#buffy summers deserved better

[buffysummers]

Ranking Buffy Summers' hair evolution (as voted by my followers) 9/11

[ptieuca]

In 243 years, I've loved exactly one person. I loved him more than I will ever love anything in this life.

[raisedbythetv89]

Willow getting treated with such tenderness and support after losing tara and her “magic addiction” because she committed violence against others vs Buffy who got NOTHING after losing angel twice, her mom, her own life and then life in heaven just to battle severe depression and capitalism as well as demons because the only violence she was committing was against herself with her own self hatred (shown in her relationship w/ both shadows faith and spike) doesn’t at all drive me to the ends of my sanity not even a little 😃👍🏻

[greensaplinggrace]

the fact of the matter is that buffy ends up isolated no matter what the scoobies do because she bears the burden of the slayer alone at the end of the day and nothing can change that. the problem with this isn't that she's separate from them, it's that they don't want to acknowledge that she is, and in doing so they drive a wedge between them that just grows and grows. the best thing about spike is that he's similar enough to this other side of buffy to understand it and her by extension. he is the only person around who can support that side of her.

most of buffy's issues in season six stem from the scoobies rejecting a part of buffy that spike accepts. and this shame she feels for her reliance on spike and the presence of this darkness and isolation she cannot avoid is largely because of them. i'm sick of this bizarre assumption that pointing out where the scoobies go wrong in their relationship with buffy somehow equals an uncritical uplifting of spike. just because he understands her and represents a certain aspect of her doesn't mean he doesn't fuck up. i mean that's kind of the whole point of their season six dynamic. one of his biggest issues is that he thinks he's helping her by enabling her completely because he doesn't have the ability to properly identify the line between self acceptance and self destruction - pursuit of the id is one of his biggest character traits. that's what makes the end of season six and his decision to get the soul so interesting (although of course there's just as much i can say about the narrative framing of that in regards to lore consistency and the story's obsession with angel, but that's a whole other thing).

point is, the scoobies cannot understand all of buffy, and when they refuse to acknowledge this they destroy their chances of building any bridges to even a simple relationship with that other side of buffy or helping her carry that burden in any way. meanwhile, spike is in the proper position to understand buffy as the slayer and hold his own with her in such a way, but his definition of love is wholly obsessive and destructive. while i disagree that he's incapable of love and even of loving selflessly without his soul, i think spike's version of love in particular is self destructive in a way that enables buffy's own desire to hurt herself through hurting him (see the aforementioned shame regarding her shadow self). spike cannot identify why allowing buffy to give in to her dark side in such a way is bad because he struggles to understand how she could use this to resent herself - although i do think he realizes it's happening on some level.

spike is also buffy's only form of catharsis and the only one that actually listens to what she is saying during a time when everybody else is dismissing her because of the aforementioned inability to understand her as the slayer. it's a clusterfuck - and a clusterfuck that needed to be shattered with a hammer for any kind of relief. and quite frankly to disregard the scoobies' own part in this situation does a disservice to buffy as a character. to be honest, she deserves fucking better than what everyone in her life gives her, especially the scoobies, who grow to take her for granted and feel entitled to controlling her life as a way of keeping her conformed - again, due to the aforementioned lack of desire to acknowledge this other part of her that they cannot connect with.

which leads to season seven, where spike is the only person on the show who has developed and changed enough to remain at buffy's side helping her carry the burden. while everyone else suffered during season six, none of them opened their eyes to what they were doing to buffy - and if they did, none of them acted on it. spike is the only one to acknowledge the damage he's done and work to become better for buffy in any way he can. he is the only one that ends up able to carry that burden with her because he is the only one capable of facing the truth and acting on his desire to do better.

the fucking problem isn't that he hurt buffy - because to be quite frank everybody did - it's that he's the only person on the whole damn show to acknowledge his place in buffy's life, and to acknowledge the burdens she bears, and actively change himself for her. did you know he has almost all of the genuine apologies in the entire show? seven seasons and all of the harm the scoobies cause buffy, and it's fucking spike that is acting like a mature person capable of being a proper partner.

[hello-nichya-here]

Every now and then I just remember how Riley was painted as the victim in his relationship with Buffy and it just makes me so mad. The writers keep telling us that she didn't appreciate him and his way of loving her, but we are SHOWN that it was actually the other way around.

Buffy was not perfect, and it's clear she first got attached to Riley because he was a normal dude and she very much needed something in her life to be normal - but when it turned out he also had a secret life, that he was also the "hero" of his group, she accept it. She continued to like him. She still wanted him around.

Riley meanwhile seemed to resent her for being the slayer, for being stronger than him, for having other stuff going on in her life, for having dated/being the object of affection of guys that were stronger than him.

His insecurity is ridiculous. He was literally willing to die just to be a very strong, but also very dead guy, instead of being a completely healthy dude with the strength of a regular dude. He even acts like him not being able to beat Buffy in a fight, even with the "power up" is what is causing her to be "distant" sometimes, not the fact that, like he said himself, she needs to prevent the end of the world every other week and that's kinda stressful and takes a lot of her free time.

He also complains about her asking him to take care of her younger sister, the most important thing in the world to her, so she doesn't have to worry about that while out killing vampires and demons - and he thinks of that as her "not letting her be useful", and then complains again when she gives him a bullshit role in the whole "stopping the doom of all of humanity", even though he just refused the thing that would make him actually useful. He also conveniently forgets things like Buffy asking HIM specifically to take care of her after she was wounded in a fight. He doesn't see any of that as her truly including him in her life and full on needing him like he wants her to - because it's not in the way that allows him to pretend he is THE hero, not the hero's boyfriend. Being important TO her doesn't actually matter, what he really wants is to feel superior, to be more important than her.

And even outside of the Slayer stuff: this dude really heard that his girlfriend's mother was potentially dying, and instead of thinking of how he can be there for her (something he CLAIMS he wants to do) all he can think about is "Why didn't she immediately call me? Why did she tell Spike first?" (I'm a spuffy fan, but come on, she only told Spike because he just happened to show up at the very second she was ready to open up about it and just needed a shoulder to cry on). Everything, even his girlfriend's struggle with the possibility of her parent dying and her needing to step up as a parent to her sibling, needs to be about HIM, his feelings, his wants and needs.

The fucker even has the nerve to cheat on her during all of this. Compare that to Angel going to Sunnydale to give her emotional support after Joyce died, or Spike comforting her before even knowing WHY she was crying and then sending flowers without a card to honor her mom and offer Buffy some compassion, but without disrespecting her very explicit "stay away from me, Spike." It's very clear which of these three guys never actually cared about her, even a little bit.

Hell, Riley is 100% sure that the only way for Buffy to "prove" her love is to suffer for him. Her sister tells him "I like you much more than her ex, you would never break her heart like he did" - and somehow, he doesn't take that as "Buffy and her family fully trust that I'm a good guy that would never do anything to hurt her" (something Buffy herself says to Angel's face in his show) but rather as a "Nothing I do would ever hurt her because she doesn't actually love me the way she loved Angel."

Not to mention: his assumption that Buffy was only ever attracted to Angel because he was a vampire, and thus any other vampire like Draculla or Spike could easily steal her from him, just shows how much he didn't understand her at all.

Buffy started crushing on Angel thinking he was just a normal human that knew about the supernatural and wanted to fight the good fight. She didn't find out about him being a vampire until he lost control for a second and went vamp-face after their first kiss, and it freaked her out.

She fangirled for a second meeting Dracula, but man, come on, OF COURSE the slayer will be excited to see the most popular vampire ever, and she was more than willing to kill him. The whole reason there were any flirty vibes between them was because the dude had literal mind-control powers.

Spike is the closest Buffy ever got to "dating a vampire because he is a vampire" and that was because she was literally craving death. Even then, she was horrified at her own attraction to him, AND there was a different side to their relationship, with Buffy liking Spike because he was the one person that wasn't disappointed and resenting her for being depressed.

For fuck's sake, she had a thing for PLENTY of normal guys - RILEY VERY MUCH INCLUDED!

He was the one that only cared about "who is stronger" and kept insisting that Buffy was the same even after overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

And for the show to then make HER go after him, make HER all sad when he is dating someone else, make one of her closest friends blame HER for everything that went wrong in their relationship, and then make HER basically claim he was right with bullshit lines like "I wasn't there for him like I was for Angel" is ridiculous - specially when, again, what made Buffy want to be with Riley in the first place was her trying to not fall into another unhealthy relationship like the one she had with Angel. They were codependent and when he left it nearly destroyed her. OF COURSE she's gonna try not being as obsessed with the next boyfriend (or with the one after him) because she knows that shit doesn't end well.

Again, say what will about both Angel and Spike, but at least Angel walked away after realizing their relationship was a dead-end that would never make Buffy truly happy, and Spike put himself through hellish torture to get his soul back and make sure he'd be a better man who would never make Buffy suffer.

RILEY being framed as "the perfect guy Buffy couldn't appreciate and let get away" is just insulting. Of all the guys Buffy has ever been with, he is the one that deserved her the least.

[theseandi]

rewatching btvs and getting to season 3 which means remembering the extremely complex similarities and yet duality of buffy and faith and it makes me want to cry but also scream and tear my hair out

[theoverlookedoneedits1997]

Dawn Summers is THE representation for emotional teenage girls and I love her

[nestaenthusiast]

Whenever I think back to Btvs s1 Finale and Buffy’s white dress I always got the ick cause Buffy totally could’ve just changed into something more comfortable and I never understood why she didn’t. But I always brushed it aside because Btvs is camp and I love it.

But I read a post somewhere where it said Buffy was dressing up to die and I was like HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT!!!

Like that is so Buffy and so girl of her!! She really was dressing up to die!! And she kinda always is?? She almost always looks good while fighting but during that episode it was the death of her childhood and her actual death so she said I’m gonna wear my prom dress while I die and look good while doing it. She was gonna grasp at any shred of her youth while she gave it up.

[nevergonnabemuchmorethanweather]

It's actually pretty funny (funny stupid, not funny ha-ha) Giles left Buffy in s6 because he felt she was too dependent on him. As Buffy has shown again and again she already knew how to be independent and self-reliant (Walsh even said it herself), she was just so destroyed emotionally at that point she didn't know who else to turn to.

Oh, it's so much worse than that.

At the beginning of season 4, Giles tells Buffy she's an adult now and needs to be more independent. At the end of that same season, he throws a drunken tantrum because Spike points out that he's not in charge, Buffy is-- particularly pathetic, considering Buffy was calling most of the shots from season 2 at the absolute latest, and Spike at least had to lie to get the two nineteen year olds to act as ridiculous and childish as he did.

In season 5, Giles is thinking about leaving because Buffy doesn't need him anymore, but stays because she asks him to help her train more and go deeper into what being The Slayer really means. Then he does leave when she dies, leaving the Hellmouth and a deeply traumatized fifteen year old girl-- who was also the person Buffy loved most in the world-- to the care of a floundering group of twenty year olds, a lovesick vampire and a robot. But, you know, they can call him if they need him or whatever, and Buffy didn't specifically tell him to be the adult in her absence, so totally not an insanely selfish and irresponsible thing to do!

Then he comes back in season 6 because obviously Buffy will need him after being brought back to life, right? But then apparently she was supposed to stop needing him within just a few months and be not only fully recovered from her own death, but ready to be a completely independent homeowner and single mother to a teenager at twenty years old-- while also slaying and saving the world and all that.

In season 7 he tells her she needs to take charge and be a General-- until he doesn't like her decisions and actively undermines her, then participates in throwing her out of her own house.

This is what I meant by emotional cowardice and immaturity. Rather than face his own mid-life crisis, regrets and feelings of inadequacy, he pushes it all off onto Buffy. He's not running from his problems! Chronically dodging real responsibility? Not wise old Giles! Being a petty little bitch rather than face his emotions? Never! No, no, Buffy is the problem. If she would just find a way to be completely independent but also defer to him at all times, he wouldn't need to do these things.

I don't think I'll ever have it in me to truly dislike Giles as a character, and all this is part of what makes him interesting. He's not inherently good, and also nowhere near as wise or put together as he likes to pretend he is. He's a mess of a man, but he usually comes through in the end anyway, and is ultimately a force for good in the world when he could have just as easily become another Ethan-- and probably a much more effective one.

I do, however, often want to reach through the screen and slap the stupid out of him.

Thanks for the ask!

[juanabaloo]

There's something that always hits hard about these shows with teenagers, and for me teenage girls. You're watching. You get into it, you relate to them. You see them struggle, ofc they go through some shit bc it's a show. But they still have these moments right? Where they're just being themselves, aside from the struggle, or sometimes bc of the struggle. And it's like a cafeteria tray to the face, they were just kids. THEY WERE JUST KIDS.

And then I remember my own shit, my own time back then. And I've never been a vampire slayer or a witch or had to save the world or had to resort to cannibalism or had to murder an ex or stabbed my friend/enemy/crush in the gut with an actual knife or been stranded in the wilderness with my soccer team - but we all had shit right? We all went through some shit. And then FUCK, it's a metal chair to the face. WE WERE JUST KIDS. I WAS JUST A KID.

We were all just doing the best we could back then. We had our pre-existing trauma and family bullshit and we somehow stumbled through it and made it out alive.

So BRAVO to all of us. I mean it. CONGRATULATIONS! We were just kids, we were just fucking kids, and we made it, we did it. We survived!!!

In the words of Tenoch Huerta, talking about the little brown kids who don't see themselves represented, that only felt negative judgment... "pero vamos a empezar a sanar." (but we're going to begin to heal.)

[emmy-bue]

Buffy Summers is a better person then me bc if my friends resurrected me just to hand my visibly traumatized and suicidal self a stack of bills they didn’t pay I would beat their ass possibly to death

[stiney]

If they wanted us to ship Buffy with Riley they shouldn’t have named the ship Byely

[reyofluke-ocs]

OCs DESERVE BETTER -> Liam Summers (Buffy: the Vampire Slayer) FC: Alexander Calvert "Time travel, dimension hopping? Regular old Tuesday for my family. Gotta admit, it is weird seeing you guys so... young."

Half vampire, half Slayer, Liam Summers has been referred to as many things: abomination, miracle, thing. Once created, matter cannot be destroyed, and the missing day results in years down the road in baby Liam being born to one Buffy Summers and Angel. Growing up, Liam became used to the whispers about him from various members of the supernatural community. Vampires, demons, Watchers, Slayers... all see him as an abomination. Witches all have an interest in what unique properties and spells his blood or hair could create. The only ones who treat him normally are his parents and the Scoobies.

Being kidnapped by the latest Big Bad is almost run of the mill for Liam, but what he's not expecting is to get tossed into a random portal... a portal that takes Liam decades into the past, when the original Sunnydale still stood. While trying to find a way back to his correct timeline, Liam figures it wouldn't hurt to try and assist his mother and the Scoobies... only for it to backfire spectacularly when the group catches on to his weirdness.

tagging:@endless-oc-creations@stanshollaand, @foxesandmagic, @hiddenqveendom, @arrthurpendragon, @cas-verse, @eddiemunscns, @far-shores, if anyone wants to be added/removed or I accidentally forgot, please let me know!

[raisedbythetv89]

I hate all of this “well he was Buffy’s first love!” talk when discussing how much pain and devastation Angel caused in Buffy’s life as if for women our first loves MUST be horrible and painful always???? As if it was unavoidable anyway so let’s not be too critical of him.

First off, HE LITERALLY WASNT EVEN HER FIRST LOVE

The show acknowledges what happens in the movie so canonically what happened in the movie happened to tv show Buffy INCLUDING HER RELATIONSHIP. ANGEL WAS NOT HER FIRST LOVE.

Angel was just the first guy who stalked and targeted Buffy when she was at her most vulnerable and continued to constantly lie and manipulate her for his own selfish gains only to toss her aside once she no longer served her original purpose while continuing to lead her on and show up in her life every time she tried to move on and THAT is why it was so painful!!!

STOP NORMALIZING THE PAIN CAUSED BY ABUSE AND MANIPULATION AS THE SAME THING AS REGULAR HEARTBREAK IN NORMAL RELATIONSHIPS.

I did not have a good childhood, my parents had a horrible divorce when I was 7 and I had never seen a healthy relationship modeled IN MY LIFE - AND YET - my first serious relationship when I was 16 while it definitely had it problems like all young love does (his friends didn’t like how much time he spent with me and his mom both hated me for “taking her son away” but also loved me because she wanted a daughter so badly but only had sons - she was insane lol and we were both teenagers who made stupid teenager mistakes) he was with me for 3 1/2 years and absolutely would have married me if that was what I had wanted.

He would sneak out to see me when I was sad despite his strict parents, always bought me lunch because I would eat what I was sent to school with by 10 AM because I was STARVING because I had an almond mom who never fed either of us enough. Would happily listen to me rant about the twilight books as I read them during that whole phase, WROTE ME A SONG for my birthday (he was actually a talented musician and works as a sound engineer and music producer now) and basically just spent every second he could either with me or talking to me when we were apart. He loved taking me on dates and writing me love notes and we just laughed all the time. He was my best friend as well as my boyfriend and ending that relationship because I had outgrown him was SO PAINFUL because he loved me so much and even during the break up - which I handled HORRIBLY - he was kind and even gave me the birthday present he had bought me because he wanted me to have it even though it was still months away. (I say all of this to try and just show first loves CAN be more than just pain and devastation and if it isn’t making you happy a minimum 80% of the time and you instead just feel sad and confused THAT IS NOT NORMAL AND YOU DESERVE BETTER 🩷)

I know good experiences are not the case for everyone when it comes to first relationships and that’s awful and is not fair because young love SHOULD be innocent and naive. Just two idiots in love who have no clue what they’re doing but just happy to be around each other no matter what they’re doing (like what willow got to experience with Oz in high school) and Angel robbed Buffy of those experiences. He broke her trust of other people and in love and her trust in HERSELF - that’s not her “first love” that’s her first abusive relationship and calling it “her first love” or worse “her soulmate” only serves the patriarchy and harms little girls everywhere who grow up not knowing to look for or expect better because everyone around them and society is telling them “your first experiences with love and sex will be awful and painful and there’s no escaping it” when that is just NOT TRUE at all, especially if you date someone age appropriate in high school. Angel is the first older “man” she dated and like all older men with high school girls do, he took advantage of that imbalance in power in literally every way possible and I will despise that whiney little bitch until the end of time for that and wish he would have just stayed trapped in that hell dimension until the end of time as it is what he deserves.

“True love” doesn’t require severe pain and tears for it to be deep or meaningful. Don’t believe the lies terrible men like jw and so many others feed us.

[variousqueerthings]

the "buffy runs away and then everyone's a dick when she comes back" narrative is even worse for her than I remember, because I'd forgotten that

her mum throws her out of the house for "coming out as a slayer"

xander omits telling her that willow is attempting to get angel's soul back

she's expelled and told she has no future essentially

never mind buffy having a trauma reaction and having gone through some general shit and them reacting to it by being awful, but man. all of this! on top of that!

[jennifersminds]

buffy summers my beloved