#really buffy/angel shit

[ang3lik]

deciding i’m naming my vamp!bill series ‘the pain of love’ just incase i decide to make it angsty…

[horsegirlhob]

I'm not an Angel hater by any means however I do think Spike should get to be as big of a dick to him as he wants to be and people shouldn't get to say shit about it.

[absolutely-wretched]

Just one panel showing why I love Illyria so

[anniemal2004]

last post is exactly why I love buffy s6. love to see my no 1 girl broken and depressed and deeply disconnected from her closest friends and the world at large. I eat that shit up every time

[raisedbythetv89]

Listennnnn to be loved is to be seen

Buffy is SURROUNDED by people who project and project and project some more onto her without ever truly seeing her and just trying to force her to be whatever they want/need her to be often leaving her feeling used, abused, and lonely.

And so while yes on the surface the Buffy bot is icky as hell and obviously irl all of us would be rightfully horrified if that happened to us. This is fictional and with a still evil but trying to be good but with no human soul to help guide him on how to be good Spike - who has been rejected and is honoring that rejection and finding a solution to leave real Buffy alone by giving him a place to put all his feelings for Buffy somewhere that isn’t Buffy herself - programs her so well and therefore showing how well he sees and understands her!! NO ONE ELSE could have programmed that exact Buffy that was believable enough to fool her friends. So yes it’s twisted but this is a vampire falling in love with the slayer if you want completely healthy truly go elsewhere lololol but so the bot is used to show just how well Spike truly understands her and more importantly what he loves about her which given the partner she had right before this was Riley who VERY CLEARLY hated how strong she was and that she was the slayer…

spike is like SHE NEEDS A DEDICATED SLAYER FOLDER

HE PUT THE YEAR WILLOW CAME OUT IN HER BIO 😭😭😭😭 angel and riley truly could never in a million years pay close enough attention to the people in her life that Buffy cares about to add info like that

The choice of “make spike happy” instead of something like “pleasing spike” feels significant because it’s able to encompass a wider range of things including her care for her friends since that seems to be the active folder when she’s accessing information on them. Buffy caring about other people makes him happy even though he’s morally grey at best at this moment 😭 AND TWO KISSING PROGRAMS ARE THE VERY FIRST THINGS IN THAT FOLDER 😭😭😭 he doesn’t just “want to fuck her” like people try to claim he wants to love her 🥲 he wants her kisses like I’m gonna throw up from how disgustingly tender and heartbreaking that is

Buffy bot calls both her and Buffy very pretty and tells Giles he “should listen to the other Buffy because she’s very smart”. Spike made sure the Buffy bot was a Buffy that loved herself and valued her intelligence like I cannot even begin to tell you how NONE of this is your run of the mill making just a sex bot of your crush because not being able to have sex with them upsets you. He wants to love her because he knows she needs it as much as he wants to give it to her

We have this moment where Buffy bot has finally found Spike who she’s been looking for and worried about the whole time and seemingly only cares about him and no one else and she sees he’s SEVERELY injured yet when Giles calls for help Buffy bot responds at the same time as Buffy does and runs to his aide leaving Spike like she’s still just so BUFFY at her core even if the superficial aspects have been changed 😭

if we compare this moment to the one in something blue where xander calls out for help in the crypt in an IDENTICAL situation yet ACTUAL BUFFY just continues to make out with Spike when he’s not even injured at all 💀 like Spike didn’t even give Buffy bot the “extra love sick” component Buffy herself exhibits for him on multiple occasions 😭

and of course - WE END WITH THIS KISS AND THE WAY SHE’S FUCKING LOOKING AT HIM BRO 😩 she’s like holy shit he was for real when he said he loved me no one has ever done anything like this for me while simultaneously showing how COMPLETELY loyal and obsessed they are and how well they know and love all of me AND my sister like

‼️I CAN DEPEND ON HIM‼️

So close to death even Xander is feeling sympathy for him yet clocks IMMEDIATELY it’s her and she’s just like hi 🥹 yes it’s me, I really just did that. I see you and what you did for me. HAVE HOPE KEEP TRYING DONT GIVE UP.

If Buffy loves you she forgives you pretty easily and I personally think that’s what we’re seeing here with Spike like kissing him in the same ep she learns of the Buffy bot is low key CRAZY 😹 but truly people who have done less for her have done far worse!!! The bot kept dawn and tara from being taken instead and he proved he would protect both of them with his life and like she already loves him which is why she even went for the kiss she was like REALLY THE SITUATION CALLS FOR IT WHAT’S A GIRL TO DO 🤷🏼‍♀️

[loseremzo]

Ats completely ruined Spike as a serious character. Because as someone who loves Spike, and loved him in ats, I believe he was purely brought in to please fans and get them (btvs lovers who never watched or cared for ats) to watch ats. In the process completely destroying any amount of character he had. They got rid of the depths and multitudes in Spikes character and use him as a motivator and obstacle for Angel. Rarely do we ever see his vulnerability or his overall thoughts or feelings on things that happen to him in btvs+ats. And by rarely I mean only when he was with Fred, which ended when he became corporeal because I swear they never really had scenes together after that.

In btvs one could break down Spike’s character into two parts (simply. he is a character of layers), fighter and lover. Demon and Man, Vampire and Poet, Fighter and Lover. And in season seven he is trying to learn where the line is because before the soul there was no line. The fighter part of him and the lover part of him overlapped and hence the unhealthy love he has for Buffy. In the beginning of season seven we see that the line is now drawn but instead of towing that line he stands straight on the lover side and this is addressed by Buffy in S7E15 Get It Done, when he doesn’t fight the demon for Anya and Buffy tells him to stop being a pussy bitch and get his shit together. He has stopped relishing the fight, ignoring the fighter/demon in him because of the past chaos and bloodshed. Then he finds his coat (another thing taken away in ats) risks his mental wellbeing by going to the school basement where he went insane due to The First, a powerful being that still has some control over him with the trigger and he had just gotten out of the grasps of. He starts relying on the fighter side of him because that’s what Buffy wanted, until S7E20 Touched where he comforts her, explains his love for her, and holds her. Then in the next episode when they confront each other about it he tells her to forget it. That it was a malfunction, trying to reassure her that the fighter is still there, that he can still fight by her side. He found the line and walks along it, choosing which moments to let out the fighter or the lover. And that is gone in ats. Watching season seven of btvs compared to season five of ats, that characters are different in the sense that Spike has been dumbed down to the stereotypical sarcastic comedic relief whom annoys the main character and causes problems.

I loved that he was brought back (probably because when he died I’m pretty sure I like snapped, and almost collapsed in my kitchen and shit. so biased) But they should have kept the noncoporeal storyline but after that let him go be with Buffy. Which obviously would have never happened because Whedon was a dick and hated Spike and women, and wanted Angel to still have some hope with Buffy and keep fans on the edge with the love triangle.

[coraniaid]

People in the Buffy fandom love to rail against the idea that a vampire's personality has nothing to do with who they were as a human being. I've lost track of how many times I've seen a post on here pointing out how hard this stance is to justify and how ridiculous it is that the writers in general and Giles in particular keeps claiming it to be true. Which is interesting, since what I've just described is a position that both Giles and the show more broadly never actually takes.

The one time Buffy suggests this might be true -- when she tells Willow that "a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was" in Season 3's Doppelgangland -- she is clearly meant to be wrong! Angel very obviously is about to correct her when he chimes in with "well, actually...", and she knows he is about to disagree with her which is why she glares at him to make him stop. What's more, what Buffy is telling Willow in this scene has no bearing on anything the show has said or shown before. We are not meant to think Buffy is accurately descibing the show's position. We're not even meant to think it's something Buffy herself believes. She's very obviously just saying it to try to make Willow feel better. This is not subtle!

The very first human we see on the show who gets turned into a vampire is Season 1's Jesse in the opening two-parter Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest. Human!Jesse is, not to be too charitable, an unpleasant creep who is weirdly obsessed with Cordelia Chase. Vampire!Jesse is ... also an unpleasant creep who is weirdly obsessed with Cordelia Chase. Don't you think this is an odd creative choice if the show wanted you to really think that a vampire's personality was nothing like the human they used to be?

This trend of linking a vampire's personality to that of their former human life continues throughout the first season. Why would Giles warn Buffy (in Never Kill A Boy On The First Date) that the human Andrew Borba, who they suspect has been sired as the Anointed One, was wanted by the police for "questioning in a double murder" if a human's personality had no bearing on the vampire they would become? And indeed, a couple of episodes later, in the same season's Angel, Giles will explicitly tell Buffy that "a vampire [...] may have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over."

Having established this back in its first season, it remains a part of the show's lore in every future season. It's one of the elements of the show's often mutable world-building that remains the most consistent. Angel and Spike will both talk about things that "they" did as humans. Giles will continue to warn Buffy that the current vampire of the week was a horrible murderer before becoming a vampire [see: the Gorch brothers in Season 2's Bad Eggs, or Zachary Kralik in Season 3's Helpless], which only makes sense for him to do if he thinks that has a bearing on how dangerous they are as a vampire. Drusilla, as a vampire, is shown to be insane because of pyschological torture she was subjected to by Angelus while she was a human. (If a vampire's personality was entirely separate from that of the original human, how would this work?) Buffy admits to Ford in Season 2's Lie To Me that a vampire "walks and talks and [...] remembers [it's former] life". And so on, and so on.

And yet, without fail, every couple of months, somebody will announce that a vampire's personality in Buffy very often mirrors the personality of the human who died to become that vampire, as if this is somehow a radical and subversive reading of the text. Well, yeah, no shit. That's explicitly how it's always worked.

What's next: a post bravely insisting that -- no matter what Joss Whedon might want you to think -- vampires on the show really do hate sunlight and crosses and holy water? That maybe being a Slayer might be a metaphor for something? That there are subtle clues and hints scattered throughout the show's final seasons that suggest that maybe Marti Noxon and Doug Petrie are wrong, and that Willow might not be straight?

[thepunkmuppet]

costumes / looks I desperately need gerard way to wear on stage (add your own in reblogs!!)

greek statue, he’s fully painted white including his hair with a white toga with a golden wreath thing on his head. I just think that would look sick

police uniform covered in blood

straight up zombie with full on green decaying gory make up

one of the heathers from heathers

either the blue cheerleader outfit from the i’m not okay mv or the iconic red ones from teenagers. then we’d have a little trio!

ghostface. possibly cunty ghostface as a treat

vanya from umbrella academy - young version with the school girl fit and black mask OR the all white comic version of course

also number five from umbrella academy (classic school boy fit)

this sounds weird but I think this would be really cool and meta for wwwy - a stereotypical mcr fan / emo. as in with that one black parade t shirt, heavy eyeliner, black nails, side swept emo fringe, studded bracelets and belts, skinny black jeans, vans or converse. again a very meta concept, after their old person looks in 2022 I can really see them doing this as a whole band this year and I would loooove to finally see gerard in the fashion style that’s so associated with him and his music

howl from howl’s moving castle

possibly also sophie from howl’s moving castle

slenderman

literally just satan. like the most stereotypical devil, give them fully painted red skin, horns, fangs, yellow or black eyes, maybe even goat legs. probably with a majestic black suit or something, or for a succubus vibe a black flowy dress with a slit down the leg. now that I think about it, this would be a SICK wwwy look to shock us all, esp if ray mikey and frank all dressed as other demons or the souls of the damned or some shit.

peni parker - he made her!!

question mark jumper from doctor who

also missy from doctor who omg

jane doe from ride the cyclone, possibly with added marionette or cracked porcelain makeup like in some renditions

classic majestic white-robed angel, with enormous fake wings and maybe even sparkly gold makeup and a big gold halo. also would be cool in all black, or all white but covered in blood (red, gold, or black, all would look cool)

buffy summers in prophecy girl, except he also has blood all over his neck from where the master bit her. I hope he’s watched btvs I think he would very much enjoy it this look would fit with their vampire vibe sooooo well

classic frankenstein’s monster

mothman. not only is he a heartthrob but he’s also a hunched goblin cryptid to me. the duality of man (he/theys)

jane prentiss from the magnus archives. if you don’t know she is a living flesh hive of sentient worms, she’s decaying and full of holes. again with all the nasty decaying rotting prosthetic makeup plus THE RED DRESS!!!

mr darcy vibes, sopping wet regency man with a big puffy white t shirt

opposite side of that, fuck it give him a full on ballroom gown

henry creel from stranger things (pre-vecna, nurse outfit)

any disney princess

crowley from good omens. my man looks GOOD in those anthony janthony aah sunglasses he has

cute flowy summer dress with like a flowery pattern. either go cottagecore with it and have flowers in his hair, or go full white soccer mum and put him in huge cunty sunglasses a massive straw sun hat with a ribbon on it

all-black cowboy!!!! the fact I’ve never seen him in a cowboy hat is actual sacrilege. also would very much appreciate an all-pink sequin studded cowboy

any alice in wonderland character, especially alice herself, the classic disney movie look with the blue dress and the bow in the hair. he would also do a great chesire cat (spooky big grin makeup paired with his weird ass dramatic facial expressions?? inspired) or a super extravagant queen / king / knave of hearts. also 100000% the mad hatter omfg, he was BORN to do a jefferson from once upon a time look!!

[housewarningparty]

Au where Faith comes back to sunnydale in season 5

okay okay i've thought about this

it's a prophetic slayer dream that kicks it off - faith dreams buffy is going to die and she decides then and there she has to go to sunnydale to stop it. she informs angel who reluctantly gives his blessing and then she busts herself out of prison and heads back to sunnydale

obviously faith's motivation is this is a confusing mix of wanting to make things good with buffy, a sort of lingering subconscious suicidal death drive, and a genuine desire to be a Good Slayer for once. buffy can't quite understand what her angle is, but season 5 is a volatile time and buffy's struggling to handle everything on her plate so she can't actually refuse any help from another slayer

in a way, buffy's resentment towards and anger at faith allows her to accept help from faith more readily than she can from riley, her actual boyfriend. she doesn't feel guilty throwing faith out in the middle of the glory stuff. faith, also, kind of relishes being a meat shield a little - it's penance, right? she still resents buffy a little for using her like this so easily (unlike how she treats her ugly fucking boyfriend), however, she's also grateful to be used by buffy at all (unlike her ugly fucking boyfriend) TOXIC YURI

faith is very interesting to have around for joyce stuff because of the intersection of her guilt over the hostage-taking and threatening + her own dead mom issues + her desire to help buffy, genuinely. i think faith privately, secretly approaching joyce to offer to help while she's sick (clean the gutters, do the laundry, wash the car, basic things) to try and make amends because she doesn't know what else to really do is a compelling idea. also i think faith's potential interactions with dawn and tara over mom stuff here are SO interesting

MESSY relationship-wise. spike hates riley. faith also hates riley but wants to avoid him over the uhh body swap magical sexual assault. riley is a terrible fucking boyfriend this season. spike and faith are being absolute freaks about buffy and want nothing more than to kill each other with hammers. buffy wants everyone to shut the fuck up. faith and buffy's entire relationship would be built up gradually over the fact that faith is there and she's consistent and she's not actually asking for anything from buffy or even trying overmuch to prove something to her, she's literally just trying to help her and with everything else around her crumbling, i think buffy would end up really responding to that. idk what really happens with spike besides getting sidelined super hard. faith kicks the shit out of him over buffybot. he fucks off to reno. who gives a shit.

i actually have an outline for an s5 fic but currently that au is at war with my s4 au and i can't do them both, so they're both in stasis rn.

[theredpharaoah]

Dare I say we give Giles too much. I think him not giving Buffy the Slayer Handbook was dumb and ignorant. The Handbook didn’t just have rules for the Slayer, it was the definitive guide to magic on Earth and its history. The fact they never pull it out again after the first episode irritates the hell out of me. How helpful would that have been for all the Scoobies - Willow could’ve picked up magic way quicker. It probably would’ve helped Buffy hone the psychic abilities she never really developed. Remember how she’s supposed to be able to sense vampires and stuff? And in the comics, Erin had access to all the Slayer memories(I’m pretty sure) because he inherited the psychic side of the lineage. Again, that could’ve been cool to see and very helpful.

I also feel - as stated many times before - Giles completely failed with Faith. People talk about how Buffy built up that rapport with Giles and her friends - that she made their relationship the way it was. But that’s irrelevant because the relationship was present and stable at the time of Faith’s arrival. We see when Kendra comes that even the Giles is a bit taken-aback to her very by-the-book approach to being a slayer. So when Faith came - who is extremely similar to Buffy - how did Giles not immediately feel that paternal instinct he has with Buffy, Willow, and Xander? That sort of instinct comes easier the more people you consider to be your “children”. I mean it’s crazy that The Mayor had to take Faith out of that nasty ass motel. A literal demon had to go “that’s no place for a young girl”. And sure he had a motive but the fact that none of the decent people had already said it? And the way they handled the accidental kill of the evil assistant to the mayor? First of all, the Slayer killing humans is frowned upon but it’s not a hard and fast rule. I’m not saying they should just go around killing ppl, but I’m not going to feel bad that Faith killed a man who was working for demons anyway. And compare that to how they reacted to Buffy Killing Ted(when they thought she had); completely different reaction. And Buffy had exhibited far more animosity towards Ted, than Faith had for some random who got in the way.

Giles as an adult - and something of an educator - should’ve immediately clocked that Faith did not have the same upbringing as the other 3, that the Scoobies were falling into their childish instincts and alienating her, and he should’ve gone out of his way to include her and impress upon the others why they needed to accept her. Especially after they found out about her Watcher’s death and saw how terrified she was of Kakistos. Why did Buffy and Angel have to be the ones to find out Faith needed to be fought for - that she needed help to deal with her trauma. I was really disappointed in Buffy as she’d lost her watcher and relocated just like Faith. She also understood how lonely and dangerous it is being a Slayer. But I can’t blame Buffy all that much cuz she’s a kid. And Giles willing all of his things to Faith in the comics and only the Slayer Handbook to Buffy did not move me. Giles considered Buffy to be the “One True Slayer” was not a gag. Everyone considers her to be that, giving her this handbook after she’s been a Slayer for damn near a decade is insulting. She don’t need that shit no more - she had to learn it all on the job. And giving Faith his money so she could retire from violence? Faith’s violence wasn’t the issue, her relationship to it was. The whole thing read as very melodramatic and self-absorbed.

Giles was very childish and we see it all throughout the series, but especially in the later seasons. I mean when you actually think about it, he’s so ridiculous. Buffy was 22 at the end of the series. 22 and she has to take care of a teen sister, pay mortgage, bills, etc. Could you imagine that amount of responsibility at that age? Our society still considers 22 year olds to be pseudo-teens for the most part. And he left cuz he “didn’t want her to become dependent on him”…what type of shit? She was already dependent on you - you’d been her Father Figure since she was 16 and throughout a boatload of trauma. You pretty much raised the girl. And you know that - that’s why you had a dream of taking child Buffy to the fair. He’s human, but that doesn’t excuse the level of cowardice he exhibited for me.

Also, I think instead of killing Jenny in Passions, they should’ve had her live. I think she would’ve been great as Faith’s mentor. And while she didn’t take the Scoobies to task for blaming her about Angel and alienating her, I definitely think she would’ve gotten them together for their treatment of Faith. I also think she would’ve pointed out Giles’ differential treatments of the two.

[skyegraves21]

Basically i want the way Buffy is sweet to Spike in season 7 to transfer to season 4 starved and tortured Spike.

Wood dusts spike just in time for Buffy to walk in and see, in her absolute rage and devastation of a betrayal too many and on the cusp of understanding her true feelings as she ran to find Spike in time she is sent back in time to ‘Pangs’ as Spike knocks on the door.

Damn near hysterical with rage still she demands Giles let’s him in and tries to sooth and comfort Spike but keeps getting interrupted.

She finally snaps and starts screaming for Halfrek. When she doesn’t come she looks at Anya and demands she helps do Anya starts yelling for Hallie.

She shows up flustered but trying to be cool. Buffy says she knows she more then earned justice and Hallie owes ‘William’ here a favor anyway. (Cue spike and hallie eyeing each other like oh it’s you 😳)

Hallie agrees and Buffy thinks about it.

She ends up wishing that:

- anyone who purposefully hurts spike because he’s defenseless should earn the same zap as the chip, especially her

- the chip can be removed with a pass phrase she decides in her head at a later time

- Spike to have a new ring that only makes him invulnerable to sunlight

Everyone loses their shit and Buffy ends up calling her mom to shame everyone to treating Spike with respect and agrees he can stay at the house until he’s back on her feet

Buffy feeds Spike her blood

Spike goes with everything cause he kinda just assumes at this point it’s a fever dream

Spike does get mad eventually that Buffy is trying to force him to be her pet. They eventually finagle a truce of one month. Buffy says he can leave and do whatever he wants and she’ll even remove the chip if he promised to leave town but she’d like to spend a little time with him and he needs to recover for a bit anyways. And he can help her take down the initiative since he can fight demons and any of the commandos would get a zap if they tried to attack him

Obviously Buffy would earn Spike’s trust and respect before the month is up and she works really hard to treat Spike better earlier and they are becoming pretty good friends by the end and maybe understand they will eventually become more.

Lots of Buffy, Joyce, and Spike time.

Buffy ripping into the scoobies

-and Angel

At least one scene where Buffy and Spike sit on her porch when they have a heart to heart

The phrase to get rid of his chip is ‘kitten poker’

[liam-summers]

Sp*ke: spends several seasons trying to kill Buffy and her friends/family, has a dream and decides he’s in love with Buffy, Stalks her, breaks into her house and steals her belongings (underwear, clothes, pictures), makes a shrine of her in his crypt, has a robot in her likeness built so he can have sex with it, goes to her house with a shotgun intent on blowing her brains out, kidnaps her ties her up and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t admit to having feelings for him, repeatedly ignores her protests that she doesn’t love him and is disgusted by him, attempts to kill her every time his chip stops working, has violent sex with her when she’s at her absolute lowest, repeatedly tells her she came back wrong to keep her isolated and depressed so he can keep having sex with her, repeatedly tells her she belongs in the dark with him further isolating her, manipulating her, and taking advantage of her self loathing and ptsd for his own gain, repeatedly ignores her saying no, continues to invade her space and tries to blackmail her when she ends things with him, tries to rape her, gets a soul as a last ditch effort to force her to love him, comes back and guilt trips her at every turn that he got a soul for her and now he’s suffering, continues to stick around and is a liability to Buffy and her entire mission.

Sp*ffy fans: He’s so committed to her 🥰 he’s the only one who understands her and views her as an equal. He holds her accountable and supports her at the same time, he acts like a partner to her and would do anything for her but she was always too afraid to accept his love because she didn’t love herself and was also too committed to Angel who didn’t actually really love her because he didn’t fight for her love like Sp*ke fought for her love. But then when she finally falls in love with Sp*ke in the last episode, she fell in love with herself.

I genuinely don’t understand how one could come to those conclusions.

Like at what point do you realize that all of those things aren’t examples of commitment, but instead an obsessive pattern of behaviour that is a complete violation of a woman’s boundaries, agency, body, and mind.

What would it take for people to see Buffy’s infinite protests and disgust as a boundary that this man does not care to respect because the only thing he’s driven by is HIS obsession and need to have Buffy for himself?

The only way this POV makes any sense is that these people only care about Sp*ke’s perspective and don’t give a shit about Buffy’s. And the biggest slap in the face is that they praise this as a shining example of what a healthy relationship should look like.

Anyway, me personally, I could never hate Buffy Summers, and will never get on board with this repulsive narrative. Sorry.

[fallingtowers]

the fact that buffy goes through All That and comes out still pretty and blonde and with perfect makeup can, of course, be chalked up to bog-standard misogynist beauty norms. female characters on tv were, and largely still are, groomed and beautified to a level frankly unattainable for any real person, buffy maybe more than most. sarah michelle gellar was an official spokesperson for maybelline during the shows run, and buffy's appearance was geared towards bringing in male viewers; of course she was never going to be anything other than unrealistically beautiful.

and yet, somehow, in the context of the story, it works! look, far be it from me to ever, EVER say a female character design is better without scars, and if any other character went through the kind of shit buffy regularly goes through and didn't end up with a scar or two to show for it, i'd call it stupid and cowardly. hell, i'll call it stupid and cowardly in the case of buffy too! certainly her lack of physical scarring wasn't primarily motivated by attention to story or theme. all the same, it manages to dovetail really neatly with those things in a way that imo adds to the character.

in-universe, we can confidently assume the reason buffy isn't covered in scars is that she has that slayer healing factor going for her. she gets hurt, but even major injuries heal quickly and don't leave a trace. good thing, too -- the show already has a hell of a time selling the idea that she's somehow keeping her identity as the slayer a secret, and it would be that much tougher for us to suspend our belief if this purportedly normal high school girl was walking around with the marks of violent conflict on her face.

the fact that she doesn't -- that she is outwardly normal -- ties into the thematic aspect of this. because we know buffy isn't normal; she's the slayer, and she's got plenty of psychological scars to prove it. at various points in the show, she lashes out from post-traumatic stress; she goes catatonic; she spends an entire season depressed and engaging in self-harm. in short, my girl is fucked up! crucially, though, she only ever makes this anyone else's problem when things reach a boiling point and she can't keep it bottled up anymore. she's the slayer, and that, to buffy's mind, means shouldering the burden of being the slayer alone. she maintains a double facade: an outward one, for the benefit of the wider world, where she pretends to be a normal girl; and the one she puts up around her friends, where she pretends to be okay. she's fucked up inside, but she doesn't show it. scars on the inside, but none on the outside.

in fact, we do see buffy with a scar once -- her wishverse counterpart in "the wish" has a prominent facial scar. not coincidentally, that version of buffy is a lot less concerned with appearances ‐‐ in terms of clothes, hair, and makeup, as well as in terms of behavior. wishverse buffy has been through the wringer, but unlike real-world buffy, she makes no attempt to hide it. she's hardened, cynical, jaded. she wears her scars on the outside.

it's also worth nothing that wishverse buffy's behavior is very reminiscent of faith's in a way that is likely intentional. that entire season is all about contrasting buffy with faith, her shadow self who represents her selfish impulse to cut loose and cross all the boundaries she's set for herself -- which would include her need to keep up appearances.

so: a line can be drawn between the doylist unnaturalness of buffy's appearance and the watsonian unnaturalness of her behavior. her proximity to, and emulation of, faith results in a thematic move away from that unnaturalness. this is in a season that's noted for its homoerotic undertones, wherein the show goes out of its way to establish parallels between faith and buffy's big dumb hetero star-crossed lover angel. hmmmm!!!

(also, lest we forget season 6, which buffy spends flirting with the temptation to drop the pretense and indulge in her own selfish desires, a temptation which is embodied by another shadow self, who has -- wait for it -- a prominent facial scar.)

in conclusion, a cool facial scar, an hour alone in a rage room, and getting fucked right by a girl might not have fixed buffy summers, but it couldn't have hurt. discuss

[wasted-women]

ROUND 1C, MATCH 4 OUT OF 8!

Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:

Cordelia Chase

Cause of Death: Became comatose due to childbirth, eventually died

Propaganda:

A fiercely witty, complex and independent character - she was Always her own woman, only briefly having romantic relationships and it never defined her character for 6 seasons on both Buffy & Angel. Unfortunately the show producer was an abusive misogynist who targeted Cordelia's character specifically for humiliation when her actress Charisma Carpenter became pregnant. He is a colossal dick, and a terrible writer. Cordelia and Charisma deserved better.

I love her so much

Darla

Cause of Death: Sacrificed herself to save her unborn child

Propaganda:

She's a super old kickass vampire who was a terrifying and fantastic villain - she comes back just to be pregnant (it's this whole weird prophecy thing). And be conflicted because she's a killer but she's worried she's probably going to kill the baby once it's born and so she kills herself first and dies in the arms of her ex-boyfriend and HE is sad about it and has to protect the child and she's never really mentioned again outside of flashbacks (still about the male hero, not about her). Yes Angel the Series has so many problems.

Winifred "Fred" Burkle

Cause of Death: Died while being possessed by a demon

Propaganda:

Imagine taking an incredibly smart, traumatised, dorky, strong, paranoid, loving and curious character who is an Expert of physics and portals and basically the brains of the group by s5 and making her entire damn arc about the men she's with. Because she's the only woman left on the show (all the others have been killed off! yay??) and YET still killing her off and making her dying all about how powerless her boyfriend feels. Who gives a shit about her, her boyfriend is sad!

she's quirky and kind and really smart and somehow emerged from a hell dimension relatively sane

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Feeling really nostalgic about July 17-18, 2008, the last time I believed in Joss Whedon

It was just cool, you know? Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog dropped in three separate pieces over the course of the week. We'd get 15 minutes of story, and then two days to froth over the whys and wherefores in Livejournal comments before the next piece came out. And those days were so good.

Buffy fans are so fucking smart, y'all. They could combine academic rigor with unselfconscious fangirl squee. Squee was a hermeneutical method, a mode of interrogating the text--one we often dismiss and diminish, because if there's anything grosser than teenage girls getting goopy over a vampire they like, it's 30 or 50 or 70-year-old women getting goopy over a vampire they like. But it's similar to what I've seen called a "redemptive reading". You approach a piece of media specifically looking for its best parts, the pieces you love the best, and you allow yourself to fully embody the joy of liking something and caroling your joy to other people who like it too. In a perpetually burned-out time, squee can be like a desert oasis.

So the people who liked Buffy and Angel and Firefly watched Doctor Horrible in a manner both squeeful and intersectionally feminist, and saw all the amazing interesting things it was doing, showing how insecure geek masculinity fundamentally self-sabotages the main character, Billy, because the relationship he wants has been there in reach for months, and it's his own perception that he needs to be an alpha male warrior that has kept him from it. It interrogated the entire genre of costumed heroes, with two men thumping their chests and comparing their dick sizes, and none of them doing anything as direct and helpful for their society as Penny, the woman who stands on sidewalks collecting signatures to help a homeless shelter.

Part II came out on July 17, and the series would end with Part III on July 19. So on July 18, I spent most of the day reading Livejournal comments about it. There were all these theories: Maybe Penny was secretly Bad Horse, the archvillain whose approval Billy has craved since the beginning. Maybe she will collapse the love triangle with Billy's rival, Captain Hammer, by acting on her clearly-demonstrated discomfort and dumping him. Maybe Billy will learn that relationships are based on intimacy, not being The Best. Maybe Penny will become a superhero and replace Captain Hammer as Billy's nemesis. Maybe Billy will succeed and rule the world and give Penny Australia.

And then... none of those things happened. Joss Whedon ended the series in a way less progressive, less imaginative, less cool, than even the most half-baked fan theory out there. The story opened up possibilities to break out of an old, tired, toxic set of stories around men and women and sex and heroics, and then hid under a rock rather than change a single one of them.

July 19 was the day I concluded that while Joss Whedon might have his own baggage to work through about toxic masculinity, and artists have the right to make work meaningful to them, he wasn't making art that was meaningful to me. And I basically stopped expecting anything of him.

And then, for years, Buffy fans, educated and squeeful feminists and sharp pop culture critics, got told they were crazy histrionic SJWs for thinking Whedon didn't shit solid gold. For years. (I recently saw a video essay that included the line, "If you have the phrase 'mewling quim' branded onto your memory, you probably need some Metamucil" and, ouch, rude.)

There was so much excitement! A lot of us actually believed in the guy (although even then, there was enough evidence for many people to suspect what we now know to be 100% true about him.)

We wanted it to be good. We wanted to enjoy it.

I miss that feeling.

[raisedbythetv89]

Never not thinking about how Buffy has to beg and plead for Angel to not let the sun kill him when the first was tormenting him with what he’s done and that fact that soul or no soul he still wants to hurt Buffy and he concludes the only way he won’t is to kill himself….. and the only reason he didn’t dust was the storm and he was fully gonna let her watch him die again because he couldn’t face what a worthless piece of shit and a monster even with the soul he really is (and then suddenly they’re back together even though Buffy said they couldn’t be together anymore like RIGHT before all this so essentially Angel threatens to kill himself and then suddenly he and Buffy are back together 🙃 i hate it here)

Riley was gonna let himself die rather than become even weaker than Buffy while she again begs for him to stop being a whiny attention seeking toddler and grow the fuck up and do what he needs to do so he won’t DIE (my words not hers obviously lol) and when that doesn’t work and she still doesn’t “pay enough attention to him or need him enough” in his eyes while she’s ya know being the slayer, raising her sister and taking care of her sick mother…. He cheats on her in a way that again threatens his own life and the lives of everyone he could easily kill in her life if he were to be turned and when THAT doesn’t work he threatens to leave forever unless she forgives him IMMEDIATELY

And Spike who is the only one to actually die after she again is pleading you don’t have to do this “no there’s still time you’ve done enough” because Spike knows Buffy doesn’t deserve “good enough” Buffy deserves everything, she deserves to be free of the hellmouth even though that means they can’t be together and he’ll die

Two man-children who threaten to kill themselves because they can’t handle what they’ve done or that they’re not as strong as they think they are and drag an overburdened and traumatized young woman they had no business even dating in the first place along for their self-destructive ride vs a man who literally already sacrificed everything he was to become someone she could love without guilt, sacrificing everything he fought to become, for her and her beloved world she loves so much and fights so hard to protect.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MEN WHO THREATEN DEATH VS THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY DIED AND THE VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THESE THREE EVENTS 😭😭😭

Spike dying BECAUSE he was worthy of Buffy’s love rather than because he wasn’t like the two who came before him