#but make no mistake Angelus does not HAVE to be Like That

[symbioticsimplicity]

The only way the soul lore works for me as a source of guilt is if vampires can choose *not* to be evil. If they're just mindless demons who take over a host's body after they die, it makes no sense to feel guilty about the actions taken after that.

The demon isn't a separate thing, the person is still who they were when they died, demons just don't have inhibitions. So whatever it is they *want*, they do. Whatever it is that is the core of that person wants most is what is exemplified most in their demon form.

So in Angel's case, the guilt comes from not only having wanted those things and having done them, but from *having had the option not to.*

[dreamcaught]

There have been so many of these posts, and what looks like an entire website pretty much dedicated to this topic, but nevertheless here I am adding to the mix.

Thoughts on Buffy Season 6, Sex and Seeing Red

This is long and only kind of edited. Content warning below.

CW: Discussions of abuse, addiction, and rape.

Let me just start out by saying: Spike is my favourite character in Buffy. I love him completely. He is contrary and interesting and if there is anything I would do to improve the show it would be to add more scenes with Spike. But, unlike a lot of Spike girlies – and especially many of my favourite fanon creators – I don’t think Spike is out-of-character in Seeing Red. There are some serious problems with it, but I think it’s an important scene.

My reason for saying this comes from the claim that Buffy and Willow are the main villains this season. Well, no, to be fair: in season 6, the main villains of the show are the internal villains within the characters, specifically Buffy and Willow, expressed through their actions of addiction and abuse. The Trio is a red herring Big Bad; they’re pretty much just there to provide laughs and move plot. They’re not like the Master, or Angelus, or Adam, or Glory – there isn’t ever a “gather the troops, we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands” attitude toward defeating them… because they’re just human people, making human mistakes and causing human havoc. (Much like how Buffy and Willow would be if they weren’t already saturated in the supernatural.)

Buffy and Willow’s stories run parallel in this season. They are both dealing with the aftermath of Buffy’s resurrection: Buffy is majorly depressed to the point that she feels essentially soulless, whereas Willow is guilty to such degree that the only way she knows how to cope with herself is through control and the overuse of magic.

Tangent about Sex Because That’s How I Roll:

Before we go further to discuss this, just, briefly, let’s take note that this show does not do justice to sex. In both cases, Buffy and Willow’s “addiction” is to, essentially, use sex like a drug to (sort of) feel, but more accurately numb themselves. Buffy’s use of Spike is blatant, but we must remember that Willow and Tara’s first prominent romantic/sexual connections were initially all linked to their use of magic.

It’s made clear that this idea of magic = sex between the two is continued even in season 6, as exemplified in the Once More with Feeling song Under Your Spell lines: “You make me complete,” which are cut off at the most deliciously appropriate time – and if you haven’t noticed that until I’ve pointed it out here, then well done, you!

Here there is a bit of a problem I have with the show’s messaging because it’s essentially saying that sex is bad. Tara asks Willow to stop using magic (yikes, imagine asking your lover to please stop sexing so much, babe, it’s bad for you) – and at the same time, in the parallel story, Buffy feels the need to hide her sexual tryst with Spike because it’s wrong to want to feel good.

I think it’s important to note that Buffy isn’t really upset about it being Spike, specifically. She makes a big deal of saying that he’s “everything she’s supposed to hate” and “soulless” and “evil,” but Buffy had every opportunity to have this affair with literally anyone else – in fact, she could have very easily gotten her rocks off with a different, random person every night, but chooses to use Spike. And here we can move back to the main points –

Miscommunication

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is abusive, but hardly for the reasons they make it appear on the show. At this point, Spike is a soulless demon. That he doesn’t just kill her as soon as he realizes that he can hurt her is a testament to how much he loves her, despite this. But, because he is a soulless demon, he does try to take advantage of Buffy’s attention to him by trying to convince her that she should be with him. He plays on her fears of being soulless/evil/demonic. Other than trying to persuade her to stay with him, this is the full extent of Spike’s abuse of Buffy.

At no point in their physical relationship does Spike ever abuse Buffy’s consent.

Between Spike and Buffy is a travesty of miscommunication. Need I say again: Spike is a soulless demon. From the moment he realizes his feelings toward Buffy, he is constantly trying to figure out what she needs from him, because he simply does not understand. (“What’s it take?”) He actively tries to learn what Buffy wants and how to respond to her desires. From their passionate kiss in Once More with Feeling: “The day you suss out what you do want, there'll probably be a parade,” to literally his last lines of the show, “No, you don’t,” Buffy and Spike’s communication is the worst!

And this is all Buffy’s fault, by the way! She absolutely, stubbornly, resolutely refuses to talk – to most people! It’s practically a miracle that Spike understands Buffy at all – and to that end, I truly, fully, completely believe that Spike is the best partner for Buffy, simply because he’s the only one who does.

Their first time together, Buffy is verbally telling him it’s never going to happen while at the same time ripping off his clothes. At nearly every encounter between them during their affair, Buffy says it will never happen again, it will be the last time, it was the worst thing ever. These are outright lies, and Spike learns through conditioning to see right through them. When she says “Stop,” he doesn’t have to stop – because that is not what she means. He learns through the complicated, complex, contrary Buffy Talk what she actually wants and then proceeds to give it to her.

Up to Seeing Red, Buffy’s consent has always sounded like: “No.”

Buffy the Villain

Buffy has chosen Spike as her lover because he already loves her. He is emotionally invested in their relationship. He takes care of her. (“I can get money.”) She can be herself with him. (“I can be alone with you here.”) She is safe with him. (“Dawn is safe with Spike, so I can stay as long as you need.”)

During their affair, Buffy takes everything that she’s feeling about herself out on Spike. She calls him soulless, she calls him nothing, she says he’s empty; she beats him up, she kicks him out, she refuses his affection and forces him to hide his own. Spike takes it because he is loyal and in love with her, and this is the extent that Buffy abuses him. She conditions him to think that she can’t love him, she conditions him to think that saying “No” means “Yes,” she conditions him to think that her abuse of him is kinky and will lead to sex.

Buffy’s goal is only to feel something. She wants Spike to take advantage because it makes things a lot easier for her to deal with. If she says “No,” that means that she’s tried to stop him, despite it not being what she really wants or expects of him.

Because of this abuse, in a very real way, Buffy is the one who destroys the safety that Spike represented. Her abuse of him corrodes their trust, but she doesn’t know that. Buffy, despite denying it or acknowledging it, still believes in Spike’s loyalty. And not only that – by this point, Buffy has fallen in love with him. The bathroom scene in Seeing Red happens, in part, because she’s pushed Spike too far – and she’s not ready to admit to anything, because she refuses to acknowledge that she was an abuser.

The events of Seeing Red are the culmination of Buffy’s actions with the complete absence of honest communication. It is because she tells Spike to move on that he sleeps with Anya. It is because she expected his loyalty that Dawn talks to Spike. It’s because she trained Spike to do the opposite of what she says that he tries to connect with her physically to make her happy.

It is because she refuses to acknowledge not only her abuse of him, but also her love for him, that he chooses to show her instead. Because Buffy doesn’t talk – she only acts, and that’s what Spike tries to do, in the way that she taught him – from the start of their affair to the explicit events in Gone, all the way to this scene, Buffy has told Spike that sex is how to get close to her.

The Bathroom Scene

A lot of people have been traumatized by this scene. It is very difficult to watch, since we’ve got these two beautifully complicated people trying so hard to communicate and failing so badly at it. Buffy, finally, is saying what she means, but Spike can’t hear it. Spike is, as he’s been taught to do, servicing her to show her his devotion. These two people are in love with each other but are deeply hurt. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy is hurt by Spike’s actions while he’s hurt by her words, since these are the languages they understand.

If done well, this scene could have been healing. They could have finally come together in grief of their broken relationship and tried to fix it to something healthier. But instead, they were using the scene to push Spike into getting a soul, so he had to go too far, and she had to say too much.

I don’t think that Spike is out of character. I think that both Spike and Buffy act exactly within their character consistencies. Spike would totally seek Buffy out if he thought she was hurting – especially if he had any hope at all that he was the cause of her hurt. Buffy would completely deny, deny, deny any emotional attachment to Spike and take no responsibility for having hurt him. She’s still stuck, here, projecting her own numbness onto Spike with the false idea that he can’t love because he’s soulless.

Because of the constant, completely screwed up ideologies within this show about sex (that sex is bad, that too much sex is bad, that kinky sex is wrong, etc.) and because of the cumulative events that arise from their abusive sex=closeness relationship, the only way they could think of to make it even worse was to escalate to rape.

I know why they did it, because it makes sense within the story of their physical affair. It’s The Worst Thing you can do to someone else. We have to remember that Buffy doesn’t care about being killed, because she sort of wants to die. Also, Spike would never want to kill her. The only other thing he might want to do is turn her, but, to Buffy, that’s the same thing as being killed. Since her belief is that a demon takes over the human host, she might even welcome being turned as much as she would welcome death.

But importantly: there is the significant and completely intentional reverse of their villainousness actions here. In this scene, Buffy can’t be the villain anymore. It doesn’t matter how much she’s abused Spike, it doesn’t matter that their relationship was murky and confusing. Because it is rape, the only villain is the person committing the act of rape.

Spike must be made the villain here because anything else is victim blaming. It was the only action the writers could take to give the title of villain back to Spike away from Buffy. Spike has to end this season being the Big Bad because he must absorb all the hurt, the pain and the soullessness that was entangled with Buffy and incorporate it into himself (“You think I like having you in here? Destroying everything that was me, until all that's left is you, in a dead shell. You say you hate it, but you won't leave.”)

He takes Buffy’s pain and heals them both by – after these events – getting his soul.

The Problem

The writing staff knew their characters (for the most part). They knew that Spike was soulless and needed something drastic to instigate his search of a soul. Hurting Buffy this way did make the most sense in the framework of their affair and in the framework of making sex akin to drugs. But attempted rape was too, too far for the viewers. Talking about sex is already difficult for society, especially at the time this show was made. Talking about and explicitly showing attempted rape caused trauma to viewers and made a lot of people turn away from the otherwise very beautifully complicated relationship between Buffy and Spike.

People against Spuffy use this scene as the ultimate fodder against Spike, but doing so is disrespectful to the story, the lore and the characters. Spike loved Buffy enough soulless, but she was only strong enough to accept that once he went out and got one. In addition to that – Buffy forgives Spike for what he did that day. She admits to her side of the abuse, acknowledges that what they had was real, and doesn’t blame Spike for his actions. This conversation exists in bits-and-pieces in the Buffy comics – it would have been incredible to see it on screen in season 7, but I guess by that point the writers didn’t want to bring it up again and had way too many other things to deal with (which is another topic altogether).

I like the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. I think it’s horrible, and raw, and terribly authentic. The portrayal of hurt and betrayal by both actors is one of the strongest scenes in the show. I do wish, though, that they hadn’t taken it quite so far.

My Problem

Season 6 of Buffy is my favourite season. It is powerful and painful. But, if I could change it, I would have changed the messaging that sex is bad, because it isn’t, and both Spike/Buffy and Willow/Tara deserved something better.

[armory-rasa]

Bazubands part 1: A LESSON IN HUMILITY 🤣

So one of my projects for the winter break was to make a set of bazubands made for myself -- a middle eastern armor piece that provides all-in-one wrist/forearm/elbow protection, and the easiest way to get the coverage required for SCA fighting. (My garb is viking, but such are the exigencies of modern safety standards, that fighters usually wind up with a mix of armor types.)

Anyway, I packed up the necessary tools and materials and took them with me when I went to visit my parents, which is why the backdrop for these pictures isn't my usual workshop.

Found a pattern on google, cut it out of 10-12 oz veg tan, traced/carved/tooled it:

(You can see why this is the easiest way to get elbow protection, it's WAY less fiddly than trying to do articulated plates around the joint.)

Soaked the elbow cop again (because it was starting to dry out by the time I was done tooling), rounded it out and stitched it up:

Dyed it black, in my parents' backyard:

(And if you use Angelus dyes, that's how you keep from spilling it -- the box has little perforations so that it can hold the bottle safely upright.)

WAX THAT MOTHERFUCKER:

It doesn't show in that picture, but I have a metal bowl of wax (jeweler's casting wax) melting on the stovetop. I alternate between brushing it onto the leather, which looks like the picture above, and then putting the leather in the oven at ~200F, at 10-20 minute intervals, until the wax soaks in. Repeat until the leather is fully saturated and does not absorb more wax. (This often takes hours, so find something else to multitask with.)

But when you're done -- ta da!

Your project will be thoroughly waterproof, very strong and hard, with a low lustre. It's functionally ABS plastic at this point.

The next step was padding, so I got some sheepskin and and fitted it to the inside:

(idk why it's so fucking orange, but the alternative was kind of a mint-mucus green. I think the orange is growing on me though.)

Time to pattern the other, simpler piece of the bazuband, because they're hinged to enclose your full arm:

(I couldn't do this earlier, and therefore do both pieces concurrently, because I had no idea how much bulk the padding was going to add to my arm. I suppose you could wrap your arm in padding when you're measuring at the start.)

Slapped a quick design on it:

(And carved & tooled it too, though I neglected to get pictures of that.)

And then--

DISASTER, MY FRIENDS.

I put it in the oven, and it lost its gd mind.

WHAT.

Seriously, just -- words do not do this abomination justice. o_O

LOOK AT IT.

Coming so close on the heels of the Khorasan pouch, which had turned out absolutely perfect and has been more widely shared and lauded than anything else I've posted, this was a humbling experience. 🤣 Like, yes you're good, Gabriel, but you're not immune to fucking up.

So what happened here? Why did the same leather as the bazubands, undergoing the exact same steps and processes, turn out like THIS?

I'd have to repeat the experiment to 100% confirm my theory, but I'm pretty sure the critical difference is that I was speed-running this one, and I didn't wait for the dye to fully dry before I started waxing it. It wound up with, essentially, wet leather hermetically encased in wax, and since the water didn't have anywhere to go, it did weird things to the structure of the leather fibers when it started heating up. And because I don't often work with wax, I had somehow never run into this situation before, and thus already learned that lesson.

Ah well.

It wasn't a huge amount of leather, and it was only like two hours of work, so I'm not that fussed about it. (More embarrassed than anything else, at what feels like a very rookie mistake -- and conscious that it could have been SO MUCH WORSE if that had happened to the larger bazuband pieces, which had a lot more time and materials sunk into them.)

Anyway, I'm going to tweak the pattern a bit, make it narrower at the wrist and a bit longer, and change the design to something that matches the dragon better -- and let it fully dry this time. 😂

[co-mixed]

Why Boom Still Can’t Get Buffy Right

My love for the Buffyverse is concrete but it has its limits. Yesterday I had a very unpleasant experience finishing yet another unimpressive Buffy run, courtesy of Boom Comics. It’s always disappointing to me because Buffyverse has so much potential and untold stories. It’s a goldmine that is constantly held back and simply can’t find its footing in the comics medium. Why is that? 

Boom’s been rather relentless in trying to make Buffy work. Several years and runs later, there’s still no big WOW story that can attract readers and viewers alike. Not just that, but even seasoned buffy fans don’t seem very interested in continuous attempts at rebooting the Slayer tale. You can blame the word reboot (it does tend to scare people) but the real reason is still Boom’s inability to deliver a good captivating story.

Boom had tried reinventing Buffy, sending her back to school, developing alternate realities and futures. But in every iteration, Buffy and the Scooby Gang were plagued with the same mistakes over and over again. 

Hey, I’m not sure what I am, so bear with me here 

The characters from Buffy are some of the most well-developed characters out there. Each one has a point of origin, a story, and a final form. We love them because we know them. And we know them extremely well. 

Let’s take the fan-favorite, Spike. We’ve seen his whole afterlife and even bits of his life. We know how he became William the Bloody, then Spike, a neutered vampire, and finally, an ensouled champion. We know how, and more importantly, we know why. 

I’d hate to throw in one more why but there is a reason Spike exists in the show, and we know it. 

When you read Boom comics, it feels like writers stick him into every arc just because they like him. He brings nothing to the story, he has no soul or chip yet chooses to join the scoobies. That does not look like the Spike we know. That guy was in s2-s4, not s5-s7. That’s the guy from School Hard or the one who got the Gem of Amara and happily marched to kill Buffy. 

But there’s nothing stronger than the author’s desire to make things ‘right’. Hence this spike lookalike joining the team every time. 

The funny part is, I can very well imagine a soulless chipless Spike who’s not a monster. If Dru sires him and never sees him again, if she never introduces him to Angelus, if he keeps on writing his bloody awful poetry only forever. He probably would’ve turned out like that poor librarian guy whose glasses Dru broke or like Harmony who still tried to be decent. But it’s the writer’s job to explain it, to write it into the story, not just throw a character into a book and see whether they swim or go down. They will always go down. 

Spike is only one of the issues here. In the show, both Kendra and Faith exist to show us the perfect (according to the council) and the fallen slayer. Two possible realities for Buffy. They have their own arcs (well, Faith does) but the show is strong because supporting characters serve a purpose. Just like the people we meet in real life always serve a purpose for us. You might believe that one character pushing the development of another is cruel, but that’s still how good stories are made. That’s still why Buffy is popular 20 years after the show’s finale. 

Kendra and Faith did that for Buffy in the show. In the Boom comics they just exist. They show up for no reason and they just hang around. You can take them out of the story and nothing will change. At one point in the initial reboot there were three slayers at the same time, and that felt more like a fix-it fanfic than a quality comic book. Unfortunately, some slayers have to die and some have to turn evil. Besides, without her rebellious personality, Faith is meaningless.

I have one more bone to pick. I know that Buffy and Angel (still the OTP of the show!) are a complicated matter to many modern writers. And readers, and viewers. There’s no place to hide from the creep factor and even though I will defend this ship till the day everyone finally agrees with me, I can’t deny its presence. But that doesn’t mean you get to discard this ship and separate Buffy and Angel into different books. One doesn’t exist or grow without the other. There is no Buffy in love with a vampire without Angel. There is only Vampire. Slayer. Dead vampire. 

Without Buffy, Angel is not in LA helping the helpless. He’s in New York eating low rats. Before trying to launch two separate books, how about Boom launches one good one, that provides background, even if revised and adapted to the modern days? 

I always worried what would happen when that b*tch got some funding

All this chaotic mess with the characters determines the stories Boom puts out. They tend to have an interesting start but by the time issue 3 comes out, it’s either Camazotz flying around Sunnydale, a giant crab taking over the main street, or whatever the hell Silas was (a soul eater?) Didn’t care for him much. Not even when we were evil. 

More often than not Boom writers suffer from the same disease that plagued Dark Horse comics – scale. Just because you can do anything doesn’t mean you should. Comics allow you to draw literally any kind of baddie but you are playing within a specific world, and suspense of disbelief only goes so far. Besides, in the show, it all grows gradually. You go from the Master to the First evil. In the comics… seriously, what the hell was Silas? 

From what I’ve read so far, Boom knows how to ask interesting questions: 

What if Buffy went to school today?

What if Willow took over as the slayer? 

What if Buffy was older? 

Those are all good what ifs but Boom has a problem following through. They don’t know the answer to this question and it feels like they’re making it up as they go along. If I’m being honest, it even feels like they wrote random ideas on pieces of paper, through them in a hat, and started pulling each time they hit a wall. 

Characters show up for now reason (hi, Tara from the latest run), they don’t feel like themselves, and the saddest part – none of it feels like you are getting your favorite show back. 

These characters deserve better than that. 

And there’s not a one who can say this ended well

At this point, I don’t know if Boom wants Buffy comics to succeed. I don’t mean to be this dramatic but every time someone mentions comics, fans think Dark Horse. Not because they are still considered canon, but because they had a connection to the beloved show. Boom comics don’t give you that, so you can’t look the other way when writers don’t deliver. It’s just how it works. 

I keep thinking what Boom can do to get out of this vicious circle. And I do believe there If they want to successfully play in the Buffyverse, they have to seriously up their game. It’s not impossible either. I mean, Something is Killing the Children is being released by the same studio. And what is that if not a more gruesome version of Buffy? So it’s not exactly magic. It’s doable. 

Personally, I still hold out hope that someone would dare explore the terrifying bloody past of the Whirlwind. Wouldn’t that be fun and gory? I’d like to see deep well-thought-through stories of past slayers. I’d happily read a well-illustrated comic run based on In Every Generation. And if we have to go back to Buffy variants, why not reinvent her story? But before we get to that, we’d have to work through every step of every character. Get them to where we want them, and start with a story that we want to tell, from start to finish. From her first day as a slayer to her last one (she didn’t have to empower the potentials after all).

That, of course, requires a lot of work. And if Boom isn’t ready to put in that kinda effort, they could just move from season 5, introduce a new slayer, and watch how her adventures unravel.  

Buffyverse is a hell of a property and there are too many stories waiting to be written. I’m probably still gonna give it a shot whenever Boom comes up with something new. I just hope I won’t have to write yet another long read complaining about it. 

[raisedbythetv89]

Just saw someone being judgmental towards Buffy and Buffy ALONE for victim blaming in the Beauty and the Beasts episode…..

GEE I WONDER WHY BUFFY WOULD CURRENTLY THINK EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO VICTIMS IS THEIR FAULT AND WAS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT

Calling out only ONE character in btvs for this behavior, and the one who is victim blamed herself the most is not the call out you think it is…. Like have you been paying attention AT ALL up to this point??? Do you only see the victim blaming when it’s that blatantly obvious???

Btvs has a SYSTEMIC victim blaming problem that obviously stems directly from jw himself as xander is also the biggest perpetrator of blaming Buffy for every single terrible thing that happens to or even AROUND her followed by Joyce, Riley and Faith. Anya, Cordy, and Spike’s (in season 4) are used less frequently to blame Buffy as well with joss pretending they are just being blunt and honest but it’s just furthering the “everything is Buffy’s fault” narrative and that is NEVER countered by the narrative or any of the other characters!!!! Occasionally Willow will advocate for not attacking Buffy or assigning blame but even that is rooted in her fear of conflict and wanting to keep the peace more often than it being about believing Buffy isn’t at fault and just defending her.

It’s not until season 6 and joss is less involved that we finally get Spike telling Buffy “it isn’t her fault” with Katrina and Tara forgiving her for both loving and using Spike and girlie has an entire mental breakdown both times because being forgiven and accepted instead of blamed for mistakes literally DOES NOT COMPUTE and she BEGS to be punished and told she’s wrong because she doesn’t know how to accept anything else because of her treatment at the hands of her “friends”, family and romantic partners for the last five years

Even in fiction we need to practice not just looking at a person’s problematic behavior on an individual level but within the context of the systems they live in and the community they are surrounded by.

If you’re genuinely shocked and confused the parentified slayer who has heard “one girl in all the world” more times than she can count, was blamed by her mother for “not making better choices and having better judgment” when she was the victim of a manipulative and predatory older man and feels responsible for all the harm and deaths ANGELUS caused just because she had sex once AND for having to send Angel to hell and therefore feels responsible for nursing him back to health as well you haven’t been paying attention to the actual dynamics at play or what’s been going on up to that point AT ALL.

[cobwebcorner]

If you don't mind me asking, how do you plan/structure your fics? Do you have an outline you stick to faithfully, or do you let the characters go where they want to go? How do you maintain a consistent plot over multiple stories while keeping them independent? How do you keep track of all the things going on in a single story, and how they interact? Your fics are always really well planned out and have tons of plot threads running through and I'm really curious as to what method you use to handle it.

Also in a similar writing advice vein, how do you maintain characterization, and even showcase it, in the middle of such plot-heavy stories? Most stories I read are either character-driven or plot driven, but yours address both yet also have them tie so well together and I just? Am really curious as to how you do it I guess.

Baby writer here struggling with plot, would absolutely appreciate any advice you could give.

sorry this took me a while to reply, the askbox didn't eat it it just took me time to get all my thoughts down coherently.

Plotting stories is a subject about which whole books have been written, and I don't pretend that I can cover everything in a single post, or even that I have that much useful advice. I can talk about how I approach it, but it might not work for everyone.

In Nano terms I'm what you'd call a 'plantser' -- half planning, half by the seat of my pants. Another metaphor I've seen used is a gardener growing plants up a trellis. I know where my series as a whole is heading, I have a few landmarks plotted out along an extremely bare bones outline, and I try to nudge my characters along the route as organically as possible. Full, detailed outlines just don't work for me because I get bored if everything is nailed down.

Usually I have a central idea/scene in mind when I start a fic, and then I get ideas for other scenes, and I get those down, and then it's all just filling in the middle bits. Outlining is mostly used in two situations: 1. for working out choreography in more complicated bits (like action scenes) 2. for quickly preserving my ideas when I don't have the time to sit down and write a scene out. All my outlines are really quick and dirty too. Here, I'll show you an excerpt of the outline for MaM:

An encounter of the BOW variety? “He gave it wings. Of course, he gave it wings.” “What is this guy's deal?” “I don't know, his parents had the poor taste to name him 'Angelus,' and things spiraled from there.” find angelus's bedroom Leon reads his diary Wesker is incredulous “Snooping's a bad habit,” he admitted. Why? I just want to understand. Even if it does nothing for you? so curious, leon

yeah that's how I outline. Half the time I don't have complete thoughts, just keywords to remind me of things and scraps of dialog.

I do not have a system of organization for keeping track of things. My fics manage the level of polish they have because of--wait for it, this is going to send everyone screaming--EDITING. Yup. This is the boon of writing a story before posting it: I can go back and change things as much as I want! I can even write things out of order! (I usually write things out of order) I reread what I have written so far a lot, making notes on elements I forgot about, dangling threads or plot holes to resolve, and spelling/grammar mistakes to fix. I also reread the series as a whole periodically, not to help with planning, but just because I like my own writing (I write for myself after all).

As far as characterization goes, I've already written a post with broad advice about characterization. For me at this point, it's like. I run Leon.exe and Wesker.exe on the meat computer that is my brain, dump them into a little maze, and write down what they do. I know that's not terribly helpful.

Sometimes I keep notes as I go along about where people's relationships are with each other, their power dynamics (for MaM I had a little scale to tell me who was "on top" at any given point), and if a scene is really struggling along I plot out what each character wants at that moment. I might even write a version of the scene just for myself from a different character's pov so I know their side. Sometimes I find the scene works better from the other pov and dump the original version! (this happened with chris, jill, and leon in the bar)

Basically, I try to keep in mind that every character in a room is their own human, with their own thoughts and internal world and motivations. It's useful to know all the potential conflicts between characters in every conversation. It's also important not to forget about your side characters. If they still have a reason to involve themselves with the plot, or they're still in the room, you should mention them and what they're doing now and then.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Here's an old blog post by jim butcher (author of the dresden files) which helped me a little back in the day, specifically with getting over the middle bits: https://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/1865.html?nojs=1

And let me also point you in the direction of the writing excuses podcast, which is run by brandon sanderson (author of the mistborn series) and several other published writers. I haven't listened to all of it myself but sanderson's a good writer and what I have listened to is interesting.

[tuiyla]

btw, do you already dislike Xander? I'm kinda hoping you're going to start writing rants about how much he sucks lmao, but tbf his worst moments are yet to come. I also hope you'll end up hating another male character that most people love, much to my chagrin.

Alright! No more letting this ask sit. Anon, I hope you're around and doing well because we're finally gonna talk about Xander Harris.

I wanted to answer this at different points during my Buffy journey and now, towards the end of season 5, I have to say that... Xander's fine. I totally get where your hope comes from, my notorious Finn posts and all and though I'll get into aspects of Xander I dislike in a moment, I'm afraid I can't be the manhater you need on this occasion. From what I've seen though he's not that well-loved? In my limited experience anyway. So the Finn Hudson effect doesn't apply in that sense, either.

Where I would be frustrated with Xander in similar ways I am about Finn's ch is that sometimes he is framed in an annoying way. He never gets even just called out for lying to Buffy at the end of season 2 or acting like a major asshole in 3x02. All the Scoobies are coming at Buffy there, sure, but none with such vehemence and in such a self-righteous way. Self-righteous hypocrites really piss me off. Had I answered this at the start of season 3 I probably would have been much harsher on Xander than I'm gonna be now. His Angel hatred was so irrational and not worthy of an "I told you so" upon Angelus' turn and it's irritating how entitled he is to Buffy's decisions. Not to mention, I don't care if him sulking about Buffy's rejection is realistic teen boy behaviour, it's tedious and embarrassing. She made it clear that she was not interested and Xander was such an ass about it. His crush on Buffy was a pain to get through and frankly, I don't think Xander deserved either of the girls he's been with since. Cordelia most definitely not and I think Anya deserves better, too, because she's genuinely devoted whereas it really feels like Xander's with her just because it's convenient for him.

His latest really, really annoying moment was his Riley speech to Buffy but honestly I'm just so glad Riley's gone so I'm gonna swiftly move past that. Whatever, Xander tried helping Buffy and luckily she was too late to act on his advice. What stupid advice, anyway, as if Riley was one in a million. Hon, he was literally the 999,999 in a million.

And I said I wouldn't go hard on the guy, huh? Lmao well that was pretty much the list of my grievances. In general? Xander's... fine. He's not gonna be my favourite Scooby in any scenario, no way, but I think since mid-season 3 he's been a lot more tolerable and even enjoyable on occasion. He does feel sort of useless at times but that's acknowledged and a part of his journey so I appreciate that. I don't fully buy into him being the Heart of the group as that position is something that I hold precious, see Katara in ATLA. And no way Xander can even touch what someone like Katara represents within her group dynamic. But I also see that being the Heart is mostly about courage here, loyalty, and as much as he makes mistakes I gotta give Xander that.

Even in that interpretation I struggle with the guy because a) he does have these icky sexist moments that are just not funny and they're meant to be and b) he's not... that full of heart. I just think pettiness gets in the way too often and, compared to someone like Willow's flaws his are more annoying and in general, more. He's not quite the Nice Guy syndrome because he is general a genuinely good friend to Buffy and the others but I wish he wasn't such a teen boy. Or, if he was, cause ya know they unfortunately do exist, that he was framed just a little more critically. I get that that's too much to ask of Whedon's late 90s feminism but it would make Xander an easier character to vibe with. I mean, I'm guessing there must be a reason I had zero idea about his existence prior to watching the show but had a vague idea of most other Scoobies. I knew so many things about Willow and was aware of chs like Oz, Cordy and Tara, but I was half-expecting Xander to only last a season or two. Because surely, if he was there for the whole show I would have heard people talk about him already.

So, yeah, it might not sound like it because I more so talked about the negatives than positives but I don't hate Xander by any means. He's not frustrating enough to be loathed or ranted about but he's also not nearly engaging enough to be on the level of the other Scoobies. He has his moments, though, and more often than not I find myself enjoying Xander-centric episodes. Soooo... is that anything? I hope I don't disappoint but now that I'm at the end of season 5 maybe you can share more about your Xander thoughts, I'd be happy to listen.

[callsignbaphomet]

Okay, like I previously said Fallout version of Angelus is wild to me.

Btw TW for heavy subjects talked about here.

I like exploring different sides to them all in different AUs and Fallout is no different. Also, like I said in a post any info on them prior to 2023 when it comes to this AU is null and void. All that info is either eliminated or retconned.

Also I'm gonna try and better the tag system for better organization. Kinda got something in mind.

Anyway, I like writing and playing this version of Angelus 'cause it let's me explore a side to Angelus that the Oracle (Oracle is the original btw) version just doesn't have.

Oracle Angelus had a rough start. He suffered every type of abuse and my fucking gods do I mean EVERY TYPE OF ABUSE from as early as 1-year-old up to 13 or 14. Pretty much a little over a decade of nonstop physical, emotional and psychological torture. He did NOT get out of that unscathed. The trauma of it all still clings to him to this day. Had he been human he would've died like at 2, if he would've survived he would've been completely deformed and disfigured. But he's a werewolf so he somehow survived. Physically he has three scares from when his abusers tried to kill him. Two of the scars are from being shot in the chest and the third one is from being stabbed through the heart with a silver dagger. He actually scared which is basically impossible for a born werewolf but because his abusers never let him consume human hearts his immune system never developed. He even got fevers from infections. Anyway, it wasn't a good time for him and because of it a lot of mental problems arouse from it. He has C-PTSD, bipolar disorder, depression, severe anxiety, the abuse exacerbated his ADHD and also caused him to develop a severe eating disorder and it's not some cute and quirky "oh ha ha i'll just pick at this salad i gotta watch my weight ha ha." No, this man legit will starve himself as punishment because if he makes a mistake he thinks he deserves to be punished. He will actually layer on clothes so Jelani doesn't notice any weight loss but Jelani is always on top of that. They constantly check in on him and help him through it. He has some good days, some bad days and some catastrophic days but regardless he tries his best. He does have his moments of unfiltered confidence and times where he's shown he's very sure of himself and shown strength.

That's why I have this appreciation for the AUs because like for example the Fallout one he didn't have a messed up upbringing. Yeah, there's the whole being sold and the transphobic grandmother thing but it didn't affect him. He's cocky as hell, doesn't really take much of anything serious, in party mode almost 24/7, he's loud, explosive, confident, loves to eat, is extroverted, not insecure at all, no mental illnesses, rowdy, little bit selfish, morally gray and ambiguous, an absolute lil shit but with a good heart and more of a leader than a follower. Fallout Angelus is the extreme opposite of Oracle Angelus and it really puts Angelus as a whole into this perspective that I otherwise wouldn't have had a chance to explore this side of him if it weren't for this AU.

I was NOT kidding when I said Fallout Jelani kind of took the role of Oracle Angelus. He was very similar to Angelus but then he was assaulted (I know I put a tw warning but this is not a word I throw around so freely given that it's super charged. Not sure if anyone actually reads any OC posts aside from Arcade but still) and you know, it was a brutal and traumatic event and not even a month later he witnessed his father "die" which made shit far worse and this is post-apocalyptic America. Where in the blue fuck is he gonna find a therapist to work that trauma out? Fallout Jelani is pretty much Oracle Angelus.

And that was covering some aspects. In terms of sexuality he's still very much gay. I think that'll be the only aspect about him that'll never change. In Oracle he was born a male but he's actually intersex (both genitals and half a uterus, it sooooooorta works), on top of that he has a bit of a feminine body. He's very androgynous looking. In Fallout he was born a female and transitioned to male. In Oracle he's strictly a bottom HOWEVER, if Jelani (he's a switch and both subs and doms) asks he will absolutely top him because he feels 100,000% safe and secure with him. In Fallout he's 100% strictly a top while Jelani is 100% strictly a bottom. And he enjoys the fuck out of dominating Jelani.

Honestly this version of him is really fun. Oracle will always be Oracle but these AUs are so fun to explore different sides to all my characters.

[jvstheworld]

The Buffy Re-watch: S2E19 (part 2)

I Only Have Eyes For You

Dru vision time. However, Spike is getting pretty fed up with Angelus, his expression over watching him, and Dru says it all. He's inching closer and closer to making a deal with Buffy to get rid of him.

Also, Angelus has turned his Claddagh ring round to show he is no longer in love anymore.

Giles is in a flustered state, wanting to contact Jenny.

Buffy sees James and Grace dancing.

Cafeteria full of snakes, good thing Indiana Jones isn't around.

Everyone is getting spooked and harassed by the ghostie.

Not the bees! Well, in this case, wasps, but I just wanted to make that reference.

Is Buffy over identifying with James?

Everyone assuming James would possess a guy and not Buffy, even though he is identifying with and singling her out. Angelus plays Grace's part.

It plays out just as it always does, but with a vampire playing Grace, he survives the gunshot and the fall.

James got his forgiveness, and they got their happy ending.

Angelus feeling violated after being possessed. I guess it would feel like that.

Spike can walk again! Man is just biding his time.

James chose Buffy because of the similarities between her relationship with Angel and his relationship with Grace. Older person/younger person relationship. The older person wants the younger one to have a normal life. Their relationship was doomed from the start, as much as they loved each other, it wouldn't be able to work.

James could only be forgiven under very specific circumstances. It was an act of compassion from Grace that put an end to it. She still loved him but knew their relationship was wrong. She watched his torment of his mistake for decades and finally had the chance to forgive. The shooting itself was an accident, a crime of passion. It can bring out the worst in people.

However, their relationship was still wrong. She was his teacher and he was a high school student.

[compendiumofconstellations]

OH. Who wants my Angel vs Angelus rant that I've been sitting on?

So. I think that a lot of the writing for the vampire lore in BtVS gets a bit...wishy-washy at best. I think that the writers heavily favored certain characters in regards to vampire lore over others. I also think that, from the standpoint of "people who are not the vampire", it is easy to forget a lot of the things that make this rant important.

However.

Angel and Angelus are two distinctly separate beings. Angel is Liam. As we learn in "Angel" (the season 1 episode of BtVS): "The demon gets your body, but it doesn't get your soul. That's just gone."

So. Yes. Angel and Angelus are distinctly separate entities that just so happen to share a body, and while they do majorly influence each other (Angel would have nothing to atone for without the memories of the atrocities Angelus committed, and Angelus wouldn't hate humanity so much without the memories of what it was like to be human--or even Angel's memories of love and compassion).

It's a terrible dichotomy with the threat of Angelus coming free, especially because the more "good" that Angel does, the worse Angelus wants to be.

But, Angel is not to blame for the things Angelus does, even if he blames himself. He has those memories; he remembers it all as if he was the one who did it. But we know he wasn't, because he doesn't do those things with a soul.

Does Angel still make mistakes? Yes. Absolutely. Angel is flawed. But he tries. And that's what it means to be human. To pick yourself back up and keep trying.

After all, he says it best in "Epiphany".

Angel : Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... , then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it. Kate Lockley : And now you do? Angel : Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world. Kate Lockley : Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany. Angel : I keep saying that, but nobody's listening.

This is who Angel is. And Angelus is the opposite. Angelus revels in pain and suffering and sets out to destroy everything that is remotely human and good, because he hates himself for having that part of him. Angelus is the demon. Angelus is evil.

So...yeah, it's easy to blame Angel for what Angelus does; it's easy to hate him for what Angelus does. But. It's not Angel who does those things. It just fundamentally is an entirely different being.

[loveless-scribes]

Hey love! I just wanted to say that you’re an amazing writer. I have been reading Angelus Mortis over and over again for a year now and never get tired of it. The storyline, the characters, the writing everything is amazing. It doesn’t feel like a fanfiction because of how well it’s written and it’s better than many bestselling published books that I have read. Also the way that all the Naruto characters fit the Greek God roles it’s perfect. Itachi and Shisui are absolutely delicious. Salt is an amazing friend. Levi intrigues me and I really like him a lot as someone who has never watched Attack on Titan (if that’s how it’s called). The affair between Cronus and Nyx is absolutely genius because it makes the storyline even more interesting (I enjoy their scenes more than I like to admit😂 and Seraphina had an amazing CronNyx oneshot which she deleted like Seraphina girl why would you do that to us😭). It leaves you wondering what’s going to happen when the affair gets discovered by everyone. Also something that I have always been curious about,- in Quietus Cronus had a wife called Rhea which he kills both with her sons, does that apply to AM Cronus too🤔? I wonder if Nyx knows about it and what would she think if she knew that Rhea was the only one that Cronus actually loved. And just when you thought the story couldn’t get any better now Angelissa is in the underworld and shit is about go downnnnnnnnn. Honestly even if you take years to update, I will still be waiting no matter what just like I did for Quiteus. But please don’t prioritise anything else before your mental health and don’t rush to finish the story just because you feel the need you have to. One day you will get your inspiration and in the end the wait will be worth the wait. Sending you lots of love 💕 and take care!

PS. Sorry for any grammar mistakes. English is not my first language.

Thank you so, so much!

I'm so glad you enjoyed AM so much, it really is our little pet project and I love it too. (Also your English is amazing what are you apologizing for, GURL)

Imma go out on a limb here and say Cronus' backstory is the same in AM, regarding Rhea etc. Nyx defo knows about it but she deludes herself into thinking that Cronus only used Rhea as a means to an end and never really loved her. Which is incredibly ironic. Pot, kettle... something like that.

Thank you for waiting and believing in me! I hope you will enjoy the story going forward as well ❤️

[theajaheira]

I'm very curious about your take on Giles' glasses. After season 2 he stops wearing the round ones. And at first I thought that maybe he had to get new ones simply because Angelus broke them but then again they didn't seem broken to me in the last scene where Giles talks with the scoobies about Buffy. And then in wishverse we see him wearing the round glasses again. That has to mean something.

i am absolutely certain that i have talked about this in years past but i could not find the post (no shade to you btw i have talked about 90 different things in the last two weeks alone and i totally understand how newcomers to the celia soapbox are not gonna be able to find Specific Posts from 2017 or something) so i am very very down to make it in DETAIL !!! <3

so giles's glasses are a microcosm of his larger fashion shift in season three -- symbolic of his movement towards Watcher as his only important identifier. the clothing he's wearing in seasons one and two give off more of a "rumpled professor" kind of look -- there's a lot of tweed and formality, but we almost never see him without a soft sweater vest, and when it's missing there's usually just a shirt and tie (sometimes suspenders iirc).

season three, though, introduces not only giles's new glasses, but an entirely new fashion element: button-up waistcoats that almost always match his jackets.

like just look at that shift! it's incredibly subtle -- still very much in line with most of giles's sartorial choices thus far, just a TINY bit more rigid. but do you know who else we see wearing a button-up waistcoat?

TRAVERS.

also, giles's fashion shift happens after the season finale -- and you know what happens there?

JENNY.

this is a moment where giles fails utterly as a watcher without any hesitation on his part! he has held out against all forms of torture for hours, but the second he is tricked into seeing jenny, he gives up the entire world without a moment's hesitation. it is an understandable and sympathetic mistake for a lover to make, but from day one of this show it's been textual that someone with a supernatural responsibility is always supposed to put that responsibility first. giles spends the entirety of season two trying to find a way to put jenny first without jeopardizing the integrity of his destiny, and the season finale brings his struggle to its natural conclusion: even the act of wanting to put jenny first is more than a watcher is supposed to allow himself. from a purely tactical perspective, giles's love for jenny (who in turn has always represented the life he wants outside his destiny) is an irresponsible liability.

so when giles dons an outfit that's much more old-fashioned --button-up waistcoat, austere-looking wire-rimmed glasses -- he is very deliberately choosing to project the image of a watcher like travers. he is cloaking his heartbreak in tradition because the only way that he knows how to move forward is through repression and self-flagellation. he is saying -- i am not human. i do not love. i am focused only on the mission and this is going to be the only thing in my life for the rest of my life.

(and this is supported by him wearing those old, round glasses in the wish! whether or not he's met and lost jenny, he has been given no reason to fully inhabit the watcher identity -- he does not see himself as a watcher.)

[we-pay-for-everything]

What does your username mean?

It's a quote from Angel. In Orpheus, when Faith is ready to give her life to defeat Angelus, Angel "shows" up and tells her "Your time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything.". Faith had a lot to make up for - a lot of mistakes were wearing her down and she had blood on her hands. She was ready to throw in the towel to save a friend and stop the bad guy. She thought she'd redeem herself that way, but, really, she just wanted an out. But redemption is never ending - there will never be a time where she's done enough and can give up and rest. Angel told her she couldn't run away, because she hadn't yet paid back for all the hurt she'd caused. He didn't mean it in a cruel way, he didn't want her to hate herself forever. But death is never an answer or an escape. If she wanted to find peace, she had to keep going, to rebuild her life and relationships, to do her best to make amends with her past. We pay for everything. Faith killed and hurt innocent people. She couldn't just erase what she'd done. She had to pay for her mistakes in some way, if only so she could forgive herself and find happiness. She had to live and to give back as much as she could, since she could never give back the lives she stole or ruined.

At the time I created this blog, I was making a lot of mistakes too, and even thought my pain was my punishment. "We pay for everything" was a thought I had often. I still do, tbh. When something bad happens, I often feel like I deserve it. In darker moments, when I hate myself and feel trapped, I think "We pay for everything" and remember it was my inaction and poor choices that made me this way, that I made my bed and must now lie in it.

It's a bit bleak, I know...

From your ask, do you not know Angel? I don't know if all my followers have watched BtVS/AtS, since I post about different shows now too.

[impalementation]

spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 4

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

* 

“But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self

Before I get into seasons six and seven, it’s worth asking: why would the show do all of this? Why would it spend all of this time developing a supporting villain and joke id character? Why would it give him a romantic arc? I see people say that the writers only gave Spike these storylines because he was popular or they wanted to keep him around, but even that being the case, there was no need to give him the specific arc that they did. It’s more than possible to read meaning into the story that they chose from the array of possible options. 

Here is the thing about the id. It’s not actually something separate from you. It’s not a ravenous monster you can blame your weaknesses on while remaining pure and dignified. The id is part of you. The immediate and enduring appeal of Spike is, I suspect, strongly influenced by the fact that the things the id wants are so very human and sympathetic. His foibles and mistakes are often painfully familiar, even exaggerated through vampirism as they are. In fact, it’s precisely because Spike is allowed to show a full range of reactions to love, because the writing is under less pressure for him to do the “right” or dignified thing, that he can at times be compelling in ways other characters can’t. If Spike just did nasty things, his appeal wouldn’t be much more complicated than the appeal of Angelus, who people tend to like as a villain or storyline rather than as a relatable character. But Spike doesn’t want to dismember nuns or construct elaborate murder tableaux. He wants familiar things like love, identity and meaning, even if the ways he goes about getting them can reflect people’s worst impulses. 

Which brings us to Buffy, and Buffy’s story about growing up. Buffy is Buffy’s show, which means that every writing choice tends to revolve around her arc in one way or another. And this goes for Spike’s storyline even more than most. In the final three seasons of the show, the writing finally engages with how inextricable the id--and all of its impulsive, inarticulate romantic desires--really is from a person’s self. So instead of keeping Spike at a comfortable distance, both Buffy and the writing begin to take him seriously. They begin to invite him in.

Starting in season five, it’s telling how frequently Buffy herself projects on Spike, rather than just the writing setting them up as mirrors. She tells him that he’s the “only one strong enough” to protect her family, and later assigns Dawn specifically to his protection. In “Spiral” she describes him as “the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn.” This is a very intimate role that she otherwise only assigns to herself (and which is not really based on pure practicality, considering that she’ll later describe Willow as her “big gun”--yet never gives Willow the task of protecting Dawn). She tells him that he cannot love, which is the thing she fears most about herself. Her protests that Spike is a vampire, and thus cannot express or want human things like love, mirror her lamentations that as the Slayer, she cannot have a normal life.

From the Gilliland Gothic double essay:

More than any of her other lovers, Buffy and Spike overlap one another so often that at times their character arcs become nearly indistinguishable. With Angel, Buffy traveled a parallel path in attempting to master self-control. With Riley, her journey ultimately took her in the opposite direction. With Spike, Buffy’s journey is most closely shadowed, in that her interactions with him in many ways can be seen as metaphors for her feelings about herself.

So now Spike is multiple things. On the one hand, he’s the soulless id he’s been since season two. His vampiric behavior represents a morally uninhibited way of reacting to romantic frustrations, among other things. But on the other hand, his vampirism now also marks him as like Buffy, not merely her opposite.* Nor is he only her mirror in the realm of romantic love. The part of him that is a vampire is the part of him that is supernatural (ie, Romantically larger-than-life), that sets him apart from regular people, and dictates how he can and cannot behave. Just like Buffy’s slayerness. His vampirism is what makes him capable of protecting Dawn, while also making him (supposedly, according to Buffy) incapable of human feeling--again, just like Buffy’s slayerness. Instead of Buffy’s Slayer side being aligned with Angelus, who was an unmitigated evil, it becomes aligned with Spike, who is something more complicated. 

*(Though it must be noted that this was a process that began in season four, with the show aligning Spike with the Scoobies by making him a victim of the Initiative. Spike being supernatural suddenly marks him as non-normative, just like the Scoobies, in contrast to the institutional conformity that the Initiative represents. The evolution towards treating the Romantic supernatural as something positive and associated with identity plays a key role in transitioning the show to the more complicated attitudes of the last three seasons.)

This shift in the show’s attitudes towards the id affects how Spike is used. In “Blood Ties” for example, Spike assists Dawn in breaking into the Magic Shop and in “Forever” he helps Dawn resurrect her and Buffy’s mother. In both cases, Spike could be read as embodying impulsive behavior that Buffy is supposed to be better than. Yet both cases specifically involve Spike helping Dawn, who is repeatedly portrayed as Buffy’s human side. As Buffy says in “The Gift”: “[Dawn]’s more than [my sister]. She’s me. The monks made her out of me. [...] Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I--”. In other words, Buffy’s id becomes closely tied to her humanity, even going so far as to become its safeguard. “Blood Ties” ends with Buffy affirming her connection to Dawn, which Spike’s rule-breaking directly enabled, and “Forever” ends with Buffy acknowledging how desperately she wants her mother back too, and becoming closer to Dawn as a result. (Compare to “Lovers Walk”, where Buffy acknowledging her id results in her breaking away from Angel, not drawing closer to anyone). Or in “Intervention”, Spike building the Buffybot directly parallels Buffy’s own anxieties about what she thinks she should be. She thinks she’s losing her ability to love, and that effusive fakery is her only recourse (as she said in “I Was Made to Love You”: “Maybe I could change. [...] I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes. I mean men like that right? The joke laughing at?”), a fear that even has some merit, given that her friends cannot tell her and the bot apart. Instead of Buffy and Spike having separate arcs in the episode, Spike learning the difference between real and fake dovetails with Buffy’s own relationship to her realness and fakeness. It turns out that neither of them want a bot version of Buffy. They want real emotion, things like sacrifice and heartfelt gratitude. If even Buffy’s id would let itself be killed for Dawn, then maybe she has nothing to fear from herself. Maybe there is some beauty in the emotional part of her nature that she thinks she must repress.

In other words, part of the writing (and Buffy) fully engaging with romanticism and the id, means engaging with the ways they can be bad and good. There’s this weird thing that happens with Spike as soon as he falls in love with Buffy, where suddenly his actions are more uncomfortable, and to many, off-putting, because their object is Buffy (instead of another vampire like Harmony or Drusilla, who either enjoy the same vampiric things he does, or the audience might be inclined to see as a moral nonentity regardless). His comic id quality becomes somewhat darker and more serious, almost like the way Angel’s early season two darkness becomes more serious after he loses his soul. But at the same time, Spike’s actions are also more intriguing, sympathetic, and even noble...because their object is Buffy. It makes no sense that a soulless vampire should not only fall in love with the Slayer, but genuinely attempt to transform himself into someone worthy of her love. And yet that’s exactly what Buffy inspires him to do. By loving Buffy Spike’s dual nature, and the dual nature of his romanticism, is thrown into relief: it’s something that can be selfish and creepy, yes, but also something that hints at the idea that real romanticism does exist. Something worth feeling romantically about does exist. Thus the writing can at once criticize, say, the way the chivalric mindset conflates love and suffering, while also suggesting that there are kinds of love it’s worth being transformed by. (Meanwhile, Spike’s fumbling bewilderment over how to love Buffy, and what the rules of loving people correctly even are, creates a human middle ground between monstrousness and heroism). By leaning into the way that Buffy and Spike have been used as mirrors for three seasons, and introducing the mythology-bending idea of Spike being in love with Buffy, the writing is able to fully engage with this complicated, contradictory nature of love and romance.

All of which is to say. Spike becomes a potential love interest, and is given a convoluted inner conflict between monstrousness, humanity and heroism, in precisely the season in which Buffy begins to reckon with her own inner conflict between her darker impulses, her human reality, and her supernatural role. It’s no coincidence that season five opens with Dracula, an icon of romantic vampire mythology, tempting Buffy with darkness and promising her insight into her nature. Or that a vampire kidnaps Dawn--again, her human half--in the next episode. Or that the season’s antagonist is a super-strong blonde woman who wants to destroy Dawn instead of protect her. Or that she says goodbye to Riley, the boyfriend who embodied her hopes for a more normative way of being (notice how Riley is progressively destabilized by everything non-normative about Buffy’s life, and provokes those anxieties Buffy expresses in “I Was Made to Love You”). Over and over in season five, Buffy fears that her Slayer half is cold, destructive, and otherwise dangerous. That these Romantic things like gods and vampires have it in for Buffy’s vulnerable humanity. Yet Buffy’s vampire id simultaneously gives lie to these fears by proving itself capable of heroism and genuine human feeling.

In other words, Spike becomes a potential love interest in a season that treats the Romantic--ie the grand and mythical--as something more than just an attractive lie to be disabused of. Rather, the question that season five seems to posit to me, and which will not be fully answered until the end of season seven, is this: once you do clear away the attractive lies, once you accept the hard realities, once you’ve seen the darkest underbellies, what are the things that are left that are truly grand and beautiful? What are the stories that are really worth telling, and the heroes that are really worth having?

And the show asks and answers these questions on both a very personal level, and a more meta, systemic level. On the personal level, Buffy and Spike are forced to confront their illusions not just about the world, but about themselves. They are made to ask themselves what constitutes a heroic role or a demonic weakness, versus basic, unromantic humanity. And on the meta level, the show asks questions about our expectations for how both love stories and chosen hero stories are supposed to go.

part 5: “Everything used to be so clear”: Season six and the agony of the real

[prose-for-hire]

So wrong it’s right

Part 2 // Part 3

Pairing: Angel x vamp!reader

Request: (Sorry if I make a mistake, English is my second language) Will you make a story with a somewhat villain reader (but shes not exactly evil) that keeps helping Angel out because she likes him and in the start he wont trust her but one day they kiss and Angel becomes confused about how he feels? I hope that makes sense. If I didn’t explain it well please don't feel you need to write it you can ignore this.

Requested by: Anon

Warning: Violence/fighting. Swearing.

A/N: This is the kind of fic I LOVE to write. I enjoyed myself with this one !! 💜

You weren’t well-liked in LA. The ‘good guys’ hated you, trying to stake you at any second and the ‘bad guys’ despised you. Both felt this for the way that you made decisions based on how you felt. No allegiance to good or evil. No atonement or evil plotting. You served neither the powers or dark forces. This was a fluid and extremely ambiguous way to live, which brought suspicion with you wherever you went. But you were nothing if not authentic to your beliefs. You just weren’t really sure what those beliefs were yet.

In any case, you didn’t much care for world domination nor did you hang out in particularly damp underground hovels that you wouldn’t even bury your dog in, let alone spend precious years of your un-life.

LA had a certain draw to you, it was a hub. A beating heart of life that helped you thrive in a way you had only dreamed of when you really were alive. But most importantly, it wasn’t a backwater little town. The type that always seemed to harbour Hellmouths. They seemed a little boring to you anyway.

Yeah, it holds all the supernatural power hotspots you could wish for, but at what cost? Everyone knew everyone’s business and there was such a large amount of demons concentrated in one area it was hard to navigate without bumping into several ex-lovers. Not to mention there was a higher chance of a Slayer on your back.

Now, just because you weren’t ‘evil’, that wasn’t to say you lived in the light. For one, you couldn’t. You would die… again. But also, you weren’t exactly chafing at the bit to do as the powers said. They couldn’t simultaneously damn you to hell when you got dusted whilst enticing you with some long-winded and ultimately unnecessary prophecy that gave you the one thing you were scared of. Hope.

You didn’t have a soul, and you didn’t care for gaining one. Not through a curse and even less through fighting for one yourself. This is why one vampire didn’t like you. He didn’t trust you and definitely never cut you a break.

The fact was, he barely looked your way. Unless you were stood in his path. And you had, a few times. He was convinced you had some ulterior motive but had little time for you until you turned into a bigger threat.

That was, up until the last few months. You had started to catch his attention more and more. You had been fighting, again. In the back room of some seedy bar. Trading blows, neither of you holding back. The real threat long since dusted. It was just gone three in the morning, a time you liked to be home. Just in case of a freak early sunrise (you had heard horrible things of whole towns of vampires wiped out suddenly).

You were fighting, hard. He never left it. He just couldn’t walk away. You were after the same stupid vampire. Yes, you had been after him because he owed you a large sum of money and around five Siamese cats, but the end was the same. You twisted from his firm grasp, throwing him over your head. He landed but didn’t stay down. He ran at you, pushing you back and slamming you against the door. Almost through it. He grabbed a stake and flipped it up in the air before expertly catching it, looking back in your eyes.

There was almost a flicker of danger. A flicker of all the stories you had heard of Angelus. There was something there, some kind of feeling and it got you excited. Up until this point, his face had been pretty unmoving every time you saw him. The stake dug into your chest, directly over your unbeating heart. You couldn’t help but enjoy the way his eyes scanned your face. Moving from your lips to your eyes and back again. He was so close you could just lean in and… no. Eye on the prize, you tell yourself. You would settle for a quip charged with at least a little sexual tension. On your end, at least.

“You gonna keep waving that thing around or are you going to actually do something with it?” You bite, breathing heavily a smile on your face. You didn’t need to breathe but it was still a habit.

“Why’re you here, huh? Why are you always around when something bad happens?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Now I’m never getting those fucking Siamese” You muttered as he scowled at you. You were going to threaten him one more time before staking him. He rolled his eyes, you were worse than spike. At least he had a soul. Wanted one. You were content with your lot and it bugged him to no end.

“You know, I think I might enjoy this” Angel said stoically.

“Watch out, you don’t want to get too happy” You teased with a smile, everyone knew about Angel – word travels fast even here, “Or maybe you do. You might be more fun, to be honest”

These was the last words he expected to hear from you, you were younger than him by a mile. He was used to vampires pretty easily going down. He moved his arm back, directing the wooden stake straight for your heart. In the same second, you changed into your vamp face and propelled your head forwards. Your hand twisted his wrist trying to knock the stake from his hand as you propelled your ridged forehead towards him. Headbutting him with all of your strength.

The stake pierced your skin, but luckily (or unluckily it still hurt like anything) it was stabbed into your left arm which made you yelp. You yelped almost as much as Angel in his surprise as his nose started to bleed. It was enough to stun him, letting you run off with the stake still sticking out of your arm as you took a short cut to your destination.

Angel walked back to the hotel slowly, pinching his nose and wiping the blood on his sleeve. He took the long route back, not wanting to have to tell the others that he had lost in a fight with a vampire who was probably half his age. When he returned Cordelia rushed over to him, helping him to sit down. The entire team was there, waiting up for him. Fantastic, now he would have to tell them.

“Oh, uh, Angel?” Fred asked softly, “This was left for you – on your desk”

He turned and there it was. The stake that had been embedded in your arm the last he saw you. You must have travelled fast to get there before he did. He took it as an act of aggression, especially when he read the note attached.

‘Until we meet again, sweet Angel’

“Is this your slayer friend?” Fred asked, looking down at the floor. She had taken somewhat of a shine to Angel and may have been a little jealous. She had just learned what a slayer was.

“She’s a little more dramatic, a little less with the subtle” Cordelia stated, knowing for sure that the person that brought it was not Buffy. Not at all.

“Yes, I recall the young woman is about as subtle as a brick” Wes chuckled softly, reminiscing over his brief stint as a watcher.

“No. it wasn’t her” Angel confirmed, turning and scowling, “Wes, I need everything you can find on a vamp. Name’s y/n”

“Y/n? Are you sure it is wise to, um, shake the hornets nest so to speak. They’ve done little to actively harm-” Wesley said quickly. A slightly sheepish look on his face. You had met him and helped him out several times. You often crossed paths late night at the occult book store. You weren’t afraid of losing your credibility over a little light reading.

Your intelligence was often what gave you the upper hand over many demons you came up against. Wesley was strangely fond of you, although he knew from word on the street you could be mean if something was in the way of what you wanted. He was pleasant enough although spending too long with him gave you an Englishman-induced headache. He does prattle on so. And, that phrase had been unfortunately transferred into your brain from listening to him for too long.

“Apart from, that they’re a vampire who brutally kills to eat and always seems to be in every bad situation we’ve been in recently” Angel snapped, “I want everything. By tomorrow night”

“What are you going to do?”

“Kill them”

It had been several more months and Angel had seen you several times in that period. He had yet to make good on his promise. The tension mounted, peaking every time you became close. Your back and forth riling you up, making you begin to pine for his attention.

He had noted that you had common goals, evil tended to get mowed down in your wake. Which, he couldn’t exactly complain about except that your personality was simultaneously infuriating and intriguing.

But he maintained that he didn’t like you. The way you danced through life, with no guilt. Very little self-reflection. You wouldn’t join him and that was enough, in his eyes for you to be against him.

This evening finds you on the hunt for a backstreet dealer, one that could find you an item that was particularly hard to find. Especially now Angel had a snitch on the inside, the deliveries were starting to slow. Dust couldn’t drive trucks.

You arrived at the meeting place, a dingy alleyway despite you specifically asking to meet somewhere that didn’t smell like something had died there. You had a very sensitive sense of smell.

“You got the stuff?” You asked, gesturing with your head for the demon to open the briefcase. But he snatched it from your grasp and the boss stepped from the shadows. This meant something more sinister.

“You helped him. We saw you” The scaly man with an impressively tailored suit accused.

“What?”

“Angel” He confirmed. Bad things happened to people who didn’t side with the boss. You knew this.

“I don’t pick allegiances, I told you. I’m just me” You assured them, eyes on the briefcase.

“You’re with us or you’re with him. Choose.”

“Fine.” You shrugged, the man nodded approvingly. It had been easier than he thought.

“Good, glad that you’re-” You spun into a kick, hitting his jaw which made him shut up. You hated people who gave you an ultimatum. You, for this very moment only, were on Angel’s side. Fists flying, feet connecting with hard bodies. You fought against them, hard.

More of them started to turn up. As if there had been a call. They started to surround you. You were strong, but not that strong. Your un-life flashed before your eyes. There was so much you had left to do. I mean, you had never even been to a virgin sacrifice. Never properly feasted on St Vigeous. You hadn’t even found your anti-soulmate.

You were almost ready to give up. And then he turned up. Your guardian angel.

Angel assessed the fight, realising you had been caught up. Not realising why it broke out. You fought beside each other, but traded insults with your ally. You found yourself waiting for these interactions with him. It made you smirk. This was the way you flirted.

You enjoyed this back and forth. He was starting to make you feel alive again. Begin to… hope.

The fight was finished and now all you both were was surrounded by dust. You took a breath. In name, not in action, recovering from the fight.

But he grabbed you by your shoulders, you had taken your guard down. He slammed you into the brick wall. The contact almost made you shiver as you smiled wide. You opened your mouth to speak, he was expecting it and spoke first.

“Don’t” He warned, frustrated at the way your eyes danced despite his threat.

“I’ve been waiting for this for months” You smirked, leaning closer to his face. There was barely an inch between you.

“Huh. Your death?”

“We’re already dead, baby, I’m looking more for the spice of life” You teased before leaning in and finally catching your lips with his. This had been all you had been thinking since you had first met him. The tension had reached its crescendo and you had to act.

It was an urgent kiss, you were willing him to reciprocate. His action beforehand made the adrenaline pump around your body harder. Want him more. There was danger harboured deep below the soul he cared for so deeply and it called to you like a moth to a flame.

You wanted him. You enjoyed every side you had seen so far. You didn’t understand why he was so reluctant to admit the tension in the air when you were around each other.

His lips didn’t move at first for those agonising moments. And then they did. All at once. His lips moving and fiery against yours, now fighting you for dominance. You tasted so good to him. A hand gripping your upper arm tightly with the other sliding up the curvature of your neck.

You slid your hands between the fabric of his shirt and his leather jacket, grasping at him. Your fingers snaked around him, exploring unchartered territory. He felt so good, you wanted him closer.

You found yourself almost preferring the feel of this more amiable touch to the harsh blows you had exchanged previously. He pressed you further into the wall, wanting more.

But all too quickly, his lips started to falter and you felt him start to pull away. He started to think too much into it. Comprehending the implications. You felt too good to him. You were a distraction, a sinful figure that strayed him from the power’s path. You almost whined as he pulled himself from where he had been pressed flush against you. He had to fight himself to remove his hands from you.

Your hands slid sadly from where they had been exploring his lean form. You felt yourself pouting slightly, which is a feat when you have fangs like you did.

His face had changed during your kiss, as had yours. Your vampire forms released as the tension did. Your more animalistic forms finding each other so appealing. The kiss a revelation, in some sense a curse. But again, he was used to that.

He pulled back, his face the picture of shock. It was the most emotion he had allowed you to see. So many contradictory emotions flashing behind his eyes. It had felt wrong, but oh so right to kiss you that way. He wanted more. He wanted to get as far away from you as possible.

You watched him in his turmoil, not able to hide the way you enjoyed seeing his face this way. You reached with your hand to trail along the distinctive bumps of his forehead. You couldn’t help it, you had suddenly begun to soften for him. Against your will. You wanted him to want you deeper than you had realised.

He realised that his vampire face was showing. He winced away from you, and you scanned over his face. He switched back immediately. Masking it.

He was ashamed. You frowned, your own vamp face still there. You embraced all that you were. You scanned his face, trying to show him that he could be himself with you. But he didn’t read that from your face.

He stepped back, all contact with him now gone. His eyes still trapped in yours for a moment. Your back was still pressed against the rough brick, your arm still outstretched for him.

But he just ran, jacket whipping around him as he kicked up his dust on way out of the alleyway. As if a magician through a puff of smoke, he was gone.

You eventually moved yourself from the wall, leaning to take the briefcase. You shrugged, dusting it off from the ash that had been left from the fight.

You walked slowly with your items, thoughts beginning to spin. Finding yourself lacking something deep inside that you had not realised you had been missing for so long.

[peachesandcows]

If you know me, you know Buffy The Vampire Slayer has basically been a hyperfixation for me since I was like 10. That being said, I’m gonna talk about Spike. If you don’t like him: cool✨ this isn’t for you👍

Ok so he started the series as probably one of my favorite suave villains. Absolutely devoted to his insane love, Drusilla. Honestly, they were great. Completely lacking in remorse and just hoping to cause chaos and have a blast. What more do you want in a villain? They were cool, pretty, and completely evil. Also, Spike always had the best sense of humor. He knew he was bad, and he liked to mess with his enemies. Like, THIS was how he threatened Buffy’s mom??? Iconic

So, we continue and Angelus shows up. Oof. He’s a very different post, but that’s not now. Anyway, Evil!Angel (lol) made one very important mistake. Ok he made many, but this one is important to my point. Our least favorite soulless, brooding man messed with Spike’s girl. Angelus always had that weird complex about owning all of them, so yeah, he wanted to make a point. Unfortunately for him, Spike cared way more about Dru than ending the fucking work. Spike teamed up with Buffy (for the first time!!!!) to double cross the bastard and get his girl out of town before they got caught up in shit bigger than he cared about.

Honestly, I already liked him, and I didn’t expect him back at this point. However, Spike never does the expected, and that’s why I love him. So, he shows up next season all heart broken and looking for some destruction and a way to get Dru back. Lol she left him for that weird gooey deer guy. He’d ‘gotten soft’ because he chose her over ending the world. Spike fucks some shit up a couple times that season and is my favorite little inconvenience. Also, weirdest/best friendship:

Then things get ✨interesting✨ in season 4. Spike is back! And he’s immediately abducted by the government! WHAT? That’s right, our favorite little asshole just got chipped. Now he can’t hurt people unless he wants an instant migraine, and apparently, like, that’s enough? Like, he just goes, k? Guess I can’t do that anymore. Head go ouch if I hit people, so I’m good now. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that simple, but he does get tied up and held hostage at Giles’ house! Which just creates the funniest commentary for basically all the scoobies’ meetings. He does a bit of double crossing to try to get the chip out and screw them over, but hey, that’s pretty valid for a guy that came back to town to kill Buffy.

By season 5, Spike’s basically just your local asshole who reluctantly helps if you pay him. He had a fun moment of realizing he could punch other monsters, so now he’s kinda good? But only bc violence is fun?? Honestly, best reason. This season is where all his ‘I HATE Buffy SO MUCH’ feelings get all confused and he’s like, girl… pretty? So he gets kinda obsessed? I’d like to remind everyone, 0 soul. Absolutely no soul. When Angel lost his soul, he tried to end the world. Ok, thanks for hanging on through our moment of perspective. Now, Spike decides he’s in love, so Buffy gotta die. Lots of mixed feelings for her. Understandable. Mortal enemies, but pretty girl. Seems like a valid moral dilemma to me. So, Spike does some weird shit, but then it gets weirder. He does some nice stuff? Then… some genuinely caring stuff??? Our boy’s in love y’all. Remember, Buffy still hates him, but he’s definitely growing on her. Enough that in the end of season 5, she asks him to protect her sister bc she’s about to die. And when Buffy actually died? Yeah Spike sobbing in the background will always kill me just a little bit every time I see it.

Ok I’m not using the gifs of the sad scenes bc… well I don’t want to. This is my hyperfixation rant, I get to pick the graphics. Ok season 6, my favorite thing to binge watch when I’m fucking depressed bc what the fuck it’s so sad. An entire season of ‘grief, addiction, depression, ptsd, and generally our inner demons are the real villains’. Well, Spike held up to his promise. He protected Dawn, and when Buffy came back, he’d counted the days since she’d died. (Ok that scene always makes me cry and seriously if anyone ever looked at me like THAT I’d probably marry them that day but ANYWAY) So, this season things get kinda weird between Spike and Buffy. He loved her, but he has no soul; therefore, his morals and perspective is kinda shit. Buffy hated Spike still, but she hated herself even more at this point; also, she knew how much he cared about her. So how do all these complicated feelings come together? Well… to be crass, there’s a lot of coming together. Okay yeah I’m the worst. Anyway, they fuck a bunch. Buffy hates herself because she doesn’t want to be alive, and she’s using Spike as a form of self h*rm and as a way to feel something. Spike is being emotionally tormented by the arrangement, but he loves her and figures he’ll take what he can get. Remember! He’s still soulless at this point!! So we have some depressing and angry conversations. And we have… the bathroom scene. Every fan I know hates it. I went to a panel with James Marsters (Spike’s actor) and HE hates it. I’ll always see the scene as super uncomfortable but it’s really complicated because it’s an accumulation of all of their relationship that season and that’s kinda everything I want to say about it bc it’s just too much for rn. But, Spike leaves town.

Season seven folks! Final season! Spike comes back! Sorta!! William returns✨ Spike got his soul!!! He wasn’t cursed like Angel. No, he FOUGHT for it. He wanted to deserve Buffy. Ugh I love him. Unfortunately, getting your soul after being a murderous monster for like 2 centuries tends to drive people a bit bonkers. Especially when you were a soft little poet when you were human. God he’s baby. Well, he decides being sad is for quitters and stops. I’d love to say that’s an exaggeration but like… that’s basically what happens. I love him. Spike is back bitches. And he’s completely in love with Buffy. And she like?? Kinda leans on him for support, but she’s also super tense about real romantic attachments after everything, which is reasonable; so it doesn’t get super far. He just kinda hold her. It’s beautiful. He has his little speech about how she’s it for him, but he doesn’t expect anything from her. So, in a moment that will always break my entire heart, he sacrifices himself, using his soul to power a weapon to bring down the hell mouth and save them all. SPIKE! After everything!! HE DID IT! I’m sorry, but no character’s redemption arc will EVER compare. And the moment, where he “can feel it, Buffy. It’s really there. My soul”. And she grabs his hand, not willing to leave him to die. And their hands are on fire together and he’s just smiling at her and she says she loves him and (god I fucking can’t with this scene) he tells her, “no you don’t. But thanks for saying it.” Fucking kill me, it would hurt less, thanks. So spike burns, saving them all. And Buffy’s last word in the series is, “Spike.”

A beautiful end to Spike, right? Well, he’s not done folks! Nah, death can’t keep this man down! He comes back from the amulet! In Angel (~The Series~). Our boys are back together, now both with souls! So are they friends?? No :)! They hate each other. They loved the same girl and argue about it a lot. They act like weird brothers; always annoying each other and being hella petty. In the end, they grow together, kinda like mold lol. It’s a great end to Spike because it really connects who is was at the beginning and end of his development. Brotp 💙

I’ll always believe that all Spike really knew how to do was love. He was burns countless times, but he always fell again. He was such a good man that even without a soul he helped people and cared about them. He had a ton of flaws and issues, but that’s kinda what made him human, ironically. Spike will always be one of my favorite characters. Sarcastic asshole❤️