#i've also been thinking a lot about s6 spuffy and seeing red and how i feel about that story

[giftedeath]

ok been putting this off for some time now but it needs to be said. some divergences under the cut

big thing is bangel, i don't really believe that she ever gave him 'hope' in season 7, cookie dough analogy aside, that they'd ever be anything other than what they had been for the last 4 years which was basically just exes who talked about saving the world sometimes. i think that they're just really so much cuter and so much funnier as friends and exes and two people who know that they fundamentally do not belong together, and that's ok. angel was so important to her, changed her, their relationship effected her years down the line ( riley too ) but he's the boyfriend she was in love with when she was a child. and i think apart of buffy growing and learning, is that she's never really going to be able to love him the same way she once did because she's not that girl anymore. and that's ok !! idk what the comics do with them, idrc, i just do know that their breakup/and the staying broken up is really essential to the way i write buffy. also think my beloved cordelia was much better suited for angel than buffy ever was. david fury said something about angel needing a "big smile" and he was right.

ok now the thing i've kinda been dreading lol spikey ... lets talk about spuffy yeah!! so... given all that we know, these 20+ years later, i think im just going to get to the point which is i don't acknowledge the writers' decision to make him an attempted rapist, don't care for it, i pretend like that scene in seeing red never happened. and there's layers to why, but basically, i just think it was unnecessary. the writers' way of punishing not only the audience for making a "soulless" vampire the fan favorite/forcing wh*don to keep him around, but also punishing buffy herself for having sex with him and enjoying it !! there's a lot of implications in that scene, i could go on forever but it was very cheap of them to do it, and basically in my head, spike doesn't need this scene to prompt him into getting the soul back because season six had already been a really good set up for that ie. when warren kills katrina / frames buffy and spike attempts to help her by getting rid of the body etc. it's the "why can't you understand why this is killing me?" and "i dont know why don't you try explaining it" im paraphrasing but that right there is enough for me and most of the audience to understand exactly why he would have gone to get his soul for her. also the "i know im not a man but u make me feel like one." but also just spike's general im not a man im not a demon then what am i ? arc !!! like its right there. i dont need to see my favorite character almost get sa'd by my other favorite character for that point to get across. it was definitely a condescending moment from the writers' room, we see it time and time again. ( most recently we saw it with aegon ii in house of the dragon ) "how do we make a character so evil how do we make the audience hate him ? ah yes rapist !" and im just not going to play into that <3 ( but there is also the subtext and very meaningful metaphor of spike being buffy's shadow self in s5/s6, he is empty w/out the soul - she is empty after being brought back/coming back wrong. he regains his soul in s7, and she is able to heal & love herself etc. etc. )

that's how i feel about that but also !!! i am a lesbian and this relationship has always spoken to me in a very queer way this post explains it so well. i rly suggest everyone read bc thats like . my mind

[kitkatt0430]

I'm guessing you havent been exposed to a huge part of the Spike/Spuffy fandom that like to portray Spike as the innocent victim of the relationship in s6 and Buffy as the monster (just go on Elysian Fields where there are countless stories 'punishing' Buffy for how she treated Spike), I've even seen some that do blame Buffy for the SA in Seeing Red and there was a lot of vitriol towards Buffy from fans at the time of airing, I also think it's worth remembering that the show itself blames Buffy for how toxic the relationship got in S7 and completely sidesteps her trauma in favour of Spike's redemption arc

So we're gonna have to agree to disagree about how S7 dealt with the fallout of the S6 relationship, as I read it as the show blaming them both but the characters themselves differing on a person by person basis who gets blamed the most. Though I agree Buffy herself just kind of ignores her own trauma (which is, unfortunately, how she's been taught to deal with her trauma since season 1), which brings the cleanup of S6's loose threads to an unsatisfying conclusion in order to make room for all the new S7 story arcs. (Not just Spike's redemption arc, though as the ensemble dark horse there was definitely audience pandering going on where he was concerned.)

Though the behind the scenes information about Spike related arcs is really fascinating to me, just because it's wild to me just how much Joss Whedon apparently hated this character who so popular with the fans.

And I have run into the 'Spike is perfect, Buffy was the sole abuser' narrative from fans before, but on a whole that's always seemed like a smaller and less vocal portion of the fandom than the 'Buffy is blameless, Spike was the sole abuser' portion. But whether that's actually true or not... *shrugs* it all boils down to where I had my fandom experiences and how I've curated those experiences over the years. I've mainly read BtVS/Ats fic on FFnet, Twisting the Hellmouth, and Ao3 - though I've been slowly getting more into the fandom here on tumblr too. My experiences with Elysian Fields are pretty small, so if that's where the majority of the anti-Buffy, pro-Spike Spuffy fandom overwhelmingly wound up, then its no surprise I ran into the other side of the equation more often. (By the time I stumbled across Elysian Fields, I was already spoiled by Ao3 and more interested in other fandoms.) Especially as the anti-Spike, pro-Buffy side seems to be more likely to held by people who aren't Spuffy fans at all, so it pops up a lot regardless of whether it's a Spuffy fic or not.

(The perils of multi-shipping; running across the demonization of characters I like because their ship 'stands in the way' of other ships that I also like.)

I've actually gotten pretty good at curating my fanfic experience to either avoid fics that place the blamely solely on one or the other or at least stick to fics where the blame game is mild and moved on from quickly, but that's on fanfic sites. Here on tumblr I've run into a number of anti-Spike and/or Spuffy posts lately. And after having a particularly uncomfortable 'Buffy did no wrong, Spike is the worst thing ever' type takes cross my dash... I just kind of needed to vent a bit without derailing someone else's post. I definitely need to keep working to curate my experiences here on tumblr, but I'll get there.

[chasingfictions]

hmm, I love all of your takes so much.....I am trying to think of an opinion we haven't talked about...alright so I've been thinking about how I would have fixed "seeing red" & at least in terms of spike's arc I think I have a decent idea. because I do like the idea that he takes things too far & realizes he needs a soul, like, as a concept. the execution is where they lose me. what if instead spike tried almost successfully to turn buffy into a vampire so they could finally belong together? I think her disgust & horror could've nailed home that he needed to change for him just as well. I've also thought of the idea that he could just successfully kill someone somehow even with the chip & same outcome, but I somewhat do like the idea that for it to be drilled in for him it has to be a specific horrible action against buffy. trying to change her so she can be with him could be the ultimate bad thing he did. idk if that's an opinion so much as an idea for a fic or something lmao but there you have it lol

send me your opinions & I say whether or not I agree

Omg no i truly love this as a fix it???? bc for one thing it Does feel so pointed like, that spike never tries to bite her even once for the whole season when he can hurt her,, like the most he ever says in wrecked is “maybe some day I will bite you” but it’s SO empty as a threat??? like that’s never what he Wants it to be about, and like for all that people (erroneously imo) say s6 spuffy is entirely about spike trying to like, separate buffy from her loved ones and bring her “down to his level” , it’s really not. like he genuinely thinks she would be happier if she acknowledged and embraced her dark side, and ultimately he just wants to see her happy? see- “it’s nice to see you happy, you glow” in hells bells and the way in as you were the second buffy says “and it’s killing me” he stops arguing the breakup or even earlier in life serial “yeah it is [your kind of fun] and your life’s gonna get a lot less confusing when you figure that out”

so to go from entropy onwards where his arc is losing that perspective and becoming so warped in losing her that he decides to try to make her a vampire in a fit of blind desperation? Works with the story intentions for seeing red from a character arc place , doesn’t traumatize actors or audience, AND is kind of gorgeous within his arc of like?????

spike as buffy’s shadow !! spike tries to make buffy a souless vampire and that’s what triggers him to become a souled vampire ???? Bc spike is buffy!!! spikes arc is Buffy’s arc and you have Buffy’s shadow trying to put her back in the grave out of fear and anger??? and then a final episode where Buffy’s shadow goes underground to the cave and buffy is underground in that grave with dawn and they both emerge in this same moment, undead and reborn and re-reborn!!!! Out of the grave!!!! And what does that MEAN??? and sabdkrkfjdb??/?:!:!:

And ALSO fits with the themes that have been circling around since buffy vs dracula??? That buffy vs dracula makes buffys psychosexual longing for vampires explicit and it’s no coincidence that she starts flirting with beating up spike every episode after that episode . Buffy vs Dracula with dracula saying see you want to be like us, you want to be dead, and Buffy rejecting it. Fool for Love with spike saying every slayer has a death wish, you’re just a little bit in love with it, and the way spike IS right, and the subtext of him as a dead man saying that to her is RIFE, but in the end of that episode it’s not death they connect in, but LIFE. Spike shows up to kill her and instead they BREATHE TOGETHER, because of mortal mundane death, because of family, because of empathy. so??? an alternate seeing red could carry out that same throughline that’s been present since season 5 — fuck, since season 1, since nightmares — and once again, it’s a vampire telling buffy you want this you want to be dead. and they’re not wrong , but also they ARE. Buffy wants to be dead but buffy wants to be alive MORE. and her shadow , spike, finally recognizes that in that moment, recognizes that both are true at once, and seeks a soul. Souls as empathy and souls as the complicated stuff of feeling everything to the fullest and this act which lets both truths coexist, that buffy wants to die and buffy wants to live, because spike is dead and will always be dead but he has taken the stuff of life into him with this almost blind faith. (Someone stop me I’m thinking about the fool in the tarot again) ANYWAY. The vampire who sought a soul. The dead man who is so close to life who falls in love with a woman who is so alive and so close to death. spike returning in season 7, still dead, but having sought life, having sought the complication of life and its still working around inside of him. literally once more with feeling, LIFE’s NOT A SONG LIFE ISNT BLISS LIFE IS JUST THIS IT’s LIVING . YOULL GET ALONG. THE PAIN THAT YOU FEEL IT ONLY CAN HEAL BY LIVING. YOU HAVE TO GO ON LIVING, SO ONE OF US IS LIVING.

spike trying to turn buffy into a vampire affirming that!!!! YOU HAVE TO GO ON LIVING. fuck. FUCK. I’m broken rn hi anyway this is CANON and you’re so SMART and I know I already wrote a whole seeing red fix it but I wanna write another one about this or read yours this is so good I’m gonna cry,????? This is canon to me this is so smart HI

[spikedru]

hey i wanted to ask! bc i remember you saying how you felt about spuffy but you hadn't rewatched s7 yet. did that affect how you saw them at all? also if you're okay answering, what do you think of seeing red? I've recently begun to think of it as. kind of out of character. like i know spuffy was downward spiraling but it kind of felt like seeing red was "what should we have happen so that things get super bad and spike goes and gets a soul" and not actually something that spike would. have really done? idk. I'm not a spuffy fan but i do think things about that episode

i still havent actually rewatched s7 lol i had been rewatching s6 back in march last year but stopped right before riley showed up again and didnt get around to picking it back up haha. ill probably think about doing a full series rewatch and liveblog after i graduate college (so sometime during the summer) and actually try to get through to the end

that being said i have not actually sat down and rewatched seeing red since the first time i watched the series. so. almost a decade ? at this point ? if thats any indication of how i feel about that episode. it has been a while. its on par with the body in terms of episodes that i never really want to rewatch (though for completely different reasons, obviously) more thoughts below

the way i tend to view seeing red is that of poorly thought through shock value writing. i agree with you in that it feels like a writers decision to have the worst thing happen in order to motivate spike to seek his soul, and not something that feels correct to the character. already by that point you have spike reflecting on their tryst and realizing the way things were was not making either of them truly happy, so it would not take that much prodding for him to realize something had to change. there are other ways to get spike to his breaking point without having to subject buffy to sexual violence. even though their relationship was volatile and played with gray areas of consent, i never got the impression that spike would truly violate buffy's consent. i think writing in an attempted rape affects the way the audience views them on a much deeper level than the writers were expecting. because, a lot of the trauma that buffy endures through the show, while very real to her, has a fantasy element that places a layer of separation from the audience. most people cannot understand the despair of having to send your boyfriend to actual Hell, or the betrayal of being ripped from actual Heaven by your friends. but there are members of the audience who do know the terror and betrayal of sexual violence by their partner. so i think that aspect wasnt taken into serious enough account when deciding to have your main characters love interest and general audience favorite do something so realistically deplorable. thats why i think it was mainly a shock value decision rather than based in any way the character would actually act. not even to mention the fact like. most everyone else in the production hating having to film it and james marsters has said because of SR he will never do a scene like that ever again he hated it that much.

from the refresher ive seen of s7 (from people gifsets and spuffy scenes and meta about spike, the soul, and buffy etc) i wish we had got more of a buildup to a true spuffy reconciliation. there is so much happening in s7. so much that a lot tends to get lost or not as much time focused on in order to get to the very end. i do really think that buffy was incredibly moved and touched by spikes decision to get his soul back. personally i think the choice to get the soul is more impactful than the soul itself, as it demonstrates how remorseful spike is over the AR and his willingness to atone for it without expecting anything in return. and how buffy recognizes that and thats why shes able to forgive him and let him back into her life. but because there are only 22 episodes to fit plot into the reconciliation happens just. a little too quick. i had wished that. idk. it happened over 2ish seasons? so we see spike struggling to reconcile with his soul just a lil bit longer and him settling with it and buffy seeing that struggle while still wanting him around. idk. a lot of my problems with s7 come from pacing issues. while i have my problems with s7 as a whole, i do generally like the spuffy progression in it, even if i wanted it to take a lil longer. in all of buffys past relationships, there are things that happened that make her believe that she is somehow responsible for her partners turning bad, or thinking she is somehow lesser for being with them. but learning that spike got his soul back for her, something she views as essential and good, it shocks her that she could inspire someone to change that much for the betterment of themselves. and because of that she can truly trust him enough to love him completely.

so like long story short i hate that seeing red involved sexual violence and i wish there had been some other way to get to the point of spike realizing he needs to change, but considering the way s7 went i dont think it changes my perspective on their relationship that much. i think spike and buffy are one of the most interesting relationships on the show just by how much they change themselves and each other by being in their lives, and thats why im so invested in them