teenager and in so doing they gave her so many normal teenage qualities like an interest in keeping a diary, being moody, and a need to slam doors and act out and screech at an impossibly high pitch when she's upset which is all fine, totally normal teen behavior

But then they also decided she should be a kid who is gonna get bullied every day at lunch by eating weird sandwiches and liking anchovies on pizza (7x07). And on top of that they made her clumsy and socially awkward and fairly dorky with her mother/daughter book club membership and I swear Dawn thinks her best friend is Janice but she's actually closer to her own family and Buffy's friends and just??? She's already a key, is that not hard enough??

The monks went into create-a-sim and made Dawn Summers. THEY COULD HAVE MADE HER REMOTELY NORMAL AND CHOSE NOT TO I'M????? I mean to be fair she is made out of Buffy who also isn't at all remotely normal AND I adore Dawn exactly as she is and being "normal" is a stupid and overrated concept of course OF COURSE. Seriously, all the love for Dawn being her funky self but like the monks could've cut poor Dawnie a little slack I'm just saying. A hell god is looking for her they could at least make middle school surviveable

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Angel and Spike being in prophetic dreams of Buffy's, telling her "she has to know what to see," which of course has to do with important things she's dealing with at the time.

With Angel, it was how Jenny (moreso her family) was tied to him becoming Angelus again.

And in this season 5 classic comic, Dawn brings up this missing Slayer who, for whatever reason, was erased from history (Spike told her about this Slayer). The Scoobies at first just assumed said Slayer did something really bad to earn that fate, IIRC. Meanwhile, Buffy and the gang end up facing the above vampire. But of course through Buffy's dream with Spike, she starts to put together that the missing Slayer is this vampire, and that's why the Watcher's Council wanted the Slayer erased from history: because the knowledge that one of their Slayers had gotten turned into a vampire would be too shameful for them to bear (even though it, of course, wasn't her fault. Freaking Watcher's Council).

(In other news, "False Memories" is a really amazing comic and probably one of my favorites of the classic comics that I've read thus far. It also deals with some of Dawn's false memories that the monks gave her. And it was... just really epic, and felt like a missing episode of the show to me. And meeting another Slayer turned vampire, aside from Simone from the Buffy S8-S12 comics, and one from the Buffy tie-in books, was cool.)

[desicat-writer]

Dawn: so you're missing Drusilla.

Spike: what makes you say that?

Joyce: We found you in the park throwing rocks at couples.

Spike: WHY SHOULD THEY BE HAPPY

[smallboyonherbike]

@btvspolls :))

(i know this isn't comprehensive i'm doing this off the top of my head bc i can't sleep. pls feel free to re run this differently would love it)

[sokkarang]

I have a fucking flight tomorrow but I just watched The Wish and now I’m feral.

[pzyii]

Willow wore white (cottage core-y) clothes twice in s6, they have one particular thing in common...

[takaraphoenix]

Teen Wolf?

Thanks for playing!

favorite character: STILES STILES IS THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD

least favorite character: Kate. But special shout-out to Theo

brOTP: Allison and Lydia

OTP: Sterek. Sterek all the way there is no question this show is the Sterek Show. Shout-out to side-pairings I love: Scott/Allison, Boyd/Erica, Jackson/Lydia, Malia/Kira

OT3: Mh. Sterek and Steter in a "Stiles has two hands (and is Hale-catnip)" way? Which is. Very hard to come by in a non-incestuous way (no judgment. It's just. Not for me). I just generally don't multiship a lot in this fandom, it is very uniquely one where I care more about various platonic relationships than over romantic shipping

NOTP: Scott/Stiles. Theo/Stiles

favorite storyline: oh the Nogitsune all the fucking way. s3B is the most brilliant storyline it's just devastating that it was preceded by s3A

least favorite storyline: lol s6B what the fuck was that even man I hate it so much. Shout-out to s5 for being the second worse and for s4 and s3A for sucking equally though. Only half this show is watchable and that makes me miserable because I still love it

what I wish had happened but didn’t: tHE HALE PACK SHOULD HAVE LIVED. It literally would not have fucking hurt anything at all if Derek and his pack just got to STAY AROUND. Boyd and Erica living. Jackson not leaving. Derek keeping his Alpha spark. Cora not fucking off again. I just want my Hale Pack, man

what happened that I wish hadn’t: feels like I could just rephrase what I just said to put it here too. Additionally, honestly, s6B. Like, s6A fully ended on a photo-finish moment? And then they tagged another half season of ABSOLUTE bullshit on that was aggravating and exhausting. s6A was honestly... not that bad, I mean, it was better than s5 (which is just such a low bar lol like it was very hard to get worse and inexplicably they managed to do it by making s6B), they could have ended on an okay note

Fandom Ask Game!

[lightdancer1]

See the further irony is:

That in using 'Mall Goth Sauron' as the take on Dark Willow over 'misogynist has character randomly killed for LULZ' it also allows for greater accountability on the one hand and for Season 7 to thematically focus on repairing all this damage in the midst of facing an enemy of shadows reliant on lies to further itself. The only way to break the Druj is the absolute Truth in a very Zoroastrian sense. Characters don't get to neatly skip past accountability for their actions, and this would spiral over into further later seasons with the essential reality that in an otherwise lower-level setting this one random girl from California is a Dark Phoenix-tier reality warper and the most powerful person on the planet, or the universe.

And the questions of how that power could and should be employed on the one hand and that Willow is essentially a Doctor Strange type who beats up Gods and Eldritch Abominations for her regular line of work where her counterparts deal with the more 'street level' crises would in turn be the logical conclusion of where the show ends. She doesn't do as much physical fighting for the same reason that Stephen Strange never uses magic to go punch the Hulk in the face, her narrative role is ultimately that of Sorceress Supreme of Earth, with literally nobody in an ancient established war anticipating that this one random ginger from California was and is the new Sorceress Supreme and that if they had had such awareness the realities are that this power would and could have taken worse forms.

Unfortunately for the world, the reality too is that it is a shy computer geek who has a not at all subtle dark side and the usual teenage anxieties and insecurities given the equivalent of being able to reliably actually do things other people might dream of but can never do.

But again as long as Dawn Summers being a good thing is a narrative convention that's established memory magic is a poor choice to show the corrupting effects of reality-warping. It's a case of 'yes as established in canon all of this is true for that one season but then they decided to retcon it, so the fans are not obligated to care about it any more than the canon does about this itself.'