#im not anti spike and im not really anti spuffy but tagging as such so as not to make people mad

[spangelmybeloved]

Honestly, I might like Spuffy as a ship more if they'd handled season 5 differently.

Like. I get he's a soulless demon. He's gonna do creepy things. I get it.

What I don't get is this: why would Buffy ever go for Spike after everything he did (steal her underwear, build a sex robot of her, Crush--yeah, the entire episode Crush, etc).

Ok. Moving on from that.

I don't like Spike in season five.

There. I said it.

I really hate Crush with a burning passion (well, maybe not with a burning passion, but it's certainly lukewarm.) I can't say that about many BtVS episodes, even the usual suspects, like Bad Eggs, I don't hate, but I don't like crush. The only good thing about that episode is getting to see beloved Dru. Oh, and then there's the whole thing with the Buffybot. I don't hate the Buffybot, it's not her fault she was created the way she was. Why do I hate that little plotline? It feels like a gross violation of Buffy, and to be honest, the Buffybot wasn't programmed to be a girlfriend. She's programmed to be a sex toy who worships the ground Spike walks on. To be fair, some of that could have been Warren's programming, but it's hard to know. I would have been (only slightly) more comfy with the Buffybot if she was more of a girlfriend and less of a sex toy. And the sheer amount of people I see defending Spike for making the bot, talking about how it's romantic and shows that he loves her. Mmmkay. You're entitled to your opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I love Spike to death. But in S5 I kinda want to smack him sometimes.

[chasingfictions]

Hi!! I would love to hear all the reasons you think Spuffy are the best match for each other and why you prefer them to Bangel. (Same, by the way :))

ok bestie hello this is an insane question first of all because no one should just give me free reign to talk about spuffy bc i could very well be here all day

first i'll say! i dont like, hate bangel. dkjfkdsf i feel like every time i reblog an anti bangel post i have the tag '#anti bangel #i dont hate them but tagging for blacklists" etc etc. because like, to me spuffy and bangel are just serving very different narrative functions, you know? and i think they both do those narrative functions very effectively! like there are levels and levels and levels to this.

but if we wanna look at it in the most basic terms of story structure, i consider bangel a tragedy in the classical sense and spuffy a comedy in the classical sense. when i say comedy i dont necessarily mean humor (though also i DO bc, as my catchphrase goes, spike btvs said it's always a joke and it's always serious!!!).

simply speaking: tragedy ends in despair and comedy ends in joy. [insert requisite 'obviously it's much more complicated than that but that's not what we're here to talk about' here] ... anyway this is gonna be Long so i'm readmore-ing bon appetit

bangel & the tragedy of heteronormativity

like i know spuffy has the reputation as like the tragic and edgy and depressing of the two ships, and i do get why, but to me bangel fulfills that function much more profoundly. they just ... don't work. like, for this lovely shining moment they do, and they're so caught up in each other, and it's that first love insanity of you can't even process what's happening you're just so totally overcome with the feeling. but critically that lasts for like, a second? like, it's basically "the dark age" to "surprise" that bangel is like, officially together and dating and happy. this is also coincidentally my favorite bangel era! like, just a freaky slayer and her freaky creature of the night boyfriend and they're horny and obsessed with each other and making out in cemeteries and having monster-face makeouts at the ice rink when buffy still has demon blood on her skate blades :))) like :)))) that's the good stuff :)))

ive also seen buffy just like, a million times, and i definitely had a lot more tenderness for them in a romantic sense on earlier watches, and then rewatching this time around i realized really all of that tenderness is basically about that era, which lasts for a narrative second. like the thing that struck me during my current rewatch of s1 and s2 is how long they spend in this weird posturing communication breakdown cycle and circling around each other like cage fighters. and they do have some moments in s3 that romantically-speaking i find compelling — or ok, just the "bad girls" arm jump is coming to mind right now but im sure there are others maybe lol (and even the bad girls arm jump is like,,, okay liam if buffy summers jumped into MY arms at the bronze i would experience a moment of spiritual ecstasy and yet you are not remotely looking like youre having a good time .... get help and appreciate her more).

but also the other thing that struck me in this rewatch of s3 is they break up like, every other episode? which narratively i do find equal parts hilarious and compelling from a structural standpoint. like okay obviously they are broken up to begin with in "beauty and the beasts" (broken up is kind of a hilariously small description for what they are at that point, but we're itemizing here). and then they friend break up in "lovers walk." and then they get back together in "amends" and break up again / go on a break in "enemies" and then reconcile in "earshot" and then break up For Real in "the prom" and then have that mini-reconciliation in that same episode and then are obviously still full of romantic context in "graduation day: part i" and she calls him her lover and they essentially have a sex scene when he bites her, and then they break up for good for good in "graduation day: part ii" ... pause for intake of breath bc i do feel like i just ran a marathon

— and to me that speaks to their asynchronousness!!! like the beauty and also the tragedy of bangel is that they almost work, and they want to work, but they can't, and they don't. like, to me they're just not equally matched as a couple. angel has this frustrating paternalism towards buffy (see: calling xander "just a kid" and telling faith she's "not much more than a child" and soulless angel calling buffy "kiddo" and it's like okay so clearly you do see her as naive and childlike and that's a Weird Relationship To Have To Your Partner...). He's constantly making these unilateral decisions that affect them both without consulting her — "i will remember you" is a great example of this to me. like people lift that up as a reason their relationship would work if they were just "normal." but in that episode angel makes a decision to alter buffy's memories and timeline and doesn't even tell her afterwards. or in "graduation day" — like obviously you can break up with your partner at any time you're allowed to do that, but the fact that he says he's just going to leave town and not say goodbye? to me feels needlessly cold and manipulative. there's also the fact that i think angel is much more of a person when he's not with buffy. neither of them really feel relaxed or silly or lighthearted around each other. it's always life or death and pain and terror and wanting, for the most part, with very minor levity.

and, to that point, i think the other really compelling narrative tragedy of bangel is the impact it has on buffy's relationship to her own slayerness and — conversely — to her queerness. im not gonna go into a big thing here on exactly why being the slayer is analogous to being queer because that's a whole nother essay? but blah blah "have you tried not being a vampire slayer?" / "i've tried marching in the slayer pride parade" / the "new moon rising" conflation of willow dating tara with buffy dating demons etc etc etc. like, one of the reasons i have warm feelings about early/mid-s2 bangel is that I think it's the queerest era of their relationship. it's buffy revelling in her "cradle robbing creature of the night boyfriend" and being attracted to his vampirism and "you're the one freaky thing in my freaky world that still makes sense". s2 bangel is compelling because it's freaky. because it's monstrous. it's sexual and messy and strange has undertones of queerness.

and then, of course, "surprise" / "innocence" happens. buffy is punished by the narrative and by angel for giving into her desire for this monster. buffy spends the next half a season being terrorized and watching people she loves die or almost die because of it. and then when s3 happens, you can't just go back to how it was! they're fundamentally altered by the trauma of s2! the freakiness of them is gone and instead they're playacting heterosexual normality because anything else is Unsafe. it's in the way buffy starts dressing somewhere between a housewife and jackie kennedy (which ok is also related to her feeling destabilized by faith and that whole bi panic but one thing at a time). it's in angel's nightmare about buffy bursting into flames after their big empty church wedding. it's in the mayor, this figure of patriarchy incarnate, telling them they can never have a "normal" relationship and angel believing him. when like, mister liam of galway she's a vampire slayer, normal was never even in play. it's in — critically! — angel breaking up with buffy by calling their relationship a "freakshow." that bit will never not break my heart.

so yeah when i say i don't hate bangel that's kind of what it's about? like they're not my favorite relationship but i do think they're an important story. tbh that's my relationship with most ship media like, even if something isn't your thing it does still fulfill a narrative function. and like, to me the narrative function of angel is to be the boyfriend buffy gets over. to be the first love and the adolescent wound. to be the trauma she can recover from in order to learn how to love again in a healthy and adult way.

spuffy & the comedy of queer futurity

OKAY so that brings us to spuffy im about to get SO insane hello!!! hello!! literally Hello Okay. i dont even?? dfkldsjfsdjf anon i hope u know this is an INSANE ask i think about them all day every day and the idea of summing up WHY and having it be COHERENT is just?????? like bangel i have cohesive enough thoughts about to be like yeah this is my argument for why i feel the way i do but spuffy is like????? ok i have a personal theory that u dont choose ur btvs endgame ship it chooses you. like spuffy gripped me by the throat at age 13 and said hello!! and i said oh ok!!! ok i'll think about you forever thanks!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you!

but OKAY on the narrative thread of bangel as this ship of heteronormative tragedy, to me spuffy is this ship of queer exaltation. spuffy as a queer relationship has been much expounded on already — like we've all seen @johnaeryns's lesbian spuffy manifesto which is art and changed the timeline by the way!!!!

ANYWAY. like queer spuffy is in the secretness of their relationship, it's in "you think i haven't tried not to?" it's in "i'm all stay-inny" it's in "this? with you? i know it's wrong" it's in "it's wrong, i'm wrong, tell me that i'm wrong please," it's buffy turning what angel used to break up with her back on spike, angel saying "you deserve more than this freakshow" and buffy telling spike "last night was the end of this freakshow." it's in the way buffy feels so much shame about her relationship with spike, the way she hides it. the way a lot of that comes from the angel trauma. angel tells her she should find a "normal" guy so that's just what she goes out and does, and pursues riley, except riley can't really Understand her. like biley to me feels like the experience of being bi in a relationship with a straight person who doesn't really Understand.

and that's the thing about spike, is he understands. it's the way spike comes into the narrative as a New Kind of Vampire who does in the old stodgy vampire cults and buffy comes into the narrative as a New Kind of Slayer who has friends and a life. and they're marked as parallels by the text in this way from the Beginning. school hard red stripes my Beloved <3333.

it's the way in becoming part ii which is forever my favorite episode of tv, buffy has no one, by the narrative's own declaration. it's buffy saying "i got nothing left to lose" and spike saying "i'm all you've got" and buffy's "me" to angel's "take all that away and what's left?" it's buffy's "no, i don't" to angel's "you really think you can take us all on by yourself?" and it's the fact that buffy's whole life is falling apart and everything is ending, she's lost kendra, she's lost angel once and is about to lose him again, she's lost her place in the real world with her expulsion from school, she's lost her place in her family by being kicked out and then here's this guy. this vampire who's on her side and who likes the world enough to save it even though he shouldn't want to and there's something about buffy telling whistler "well why don't you try fighting evil for a change because i'm sick and tired of doing it myself" and here she's not doing it herself??? because spike???? is here??????????

it's the queerness of spuffy in how spike is present for her literal coming out, it's the way they fit so easily together when they have no right to, which itself is a queer narrative. it's, all in that same episode, with their easy banter about the band and the way they instinctively work together in a fight and the way the fact that he's even invited to her house indicates this bizarre undercurrent of trust and understanding. this feeling of alignment and affinity that transcends other bonds and boundaries.

it's the way they match each other, and how that matching is explicitly tied to buffy's identity as a slayer, to her as a fighter, to her connection to the demon world, to the things that give her symbolic queerness (she also has lots of non-symbolic queerness, but again, one thing at at a time, like if we had to also get into how gay buffy is for cordelia and kendra and faith we'd be here all day). it's "i'd rather be fighting you anyway" / "mutual" and it's "you think we're dancing?" "that's all we've ever done" and it's "but i can't fool myself. or spike for some reason" and it's the way the fight is a dance to buffy and spike recognizes that, it's the way spike just knows her.

fool for love is insane for this reason (and many others) it's buffy seeking out knowledge about her essence, herself as a slayer, and she turns to spike. it's spike having insight, its the way spike is obsessed with slayers, and that's another element of the queerness of spuffy imo. a vampire psychosexually obsessed with slayers. a slayer psychosexually obsessed with vampires. the way being a slayer is already being a Woman But Wrong and buffy queers it even further with her erotic fascination with the monsters she's meant to kill, and spike's always already meeting her in the middle, because he's been obsessed with slayers since he knew what they were. the way spike's coat, the symbol of his selfhood, is a slayer's coat and a woman's coat and they're both meeting in this middle ground of Wrong Weird Queer Fucky Gender and are Understanding Each Other in that middle ground.

it's the way buffy understands the hero in spike that's not supposed to exist because he's supposed to just be a monster. it's the way spike understands the monster in buffy that's not supposed to exist because she's supposed to just be a hero.

it's season 5, the insanity of spike falling in love with a hero and slowly learning to be good for her, and he doesn't know how and he shouldn't even be able to learn how but he does, the way he's willing to sacrifice his life for dawn and in "intervention" and "the gift" he's prepared to do just that. this is one of the main reasons i talk about spuffy as soulmates but he doesn't have his soul yet. that spike as a human was so full of love, that love is still is guiding principle as a vampire, that it in places acts as almost a bootleg soul. it's "i don't smell a soul anywhere on you, why do you care?" - "i made a promise to a lady." it's buffy kissing spike for the first time because of his heroism in "intervention," and her letting him back in the house in "the gift" because of that same heroism and the trust they've built, it's going back to that same line in becoming part ii. "the truth is, i like this world." like the truth is he likes this world and he's not supposed to and buffy is sworn to protect the world and it's just!!! it's a little symphony is what it is.

and it's also!! spike understanding the monstrousness of buffy! this is the bit most people focus on with them, and why they have the reputation they do, but i truly think s6 spuffy is generally just so??? beautiful??? it's spike's"clawed her way out of a coffin that's how. i've done it myself" and it's buffy's "i can be alone with you here" and it's buffy who's died and experienced this insane trauma and the person who can understand it with her and make her feel okay is someone who's died too. it's "you have to go on living, so one of us is living," and just!!! the poetry of a dead man being the one to help you learn to live again.

it's the way that genuinely i read s6 spuffy as making buffy genuinely happy in those moments when her own shame isn't guiding her. it's the ecstasy of "smashed" and the fear of "wrecked" and "if you tell Anyone about last night, i will kill you" and the fact that in "gone" when no one can see buffy having sex with spike, she's giddy about it, she's delighted, she's nibbling his ear in front of xander and having fun doing it, it's her in "older and far away" and "as you were" clearly wanting spike but not wanting it to be in or near her house, where people could see, it's "dead things" and the way she's genuinely happy with him in his crypt and laughing and it's "hells bells" him making her laugh at the wedding and it's the fact that in "normal again" we get this dual glimpse of buffy just wanting to talk to spike about what happened at the wedding / flinching away when her friends so much as see her talking to him in a friendly way / him revealing that when they were together he'd put ice on the back of her neck and giving a peak to this quiet domesticity that existed alongside the torrid affair. it's how in "entropy" all he wants is for her to tell her friends about them. i know i said this above but it's literally tara, a lesbian, asking buffy if she's ready to "come out" about spike and buffy saying no, she's "all stay-inny."

it's the way s6 spuffy is SO easily read as being closeted in a queer relationship. the way that buffy feels free and happy and hot getting to have rough, inhibition-free sex with spike but feels shame whenever it's mentioned in words — "that may be how you get off but it's not my style" "no, it's your calling" / "you were like an animal" "i'm not an animal." like, the more i rewatch the show the more i feel like the fundamental quote-unquote-toxicity of s6 spuffy isn't the relationship itself, it's the resounding shame about the relationship (how many times can i say "shame" in one essay on tumblr dot com about vampires n queerness lmao). the fact that in relationships that are either normative (biley) or trying hard to be normative (bangel), the interplay of sex and violence for slayers is allowed and buffy can revel in it but in relationships that are queer either textually (fuffy) or subtextually (spuffy), suddenly buffy has to be ashamed of that, because what does that say about her?

and it all goes back to becoming ii! it's "mom, i'm a vampire slayer" and "well have you tried not being a vampire slayer?" and she literally HAS, she's tried everything she CAN and will continue to! throughout the series! it's the way that dual trauma—being kicked out of the house for being gay a slayer and having to kill angel after losing him because of her forbidden desire for this monster??? tell her that she's Wrong, that she has to be Normal, that she has to Deny what she wants and the way she is and wants is Wrong.

it's the way that spike is buffy's shadow, the way that in season 6 she goes to him because she wants to feel good, she wants to feel, period, and her expressing affection and desire for this monster who mirrors her is also her expressing affection and desire for the things she feels shame for about herself. it's the way buffy doing violence against spike is textually her doing violence against herself (see: faith beating up her own body in "who are you?" → buffy beating up spike in "dead things).

i also dont want to give the narrative too much credit here because one of the reasons buffy is so compelling as a show is the places where it fails and comes short. it's such a rich text to talk about queerness and shame and desire and womanhood precisely because the show itself is full of hangups about those very things. obviously this is a segue into "seeing red" which i'm Not going to go into in depth here, i dont really feel like talking about it because frankly i dont need to go on a long tangent about sexual violence right now :) but suffice it to say the fact that the writers room was like "okay we need the audience to Hate Spike because they Like Him Too Much" and their immediate thought was "right let's write in a horrific scene of sexual violence that will traumatize our actors and our audience and also shows that we too believe what buffy believes, that she is wrong for wanting this monster, that she should be punished for having outsized desires and not being more careful and now her and the audience will Learn Their Lesson." anyway moving on.

but anyway that brings us to the way spuffy is a comedy, structurally speaking. like i think people often read spuffy as this exclusively dark and twisted story because they a) only associate spuffy with season 6 and b) misread season 6 as being only about dark fucked up sex rather than like, that Desire Can Be Good Actually, Even and Especially When It's Not the Desire You're ~Supposed~ To Have.

but then we get season 7 spuffy???????? season 7 spuffy where they are slowly rebuilding their trust, where spike, who represents the parts of buffy she feels shame about, has sought out his soul, and it gets to be this tangible proof that the things she thought were awful about herself all along were actually always good, always had an innate capacity for goodness!!! and sought out a soul to prove it! the way buffy is so obsessed with spike getting his soul and tells everyone all of the time (see this chef's kiss set from @slayerbuffy ) in part because it's like!! see!!! i'm NOT wrong inside, the vampire im obsessed with had the inherent capacity for goodness all along!!!!! the way spike's ensoulment makes me INSANE because it's AGAIN in the thread of becoming part ii — spike is a vampire and shouldn't be ABLE to want to save the world he shouldn't be ABLE to want a soul or think of it as desirable but he DOES.

it's the way that buffy's relationship trauma has, since angel, been about saying feelings out loud, acknowledging feelings and desires in public, but in season 7 she is fully accepting of her desires verbally. "i'm the one who dates dead guys. and no offense, but they were hotties" and "kind of sallow but in a hot way?" and her and spike getting clocked with their sexual tension by the potentials and andrew and the other scoobies. it's!!! fucking!!!!!!! everywhere!!! it's that buffy hasn't said i love you to any love interests since angel (unless you count the time on ats she told angel she loves riley but i could write a whole separate essay on how THAT is just insane in so many narrative ways) and then?????? in her second to last scene in the series??? she tells spike she loves him???????????? it's spike's speech in "touched" bringing it all home:

I UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE. I LOVE WHAT YOU ARE. WHAT YOU DO. HOW YOU TRY. (excuse me while i WEEP).

it's the way she spends what she thinks are her last three nights on earth with him, cuddling in bed. it's the way her last lines of the series are all his name, and telling him she loves him, and their love which once wasn't even allowed to be mentioned out loud, to be even thought of with anything but revulsion, now burns so bright it makes them burst into flames

it's the way spike is so beautiful in the story as buffy's shadow because it means something that spike loves with his whole heart, that he loves every bit of buffy, that he has understood buffy from the beginning, even when they were enemies (see everything i went insane about above about s2) even when they were unlikely allies (see everything i went insane about above about fool for love). and understands her as a friend !!! (see early s6!!!! spike as buffy's confidante!!!). the way he understands her as a lover!!!!!!! (see the speech in touched!!!!). the way buffy hates herself but spike will always love her and he loves her for the fullness of herself and through loving him and through him loving her she can learn to love herself and accept herself fully, no one kicking her out of the house because she's queer a slayer, no one telling her she should want a normal relationship, just this strange gendery queer vampire who loves her forever for the fullness of her, her kindness and her strength, what she is, what she does, how she tries. the best and the worst of her. the way spuffy is about the ultimate affirmation of the self and specifically the queer self. the way spuffy is about finding each other. the way spuffy is about queer futurity, is about "you have to go on living," is about if you keep going and keep trying you can live your full unabashed queer life and spuffy finds that together, this freaky slayer and this freaky vampire, meeting in the middle, and making something new.

it's the way spuffy is this narrative impossibility that wasn't supposed to happen, the way spike was supposed to be this half-season arc villain. the way so much of spike in-universe shouldn't be able to happen, but it does. the way buffy breaks the laws of slayerhood, dying and coming back, loving vampires, changing the entire slayer line. the way queerness is very much on a level about this thing that isn't "supposed" to exist, but it does. and it's beautiful.

and that's what spuffy is to me.