#yes it's to show that Angel misses Buffy

[liam-summers]

BtVs 3.07 | AtS 1.03

Bonus🎶

[dreamsuvivor]

Okay I might be a little bit biased here, but I really hate how Buffy and the scoobies behaved to Spike in s5 after he confesed to his feeling for Buffy. I’m sorry but now y’all want to act all high and mighty? not when she was dating Angel, who quite literally killed someone close to her or when Riley just constantly made her feel guilty for her powers and guilt tripped her to apologize for spending time with her sick mother?!

And like I could understand if this was during the previous seasons when Spike was a bit assholey towards everyone, but he was almost part of the team at this point! He helped them on several occasion and Buffy even trusted him to look after her mum and Dawn at one point. And suddenly everyone acts like he murdered their loved ones…tf

[teddypines]

Weekend alone

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Summary: Y/N and Bruce have the house to themselves so they think watching a movie or show would be a good idea, until things take a different turn.

Bruce Wayne x Fem!reader.

Warnings: SMUT! 18+ MDNI, please and if you do not my problem. Use of vibrator, bit of degrading, i think. Let me know if i missed something.

Note: So.... First time doing smut. I hope it's good, i hope you enjoy it. Tips are always welcome!

Art/picture's are from Pinterest, credits go to whoever made it. I just put it together like this.

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It was an odd acuranse for Bruce and Y/N to have the whole house for themselves. Yet it happened to them. All the kids out of the house doing their own things with friends, partners or just something by themselves. Even Alfred went out for the weekend, going on a well-deserved vacation to a butler convention. Even the animals did their own things as Bruce and Y/N tried to figure out what to do for the day. Not wanting to do a lot since it was Sunday, which meant a lazy day for Bruce and Y/N to bond and recharge for the next week.

“We could watch a new show or movie downstairs.” Bruce suggested. Knowing fully well that they would never watch something new without the kids and will probably circle back to one of their favorite shows and or movies. “Yeah, but the bed is so warm and cozy right now. I don’t want to leave.” Y/N answered as she snuggled into Bruce’s side a bit more. Bruce laughed a bit and booped her nose. “Alright then, we can watch a show or movie here in bed. I did put in a tv in the room that we barely use.” 

“Can we watch Steven Universe?” Y/N asked Bruce, not even bothered that they watched Steven Universe multiple times and it wasn’t a new show or movie. “Please, Brucie, please.” Giving Bruce her puppy eyes. Bruce looked at Y/N and sighed. “You really want to watch Steven Universe again over watching something new? Something that, I don't know, needs to be checked before we watch it with the children?” 

“Steven Universe." Y/N answered. “Because all I wanna do is see you turn into a giant woman.” Bruce could only laugh a bit at Y/N quoting the show. “Or we can watch something that is a bit less gem related. We could watch that show with the angels and demons.” Bruce said as he pulled away from Y/N to find the remote to the tv in his nightstand. 

“Be more specific, Love. There are multiple shows with angels and demons.” Y/N responded. Turning on her side to watch Bruce look for the remote. “The one where they are lovers.” Bruce added. “Still not specific enough, love.” Bruce sighed and rolled his eyes. feeling a bit frustrated about not finding the remote or the show he ment.

“Do you want me to list them off?” Y/N asked, wanting to help Bruce with finding the show or movie he ment. Bruce only nodded his head as he continued his search for the remote. “Okay, so we have ‘Good Omens’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘Lucifer’ I think ‘Vampire diaries’, ‘Buffy the vampire slayer’ ehm…. that one show with the witches. Yeah no I think that’s it.” Y/N listed off all the shows she could think of. Bruce was a bit baffled about all the shows with angels and demons that were lovers or had other lovers. He dropped the remote on the floor. “Yeah… ehm… Let’s just watch Sherlock.” “Okiedokie, which one?” 

Bruce looked at Y/N, wanting to give up on watching a show or movie all together. “The one with Rdj?..” Bruce answered. “First or second one?” Y/N asked again. Bruce leaned against the headboard in shock. “Jeez women stop asking so many questions, I just want to watch Sherlock Holmes and snuggle with you!” He answered. “So…. I can pick the Sherlock version?” “Yes! Just pick, please.” Y/N giggled and put on the first Sherlock Holmes movie with Rdj in it after grabbing the remote from Bruce’s hands. 

<---------------------------------------------------------->

“I don’t like Irene.” Y/N commented after Irene just tricked Sherlock into doing her dirty work. Bruce laughed at her comment and kissed the side of her head. “I know you do. Good thing she’s not real and Sherlock ditches her.” Y/N nodded her head at Bruce’s response. “You know Sherlock only likes her somewhat because she’s interesting to him and he can’t really read her like all the other people, right?” He asked before continuing to kiss Y/N head and cheeks. “Yes, I know that, but I still don’t like her.” Y/N pouted after answering.

Bruce laughed a bit at the pout Y/N had on her face and slowly placed his hands over her thighs. “Such a pouty girl.” Y/N looked up at Bruce, sticking out her tongue. “And here I thought I was free of children for the day.” Bruce teasted. “Maybe I should teach you how to behave.” Y/N turned a bit red and quickly looked back towards the tv. “No need.”

“No need? Owh sweetheart, I think you do need to be taught a lesson in behaving.” Bruce whispered into Y/N ears. His hands moved from her thighs towards her hips, gently lifting her up and placing her into his lap. “Good girls don’t stick out their tongues.”

Before Y/N knew it Bruce had pulled off her sleep shorts and panties. “Focus on the tv, Sweetheart.” He ordered Y/N in a husky tone. Y/N could only listen and turned her focus on the tv in front of her. She could hear Bruce reach for his nightstand and grab something from one of the drawers. She had an idea of what he grabbed but had to do her best not to look. Her suspicion was however quickly confirmed when she felt something cold against her clit and a low buzzing sound started to fill the room. “There's a good girl. Keep looking at the tv, love.” Bruce smirked as Y/N started to whimper and squirming between his legs. The vibrator was on the first setting and she was already a mess.

“Bruce…” Y/N moaned as she turned her head up to look at Bruce. “Ah ah. No, Love, keep looking at the tv.” Bruce purred into her ear before turning up the vibrator, making Y/N’s breathing hitch. She moaned at the stronger sensation on her clit, the feeling of Bruce’s hard one against her back wasn’t helping either. She wanted to look at him not at the tv, but he wouldn’t let her. “Such a good girl, Sweetie.” The way Bruce said those words didn’t help Y/N at all, the feeling between her legs only getting stronger and stronger.

Bruce looked back at the tv enjoying the movie once again as he kept the vibrator on Y/N’s clit. Changing the levels every once in a while, going from really low to the highest and everything in between just to tease her. Making sure she wouldn’t come or look away from the tv. Holding her tightly against his chest.

“Bruce… Please~” Y/N whined as she could feel herself getting close again. “Please, please.”

“Please what, love? What do you want?” Bruce asked, adding to the teasing, wanting to hear her say what she wanted in this messy state. “Please, want to come.” Y/N barely got out as Bruce turned up the vibrator once again. “Yeah? You want to come, love? but I don't think you have learned your lesson just yet.” Bruce answered Y/N plea. The way she started to shake in his lap made him want to continue this little teasing game. “Please Brucie, please, i'll be a good girl. A really good girl.”

“Hmmm, are you? Are you going to be my good girl?” Bruce asked after placing a kiss on Y/N’s shoulder when she nodded to his question. “Alright, love, come for me, sweetheart. Be a good girl and come.” The moment Bruce told Y/N it was okay to come, she came. She arched her back against Bruce and moaned out his name. Bruce was pleased by Y/N coming like this and the sight alone made him come inside his sweatpants.

After a little while of calming down Y/N turned over in Bruce’s arms. “You’re mean,” She whispered. “But I love you more. Now let me make you feel good too.” She said before getting onto her knees, only to be stopped by Bruce. “No need for that love, you already made me feel really good.” He gestured down at his crotch where a noticeable dark spot was. Y/N looked at it and could only laugh. “Did I really make you come by just letting you toy with me?”

“Maybe.” Bruce smirked and pulled Y/N towards him for a kiss.

“Come on, let's get cleaned up and get some snacks so we can finish this movie.” Bruce said as he picked Y/N up and started to carry her towards the bathroom. Y/N smiled and nodded her head. “I’d like that a lot.” 

[coraniaid]

🔥 for Drusilla

So, for context, as I'm sure you know: I like Drusilla a lot. She is perhaps my favorite vampire on the whole show, for all that she's only actually in barely a dozen episodes.

I've said before -- and I very much still think -- that in a better world she'd have been the primary villain of Season 7. If nothing else, it's a real shame that she basically ceases to exist after Crush (yes, she appears in some flashbacks in later episodes but her actual arc just abruptly stops on both Buffy and Angel; we don't ever get to see how she reacts to Darla's final death or see her meet Connor or find out about Spike getting a soul). I know the story is that Juliet Landau was reluctant to appear again outside of flashbacks in case her character was killed off, which is understandable, but the practical effect is that ... well, she may as well have been killed off for all the impact she has in the final few seasons of both shows.

But, that being said, my actual hot take is that -- while, granted, I've not ever looked especially hard for the good stuff -- all of the popular Drusilla headcanons and fan takes I've seen on Tumblr are kind of ... um. Well, I'm not sure how to put this tactfully, but to me they are almost kind of insulting? They just don't engage with Drusilla's established character at all.

To me, Drusilla is compelling because of her thematic connection with Buffy as established throughout Season 2 -- yes, pretty much everyone on the show who isn't Buffy has one, but I think Drusilla's is more interesting than most -- and because of the occasional hints that this connection is more than thematic ("I only dreamed you'd come", say) and because she is at one and the same time both a victim and a monster: somebody who remembers weeping that she didn't want to be "an evil thing" and hates the vampire who killed her family but who also sneaks out at night to try to kill small children and delights in being given human hearts to eat by that very same vampire.

And yes, of course, she's in love with Spike and she's got these very complicated relationships with both Angel(us) and later Darla -- she tortures Angel in revenge for murdering her family, but more than any other vampire she talks about siring and being sired as if it is a parental relationship -- but I'd argue pretty strongly she's not defined by any one of these relationships. She isn't just Angel's innocent victim or Spike's doting girlfriend or Darla's wacky sidekick. These things aren't the totality of her character, and the fact she's capable of love -- a fierce, possessive, selfish kind of love -- certainly doesn't make her a better person. Above all, she's not secretly nice.

And yet it sometimes feel like everybody who was posts about Drusilla on Tumblr must have seen some other (much more boring) version of the character than I did.

Because the thing is -- at least in my corner of Tumblr -- everyone seems to like Drusilla. But many people seem to "like her" in a kind of superficial way that flattens her character utterly beyond recognition. I often think that for a lot of people on here, liking a character means pretending they have no flaws or waving away every awful thing they do (because "the writers made them do it!" ... which, while technically true, rather misses the point of ... well, all of fiction) or inventing dubious virtues they certainly don't have on the show.

So the Drusilla headcanons I tend to see are all things that position her as something other than a monster. That shave away all her interesting sharp edges. I've seen people insist she secretly broke up with Spike for his own good despite still being in love with him (which ... well, no? come on), or that she foretold the end of Chosen before even siring him (... Dru canonically wants to end the world; she tries to do that more times than any other Big Bad! if she knew what was coming she'd have been rooting for the First!) or posting various post-Becoming ideas about Buffy and Drusilla and Kendra that just completely refuse to engage with the fact that Drusilla killed Kendra and left her body for Buffy to find in the library (I know Buffy doesn't ever talk about Kendra after Season 2, which is a whole other thing, but I really don't think she'd start making out with Kendra's murderer under any circumstances whatsoever).

And to be honest it's all just a little depressing. As I said, I do like Drusilla a lot, but I like the version of her who actually appears in the show. The one who, yes, remembers not wanting to be an evil thing but also definitely is one ("I'm not a person", as she says in Lie To Me). The one who kills teenage girls and is cruel and capricious and angry; who threatens and tortures her own allies and isn't secretly driven by any nobler feelings or higher purpose even a little bit. And so much of fandom seems determined not to even acknowledge that that version of the character even exists.

(Admittedly I haven't ever seen it in the wild yet, but I would not be completely shocked to one day read a take saying Drusilla was a better friend to Buffy than Willow or Xander ever was. I mean, she does interact with Buffy more than Oz ever does, and there are parts of the fandom that already make this argument for him...)

Hmm. Actually, as I write this I recall there is in fact one good Drusilla headcanon I read on here a while ago (I think a couple of years ago? I'm afraid I can't remember who said it or I'd give credit properly). A take that both perfectly fits the supporting evidence of the show and makes sense with what we're told about who Drusilla is as a person and doesn't distort her character beyond all recognition.

Dru definitely stole Spike's car when she left Sunnydale at the end of Crush, and that's why we never see it on screen in the show again. That is a good headcanon which I completely accept.

It's a shame that she then drove off into the night and was never seen again.

[reijamira]

My Golden Blood Episode 4: Of Finding Friends And Learning To Be One (my live reaction)

Wednesday was so busy. I had no time to look for spoilers. Like last week, I wasn't on tumblr. Only Xitter (I tried to help the trend.)

So, no spoilers at all for this week. That's a first.

Let's not waste any more time, we're going in now:

50:30 min. Seven minutes fewer than last week. I already miss these seven minutes. Can't get enough of this show.

The intro is playing. I will NEVER EVER skip this intro. It's the best of any series I watched.

"Desire for Blood" is the title. Will we get some biting today? At one point, I'd really like to see Mark drinking from Tong's neck. It's a vampire show. We're here for some neck biting. 🫦😊😍

Ah, it's "Mark" now, not "khun" or "mister". A development. 😊

I love the uniforms. Tong and Mark look really nice in them. Like really, really nice. Mmh 🤩

Mark often appearing or standing right behind Tong (speaking to his neck/ear) is doing something interesting to my feels. That's so protective. Possessive, too. Sensual, as well. 🫠🫦

Lol, cruel babygirl Tong. Don't make your bodyguard vampy miserable.

Aww, was that fishing for a compliment, khun Mark? Of course, Tong thinks you're cool. We all still remember his visible reaction upon seeing your half-naked self in EP1.

It's astonishing how Joss can make Gawin look so smol. 😂😍 I really love how both carry themselves here. Mark's posture is so calm, confident, and commanding. Tong seems more fiery, tense, and defiant.

I enjoy how amused Mark is by all that back and forth bickering with Tong. I can tell that man is doting on Tong. It's not just the sweet blood.

A deep moment about the meaning of friendship. Mark has given up on it. Tong still has hope.

Aw, Mark wanted to comfort Tong. It's so sweet how much he cares for him. He really felt Tong's sadness/loneliness because it's something he himself went through. He understands.

Mark is a vampire with a heart. Like Angel (Buffy).

Lol, we're entering the basketball field now. I said it once, and I say it again: this feels like an AU fanfic about JossGawin. 😆👍 The parallels are paralleling.

Okay, Tong, I get you! Mark in a white tank top is a killer look. 🫦🤭💣

I love it how Tong juts his chin out and puffs himself up in order to stand up to Mark. He has such a challenging nature. So defiant. A little bratty. But cute!

Uh, gotta prepare for that blindfolded basketball scene. There will be some hot tension. 🔥

Omg! YES. If you take away one sense, you heighten the others. Gorgeous scene!

I'm sorry, my mind is in the gutter. "it's in" out of context... 🤭😆

Love the scene on the roof. Beautiful lighting. Look at how amused Mark is here. So sweet how he touched Tong's fingers. 🫠😍

OMG, Mark went full out to save Tong's favorite shirt. What a vampire!

"I LOVE YOUR SCENT." Aww! 🫠🫠🫠😍☺️

Mark is so whipped. Tong doesn't really know how to approach his blossoming feelings for Mark. It's adorable to watch.

He brought Mark tomato juice and sandwiches! 😍

Tonkla in that hot dog costume! 🤣👌

Uh, Nakan! What are you up to?

The awaited library scene!

Will they kiss or won't they kiss?

Hands around the waist! 🫦

Uh, the tension is so good! My heart is beating so fast.

Ahahaha, kiss-blocked by Pride and Prejudice. 🤣🤣👌 I knew it that Tong would bail out.

Okay, both Mark, but especially Tong, reflect on their feelings via Pride and Prejudice. Is it love? It might be. It totally could be. I think it is.

Thank you, show, for this stunning shot of a sexy back of a drop-dead gorgeous man! 🫶🙏😍🔥

Ah, no, I hope Tonkla won't betray Tong (knowingly).

Uh, heavy. Is this talk about betrayal foreshadowing?

I understand Tong, but I feel bad for Mark. He's getting a lot of hell from Tong.

Lol, thank you, Tonkla, for the laugh! 🤣

That basketball scene was fantastic.

Is Mark's faith in friendship slowly coming back? Love how everyone stood up for Mark.

😱 I completely forgot about the towel scene. It hit me out of the blue. Look at JG! How gorgeous can you be, huh?

My, this towel scene! As distracting as these handsome men are, it's a deeply touching scene. Them clad only in towels makes them naked, vulnerable, laid bare. This scene feels so intimate because of that. THIS a pivotal moment for both of them.

They are now official friends! 👌🫠

Indirect kiss incoming. (I'm a simple girl. I notice things like that 🤷‍♀️😂)

Let me guess: Mark takes a sip, too, and gets a taste of Tong's saliva, which makes him hunger for the real thing?

Hahaha, I was so wrong! The smell of Tong's saliva made Mark's heart beat again, right? Or was it a work in progress, and now that Mark really loves Tong, it can beat again?

Anyway, that kiss, though! What a delivery!

I have butterflies in my stomach. I feel warm and dizzy! It was magical! Romantic! Sweet!

Love how it was cut, Joss's song is perfect for that scene, the flashbacks add to the mood.

😍🤩🔥🫦

I'm still reeling from that kiss! It was one of the best kisses I have seen so far. Really got the emotions across. Awww, let me swoon for a moment.

Please, anyone, help me build a time machine. I need to travel to next Wednesday's episode! RIGHT NOW!

I'm dying, screaming, squeeling, kicking my legs!

Holy macaroni! WHY do JG ignite such a wildfire? What sorcery is this?

I can't!

Okay, that's it. I need to calm my emotions.

What a phenomenal episode! Wow! I love this theme of a lonely, good-natured, stoic vampire who rediscovers his humanity. Mark is such a green flag! The heartbeat scene is so dear to me!

[This was the first time I live-tweeted my reaction to my X.]

[All screenshots made by me]

[monsterswithimagines]

Undisclosed Desires - Part 13

Joe Goldberg x female!Reader

Summary: Twenty minutes before he would have met Guinevere Beck, Joe meets you instead. You intruige him, but it will soon become clear that there is something off about you.

Words: 1298

Masterlist

(I guess Joe's willingness to murder is more book-Joe than show-Joe, but whatever. I can't help that I'm halfway through the first book right now.)

Minor warning: masturbation is briefly mentioned.

Some things, you just can't learn about a person until you're in a relationship with them.

For example: you like to be kissed, often. Softly and sweetly, but also with intent, until you can't breathe. You smile into kisses and when I pull away, you tilt your head and the smile doesn't leave.

I live for that smile.

Also, you're not always nice. You run out of energy and you stonewall me. When you get like that there is nothing I can do to make it better, except leave. This happens most often when you've had a busy day at work, and one day soon we're probably going to have a beautiful fight about it, but for now I let you close down and shut me out. I really do try not to take it personally.

You don't care if I look at your phone. Sometimes you even ask me to check texts for you. This would make me incredibly happy, except aside from me, the only people you text in English are your coworkers.

You're more secretive about your laptop, which makes me wonder what I missed when I looked at it. I guess I didn't really do much digging. But when I do check it out again, even digging doesn't turn up anything.

Weird.

You're a bit of a slob. I knew that already, but I didn't know it would be so easy to take things from your apartment. You don't notice when items go missing, or if I move them around while you're not there. You did comment on your missing toothbrush, but you just assumed you misplaced it yourself.

“I swear, Joe, if my head wasn't attached to my body…”

All of this, I've learned over the course of two months. Two amazing months of being with you. Only it doesn’t always feel like I am with you, because you haven't told Nadia or your mother or even Grey about me, and I've been checking. After you told him you had a crush on me, he tried to find out more about me and you avoided the subject by writing to him about how much you like Angel from Buffy the vampire slayer. (If I could beat up a fictional character, I would.)

And we haven't had sex.

We've gotten close a few times, but you always pull away just when things are getting hot and heavy. Sometimes when you're alone, you masturbate several times in a row and I know you think of me, (Y/n). I can see it on your face. But when we're together, you look embarrassed and tell me you're not ready and I am patient, I am, but how can you not be ready when you are so obviously eager for it? Even dreaming about it?

I still don't like your coworkers. They are rude to you and belittle you, and they make inappropriate jokes in the groupchat. This is why I almost say no when you invite me to a company lunch, but in the end I say yes because at least you're inviting me somewhere.

“It won't be like last time,” you assure me. “No alcohol, for one.”

And you're right. It isn't like last time: it's worse.

I’m pretty sure your job is a scam, (Y/n). Nobody who works at your agency (other than you) actually needs to make money. The owner, Sam Carr, is a man in his fifties who considers this entire venture a hobby. He has two other companies, neither of which are making any money, but he doesn't need to make money because he is the kind of rich that goes back generations, to before white people even lived in America. Yet he pays you peanuts and you have to borrow money from your grandfather over and over again.

Sam's wife is Pam (which is short for Pamela, but Sam thinks it's hilarious for them to be Sam and Pam). She is only a little over half his age (thirty) and twice as smart as him, and you know this. You address her like she's the owner, and when she's around, you don't even talk to Kim, whose approval you were so eager for last time. Pam comes from old money, too, and has started several foundations throughout her life, all of which are doing well.

There's Judy Allen, who is tall and blond and keeps her lips pursed at all times. She does the same thing you do, copywriting, but her real job is being a momfluencer on Instagram, showing her kids off like accessories. Out of everyone here she is the nicest to you, but I can't tell if she means it or not and neither can you. You are nice to her, but you address her like you would a teacher, or a distant relative.

Jasper is so much worse than I remember him. He follows you around like a lost puppy and you let him. You glance at me, testing me, and I hate this side of you. I hate who you are around these people.

Surprisingly little is eaten, though there is much more on the table than even an entire orphanage could put away. You and your coworkers talk about Google and helpful content and black hat SEO and I don't understand anything any of you are saying.

At some point somebody asks me what I do. I grit out that I work in a bookstore and you look up and say: “he's being modest. He manages it” and I feel kind of proud. But then the person who asked me what I do in the first place starts asking me about the store's website and I have to admit that actually, Mooney's doesn't have one.

“I prefer things a little more old fashioned,” I try to justify, and then realize immediately how incredibly dumb I must sound to these people. “I mean, sometimes we sell a first edition on Ebay.”

You pat my leg underneath the table, which is code for 'shut up', so I do.

“You could always ask (Y/n) to help you make a website,” Jasper says, and he is looking way too intently at your chest as you reach across the table for a croissant. “She's surprisingly good at it.”

Surprisingly good? Seriously, (Y/n), I want to bash this guy’s teeth into his skull.

But you act like it's a compliment. You blush and wave him off and shake your head at me.

“You'd be better off hiring someone who actually knows how to make websites. I can write your content, though, if you want.”

I don't even want a fucking website, but I nod.

“Maybe.”

Finally, we can leave. I don't know what the point of any of that was.

In the cab, you slump against me and close your eyes, and you say: “Did you see the way Jasper kept staring at my boobs? I fucking hate that guy.”

Faith in you restored. I never should have doubted you.

“He just will not leave me alone lately,” you complain, and I wrap an arm around your shoulder and press a kiss to the side of your head. “But when I tell him off, he goes and tells Kim I'm being rude. She told me I need to be more of a team player, you know.”

But you are a team player, (Y/n). It's just that those people aren't on your team. I'm on your team.

“He's basically harassing me, and if I wanna keep my job I can't do a damn thing about it.”

“Fuck him,” I say.

And I mean it. Fuck Jasper. Fuck him and every man like him who thinks he can own a woman just because he has money and connections.

Jasper's gotta go.

[mothmans-wedding-photographer]

Mothman's Buffy rewatch: Season 4, episodes 9, 10, and 11, "Something Blue", "Hush", and "Doomed"

Something Blue

The lesbian alliance sbebejsjje

"Yes. I am a lesbian" as a lesbian I find this absolutely hysterical I'm ngl like usually it's annoying when men joke about being lesbians like "say you're a lesbian girl me too" but I think the difference is 1. He's not saying that to hit on a lesbian and 2. Buffy brought it up as a joke first

Also his delivery lmaoo

Honestly I do generally like Riley at this point in the season, and he does genuinely seem healthier for Buffy than at least Angel (still not over how he let's his friends talk about her though)

"I wonder where I get that from?" Girl I'm gonna hold your hand while I tell you this

Oh my god the mug!!! The best mug!!! I went to this little pottery painting place and recreated it. I should've put my hot chocolate in that mug while I watched this episode

"Giles help! He's gonna scold me!" Crying

Buffy 😭😭 I love when everyone bullies Spike

Spike being more attuned to Willow's feelings is sending me

I drive for fun sometimes. I then I get tired and I prefer to have my dad drive me. I love going for drives

Aww see this is actually sweet of Riley I think if they kept him this way, with a few tweaks I would have considered him the healthiest ship option for Buffy

Drinking away fer feelings :(

Lmao I forgot about rat Amy (despite all her rage she is still just a rat in a cage)

Girl what are you doing this seems like a bad idea

It's the intro part!!!

Aw it's nice that Giles came to check on her

Giles she only missed one thing give her a break

Well she messed up his vision I'm sure this won't have negative consequences

NOOO AMY

Gets unrated for one second before immediately going back

Yeah Willow you still don't want him running free

Buffy looks so confused I'm crying

Oh my god

CRYING SBBEJAKDNELSNDJKE

Oh it's so weird to see Buffy happy like that

"You're a demon magnet" aw shit that's not gonna be great. Also super mean to say come on Willow

"Mr. and Mrs. Big Pile of Dust"

Awww she wants Giles to give her away 🥹

Giles is suffering and so am I

"I don't even really like him" crying

Oh my god what the hell

Oh right demon magnet

I think it would have been funnier if the demons were physically stuck to him like he was actually a magnet

Anya's twitching face sbsbebjsd

"Can I be blind too?"

These people are so mean to Willow. God forbid she doesn't get over her first long-term relationship quickly and she wants to vent to her friends

Like calling it her "poor-me moodswings"? What a bitchy thing to say

Oh cool demon guys

"Girl power bit" you literally can't fight and she's the SLAYER

"I am sorry to hear that. Oh well. Here's my talisman if you change your mind give me a call" CRYING new favourite demon on this show

AU where she actually does agree to work with them they seem pretty chill

"Spike lips! Lips of Spike!"

Ah guilt cookies

Bro doesn't even get a cookie 😭

Oh nevermind

"OH GOD RILEY THINKS IM ENGAGED"

Hush

Hush time!! Love this episode, perfect for spooky season

This scene is odd, why would she need Buffy on the table?

Oh they're kissing this is a dream

Creepy children yaay

"You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard" good foreshadowing

Gentleman jumpscare

Willow's gonna do the thing guys

The height difference is sending me SMG is so short

Ruining the moment Buffy

I bet they're Initiative papers

Spike just walking free now

Spike loves his wheatabix

Spike GET YOUR FILTHY GRAVE SHOES OFF THE COUCH

Ok to be fair he makes jokes always like it's his thing it's not personal

They're squabbling

Witch time I guess

TARA TARA TARA

"No offense" after the most offensive thing

Tara knows that Willow knows about magic hehe

Good transition, shows how they're on the same wavelength but they don't think they are

What happens if Xander's mom comes downstairs and sees a man tied to a chair

She's appeared before right? Giles' gf?

Stealing voices hehe

How does he know when all the voices are in the box? Vibes?

Weirdness

Spike does the iconic gift where he gives the British middle finger

Blames Spike immediately

Ah yes, call someone on the phone when you can't speak

Riley breathing heavily on the panel I'm crying

Him writing "come on, come on" just to be silly

Board guy was so quick to profit off of this 😭😭

Awww wholesome Giles and Willow moment

Oh my god btvs has anti vaccers

I feel like they could also blame mass hysteria. That's like the go to for unexplainable events

Casually breaks this man's wrist

Why is there a trash fire like why would decide to do that

Riley and Buffy kiss yippee?

They're floating sndbdbns

Oh I forgot about the freaky little guys with the straitjacket and the weird movements

Oh that would scare the shit out of me

Do you think the shortest Gentleman gets bullied by the others

RIP that guy

Their gestures are so polite

"Flesh squelching" thank you subtitles

Three hearts already

Olivia's a good artist

DANSE MACABRE!!!

I remember my elementary school teachers using those projectors

"Boobs?"

I love how he uses pictures for emphasis

Anya is so entertained

BUFFY THE GESTURE

Pulls out the stake

Willow's cute little death face

Well she tried

BUFFY WILL PATROL TONIGHT!!!!!

Oh I like Tara's room

Go Tara go the gentlemen can only float slowly buy the thralls are faster

I understand why no one is opening the door but that would be scary as shit for Tara

Oh my god of course it's Willow

Nvm

Oh that one has the creepiest smile

Buffy and Riley see each other having magic

Or naur sjdbejandnej

Hey at least this proves that Xander cares about Anya

ANYA NOT THE TIME

Oh she's gonna move it with her mind

Oh my gosh they're using their witch powers together

Gay people!!!!

Oh man those guys are reveling in the fear they cause

He looks so proud of himself crying 😭😭 no girl the box

I was not expecting their blood to be green

Aww Willow and Tara finally get to talk

"I thought you were just being pretentious" "oh I was"

Giles one of the original members of Pibk Floyd 😭😭

Ends in silence... they can talk but they choose not to

Doomed

Picks up right where Hush left off

Hostile Subterestials

Corn-fed Iowa boy

"She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries"

Bro doesn't know what a slayer is point and laugh

Amy does not like his vibes

Nevermind earthquake or something

Yeah Spike should help out actually they're the reason he can still get blood

Lmao Spike sjdrbbeje

The way the neutering works is so inconsistent, first he can hit someone it just also hurts him, now he just has to what? Have the intention of hurting them?

The slayer being a boogeyman figure foe demons is a cool concept

Percy!!!!

Laurie is so short😭😭 and also passive aggressive

Damn we need doppelganger Willow to beat him up again

How do you not feel a body next to you

WHY DOES THAT LOOK LIKE BILL CYPHER?? LIKE IT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS A SKINNY HAT I think that might just be the way the blood pooled though. And eye and a triangle is a pretty common demon thing

Get his entitled ass Xander!!

Cereal boxes of death I'm crying

Honestly Riley is probably the normal-est possibility for a long-term relationship for Buffy

I like the going back and forth scenes here, and how Riley assumes the monster just kills for fun, but the Scoobies know better

Spike tries and fails to kill himself

Don't call her stupid that's not gonna help you get the girl

Idk i judge people who think killing and experimenting on things is fun

Calling her "self-involved" stfu Riley

I highly disagree with Spike tbh like Willow especially is important for studying and finding out what the monsters are, so Buffy can defeat them. You can argue that Giles does that, but there's been multiple times where Willow catches things that he misses. Also she knows magic now, which is quite jelpful. As for Xander, he keeps them grounded. He's not helpful practically, but he has his place

Spike feeding into Willow's insecurities...

Ouch poor Giles

The ruins of high school

The mayor's body is still there, just decomposing 😭😭

Spike be helpful for once 🙄

Spike founds out he can hurt other demons yay

SPIKE NOT IN THE HOLE

Riley to the rescue

How long is that string????

I forgot Riley doesn't know that they know

G.I. Joe outfit 😭

"You do look wicked conspicuous" 😭😭

I forgot about the balls poster

Woaw they're kissing

Spike you can do whatever you want you don't need them

[coffeehunt]

My Thoughts on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot

So, first of all, I think we should all probably temper expectations. Yes, it's been green lit, but there is an ocean of pitches and scripts that were green lit and are still sitting in development hell for the last bazillion years. I'm taking this all with that grain of salt liberally applied here.

That said, I think a BtVS reboot could swing a lot of different ways, and like most of you, I'm leaning toward it not going in a direction i find satisfying.

One of the reasons this universe appeals so deeply to me is the time at which it came into my life and the years I spent growing up with it. My struggles reflected that of the characters, and together we made it out of childhood-- out of the hellmouth.

Now I'm living on a very different hellmouth, and so is Buffy, but BtVS isn't for us anymore. The target audience will ultimately have to be for younger generation, the new slayers, if it has any hope of being good.

I have a lot of feels on that. On one hand I want to be stingy, I want to claw my nails in and scream "get off my lawn!" At these hooligans mucking up my long labored over and pruned fandom. But I understand too that isn't fair. To them or to me.

Old fandoms live on the introduction of new blood, we thrive when others come to us with fresh eyes and an excitement we havent had the chance to share in a long long time.

A new BtVS won't be for me. And maybe that's okay, maybe I can simply enjoy having a resurgence of the fandom, new gifs and fic and art. I certainly hope that a new show will be fantastic of course, I want it to be, but the expectation just isn't there.

But what WOULD make it great?

I've long said I thought they missed the mark on not capitalizing on the surge of supernatural highschoolers shows we had a few years back. A Buffy Academy show with old alum coming in to mentor new spunky slayers would have fit in perfectly with Sabrina and early seasons of Teen Wolf (yes, I'm still ignoring everying post s3, leave me alone) . I think as well with the popularity of anime, an animated BtVS would have a good potential for success and the aging of actors wouldn't really be an issue..... But that's for everyone else. That's a good Buffy for TV ratings.

If I was making my own--just for me, it would follow an older Buffy, traveling across the world to help slayers with hellmouths and fear demons, and unruly cults of the obscure in a world where Wolfram & Hart took out swaths of some of Earth's greatest Heroes (sorry Angel and Spike I love you but this isn't your story. Come back as ghostly voice overs or something) It would be a hardened Buffy, weighed down by the loss of friends and lovers but kept afloat by the hope and resilience of the younger generations. She would be the Bobby Singer of the Buffyverse and we'd get an old taste of the Moster of the Week format layered with new and creative character development.

I personally would want a grown BtVS. Darker, gorier, scarier. It's not the story BtVS was really meant to be, but that would be my personal choice if this show was made just for me. (Okay, let's be real if it's just for me, we're rebooting ANGEL , and wait-- I'm already writing that. So we know exactly what I want.)

But again, it's not for me. And I think I'll be okay with that. IF this actually gets made.

[violettathepiratequeen]

April 3rd, 2025

Hello there, gentle viewers! Welcome back to Buffy Slays, where I’ll be going through all 144 episodes of BtVS over the course of a year, highlighting as many of the GOOD moments, lines, character choices, worldbuilding moments, etc. etc. as I think people will have the patience to read. 

So, here we go! 

Season 2, Episode 2, “Some Assembly Required.”

A series of grave robbings leads to a science club with a sinister agenda. (Pulled from Hulu.)

If you're reading along and haven't finished the show, consider this your Spoiler Warning for discussion of future episodes and major plot points in any and all of these posts.

Episode Number: #14 Episode Ranking: #137 out of 144. Writer: Ty King

Top 5 Quotes:

“Speak English, not whatever they speak in, um…” “England?” —Buffy and Giles

“Love makes you do the wacky.” —Willow

“Sorry, but I'm an old-fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and the women have the babies.” —Buffy

“Maybe not, but I'll tell you this: people don't fall in love with what's right in front of them. People want the dream. What they can't have. The more unattainable, the more attractive.” —Xander

“Yeah, but he's in your life. He gets to be there when I can't. Take your classes, eat your meals, hear your jokes and complaints. He gets to see you in the sunlight.” —Angel

How “Some Assembly Required” Slays:

Buffy plays with a yo-yo in the beginning scene while she waits for a vampire to rise. Like the lollipop from the Harvest, it signals the child within, the playfulness that’s still inside her, and I love to see it. Buffy’s yo-yo will return in the episode after this, and Willow will give one to her as a way to pass the time when her mother is in the hospital, so symbolism aside, Buffy just likes yo-yos!

Giles has to practice asking Miss Calendar out… by asking a chair. Xander and Buffy walk in on him doing so, and give him playful ribbing as is their right, before Buffy actually coaches him on what to do. She is encouraging of his date throughout, reminding him of what to say, letting him skip out on helping her to keep his date at the football game, and all of it is so delightful and precious.

Even better though is when Giles actually goes to ask Jenny out, and totally chokes. He tries his best, we can see him fumbling over what words to use and not use, as instructed by Buffy. Jenny totally bails him out by just doing the asking out for him, and he smiles all twitterpated and even gives a little skip afterwards. Giles in love is absolutely something we were robbed of having more of because he’s just SO precious.

Giles’ giddiness for the weird and disturbing returns. He’s so excited to talk about grave-robbing and what might be the reason for it, and when Buffy chides him, he offers a string of words a normal person might say under the circumstances, even though he’s still wearing a pleased smile.

Miss Calendar tells Giles to call her Jenny, stating that “Miss Calendar was my father.” Honestly the best part of her character is the way she keeps him on his toes! The fact that she also loves football and admits she can’t find a justifiable reason for doing so is amazing, as is the fact that she drags Giles WELL out of his comfort zone to go to one. And then teases him about a first and a second date.

The Scoobies digging up a grave. Willow promises to bring food for the event, and she does, even though she’s the only one partaking as she and Buffy sit off to the side and watch the men dig. Xander says they should help, and Buffy declines, but I actually love this. Because they KNOW she’s the strongest one and could probably do this in half the time it takes the two guys. And when Giles and Xander are both squeamish about actually opening the coffin, Buffy jumps in and takes care of it. It’s not that Buffy couldn’t dig up a grave, it’s that the girls are being spared the hard and dirty work, being treated as the ladies they are, and it makes me happy.

Buffy’s empathy. And yes, this should just be a segment in every episode, but as most of this blog is just singing her praises anyway, that seems a little redundant. When Willow tells her about Daryl’s death, Buffy immediately expresses condolences for Daryl’s younger brother, Chris. When she goes to the Epps’ house and sees the totally checked out mother, she is patient and gentle. Though irritated with Chris at the horrendous things he does and tries to do, Buffy is always tactful when talking to him. And after stopping him from plunging into the fire at the end, she sits with him and listens to him explain why he did what he did. Patient, gentle, and sympathetic.

Cordelia in general in this episode. She picks “Is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable?” for her science fair project, because she can finish it in a weekend. The next scene shows her coming into the library and saying she needs Willow’s help. “It’s a fruit,” Willow informs her. I’m also obsessed with the fact that the gang is talking about zombies and grave robbers when Cordelia walks in, and none of them bat an eye at her presence or stop talking about the creepy supernatural stuff. She also doesn’t really care about what they’re talking about. They’ve accepted her as “in the know” now, and she knows they’re gonna talk about something icky, but that doesn’t bother her. There are major strides in both her future relationships, with Angel and with Xander. Xander dives into the flames to save Cordelia, and she gives him earnest and heartfelt thanks afterwards, even if he rebuffs it. And when Angel finds her in a dumpster, she wastes no time in playing the damsel in distress; giving him her hand to help her up, telling him he’s lucky because her night is free, clinging to him after finding body parts in the trash, and telling him she’s fragile and needs him to take her home. Everyone is watching for that last part, and Angel and Buffy exchange a look, but Cordy has no shame in taking what she wants. Buffy and Angel will dance around their feelings and relationship for… well, for most of their relationship, but Cordy has set her eyes on the prize, and she takes what she wants. She also gets attacked, tied up, and knocked down right before she has to go out cheerleading. Buffy stops the boys before they can drag her away, but when asking if Cordy is all right, Cordelia immediately runs out to the field to do her cheer thing. A mugging and almost-kidnapping isn’t gonna slow her down!

Chris is friendly to Willow when signing up for the science fair. They seem to have a friendly rivalry about which of their projects will come in first place, indicating another example of someone in the “loser” category being friends with Xander and Willow.

When Cordelia is successfully captured and finds herself strapped to an operating table, she naturally starts screaming for help. “Scream all you want, we’re in an abandoned building,” Eric says menacingly. Cordelia proceeds to do so, and after exactly one second, Eric threatens to knock her out if she doesn’t shut up. I realize one may struggle to see the good part of this… I just am amused by the way this exchange riddled with cheesy tropes is twisted in a funny way to make it not so cheesy.

Buffy asks the other cheerleaders where Cordelia is. These are the same girls who kicked her off the team in the Witch episode, and when they try to brush her off here, Buffy gets in their faces and repeats her question. And apparently gets an answer. She’s not intimidated by them, but they are most certainly intimidated by her.

When the gang starts breaking into lockers, Giles protests that as a member of the faculty, he cannot condone this. “Fine, your butt’s covered,” Buffy says, and then hands him a locker number and asks if he wants to open one, to which he immediately agrees. Poor Giles, he tries his best. 

Not enough to warrant an entire segment, but when the gang decides to go dig up a grave, Willow’s first question is if Buffy is gonna ask Angel to come. She brings him up first more often than Buffy does!

Life and Death:

You may have noticed, if you’re looking at my episode rankings, that this one is WAY down the list for me. Not quite the worst of Season 2 (that one comes three episodes from now) but pretty close. And YET, the beauty of BtVS is that even the worst episodes are brilliant, in some way.

The themes of life and death are showcased in a myriad of ways in this episode. And while the outcome is of course that killing = bad, and frankensteining someone to life isn’t great either, there’s a number of instances where the question is raised and showcased, laying out the evidence for the audience to figure out on their own.

This episode opens with Buffy in a graveyard. Not an uncommon occurrence for her, or this show, nor is her waiting around for a vampire to rise all that unique. The unique is that Angel walks up to her, and talks about how disoriented a vampire is when he first rises. She comments that it’s weird to think of Angel going through that, and he admits that it’s weird to go through, highlighting the fact that he has died and come back to life. He also laments not being able to see Buffy in the sunlight… because he’s dead, and has to stay in the shadows. Much like Daryl in this episode.

While arguing with Angel, Buffy falls into an open grave. It’s one where the body has been stolen, so not only is it an open grave, but an open coffin as well. It foreshadows her own death, and her living body inside a coffin that she will have to climb out of.

Daryl Epps died “rock climbing or something,” and his mother and brother Chris take the loss pretty hard. His mother has completely shut down, not leaving the house or paying attention to anything except watching the old tapes of her son playing football. She’s aware that his birthday is coming up… but isn’t aware of whether her other, still-living son is in the house, or if he even went to school today. And this episode obviously isn’t about her, but I was just hit with the thought, while re-watching this episode, of how distraught she would be if Chris had died, and she realized she hadn’t cherished the son she still had before losing him, too.

Chris and Eric resurrect Daryl successfully, and are trying to build him a girlfriend as well. They need a fresh head to do so, and while Chris protests killing anyone, Eric argues that if you take a life in order to make a life, the whole thing is a wash.

When Cordelia is captured and told the plan, she pleads for her life by saying she’ll date Daryl anyway, no surgery or necromancy needed, but Daryl laughs that off, saying he knows she won’t stay with him unless she’s a monster like he is.

Buffy doesn’t believe that necromancy is possible, even after all the stuff she’s seen, because crossing the life and death line is too extreme, even for her. When faced with the evidence that the science club might have actually succeeded in bringing a girl to life, her first concern is what that poor girl could be thinking, walking around as bits of multiple girls, shocked into living. While trying to convince Chris to help her save Cordy, she tells him he can’t give and take lives like he’s trying to do. “That’s not your job,” she says. She also claims to have no patience for anyone who chops dead girls into little pieces.

Buffy risks her life to save Cordelia’s, and Xander does the same. When the science building catches on fire, Willow and Giles see an unconscious Eric and pull him to safety, even though he’s the psychotic creep who was about to chop Cordy’s head off and stitch it on a corpse. Because he’s still alive, and therefore needs to be saved. On the other hand, Frankenstein-Daryl plunges into the fire to be with his corpse bride, and when Chris tries to go after him, Buffy holds him back. Letting Daryl burn, because Daryl wasn’t truly alive. Not a demon, and not human anymore, either, but a stitched-up, half-alive corpse that should have been left in peace and dignity in his grave.

The final shot of this episode lands on Daryl’s headstone. 

The Giles Family Unit:

The other redeeming feature of this episode is Giles’ arc in it. Because while he may be a Watcher in the sense that he’s there to research and provide theories, he’s very much a follower in this episode, and more focused on his date with Jenny than anything else. This episode has serious parallels to Buffy trying so hard to date Owen, because on the night where Buffy is trying to stop Chris and Eric from re-animating a dead girl, Giles protests that he’s supposed to be at the football game with Jenny, and Buffy grants him permission to go. 

While the Scoobies are doing their investigating thing, Cordelia is trying to drop hints about the loss of Daryl and how much it affected her. When no one pays attention, she demands, “Can we deal with my pain please?” Giles absently walks by her and pats her shoulder with a “There, there,” and while it comes off as definitely sarcastic, the fact remains that he was listening and decided to take action when no one else did. 

At the football game, Giles is laden down with merchandise and snacks, that either he’s been coerced into buying, or simply thinks that’s what one does when going to a football game. How should he know? He’s never been to one. But he tries, for Jenny’s sake, and when Xander and Willow show up and he tries to brush them off, they instead take the seats in front of them, nabbing Giles’ popcorn and asking about the score. Jenny gives that awkward smirk of someone who’s been romantically interrupted, but Giles accepts the presence of his kids as his God-given duty, and lets them do what they will. I wrote a missing scene for this episode just because the idea of him as a single dad that Jenny is amused by stood out to me so strongly here!

I’ve said before that Giles adopts every Scooby who comes across his path, and even though it’s still a small number by now, he is proving up to the challenge. And it’s so fascinating because I think it’s really difficult to have a father figure like this for ONE child, let alone a group. Without it being sexual or creepy, and without it being heavy-handed. It’s amazing too because it’s not like these kids are orphans, or homeless. They’re only here for Buffy, and Giles just happened to be there, too. Giles does not accept his role with grace or patience, and is very grumpy about it, but also never shirks from his duty (...yet, anyway) if one of them needs him or just wants to hang around him. I know the cast of this show have claimed that Anthony Head was actually a goof and acted more like a sibling to all of them, but it cannot be denied that Giles is an adopted father for all Scoobies current and future.

And Jenny is just looking at this single dad that she’s trying to date and totally laughing at him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that’s a wrap on Episode 14! Thank you so much for reading this far!

Previous: “When She Was Bad.”

Next up: “School Hard.” 

(Credit for GIFs in this post: @detectivedawnsummers)

[girl4music]

WILLOW: “It's horrible! That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and... skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay.”

BUFFY: “Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was.”

ANGEL: “Well, actually...

*gets a look from Buffy*

That's a good point.”

Can we discuss how ‘Doppelgängland’ presents a study case for Vampire Willow being like human Willow if Willow was suddenly missing an internal moral compass? I talk about Willow’s repressed sadism a lot and some overwhelming evidence for it is that there exists a vampire version of her in canon that’s a literal sadist and is just as evil as Angelus is. That enjoys inflicting torture and pain purely for fun. That has a good old time being indisputably sadistic.

Dark Willow - even though she has a soul and is human - thrives in the killing and the torturing of Warren and Rack. Yeah, she’s corrupted by black magic and feels nothing but vengeance, anger and hate. And yes, the people she does end up actually killing deserved it. But the point is that this is what she can be like even when HUMAN, even when ENSOULED. So Vampire Willow is interesting because that’s a Willow that isn’t either human or ensouled and how sadistic and evil she can be without an internal moral compass and without her humanity is reminiscent of Dark Willow.

And so I can’t help thinking that maybe that vampire has nothing to do with the demon that “possesses” Willow. Maybe the reason why that particular vampire is “so evil… and skanky… and kinda gay” is because that’s the human that the vampire is informed by. That it’s because it’s Willow why Vampire Willow is like that.

And I know it’s just for jokes why they had Angel start to say what he did in response to Buffy’s comment to Willow in trying to reassure her that that vampire is just an evil demon and has no bearing on her character at all… But I really wish we had got to hear what he was going to say. If I had to guess I feel like he was going to say something like “Well, actually… that’s not quite true. A vampire’s personality is still informed by the human that died even if it is not the person it was.”

But with Vampire Willow… the question is just how much of alternative human Willow informs her and how much is really just a demon from the ethers “possessing” the body of the alternative human Willow that died? You would think adding this particular situation on to the soul lore would be in support for it being demon possession… but I’m not so sure that that is so when much of the Willow that we see later on is what we get with Vampire Willow.

See for me, ‘Doppelgängland’ comes off more as foreshadowing than it does in being an addition to the soul lore that provides evidence for the perspective that vampires are a demon possession of a dead human because it does the entire opposite in telling and showing that to be the truth as they give us a significant look in to what Willow would be like both without a soul and without her humanity - which for me don’t mean the same thing because I don’t think of the soul that way. See, I have a very specific understanding of what a “soul” is and I don’t think of it as the human itself or as the person itself. I think of it as an internal moral compass for the human or person.

Which then further means if that human or person is suddenly bit by a vampire and dies - it doesn’t come back as a vampire because its body is possessed by a demon. It comes back as a vampire because IT IS a demon. A newly created or newly born demon in a human body that is informed by both the demon AND the human respectively. That’s why and how it can’t be a possession by the demon or human because possession means it’s an entirely different entity from the demon or human. And a vampire isn’t because it’s a half-breed of both the demon and the human. So it is still the same entity that died all the while becoming a newly created entity. It is, essentially, a resurrection or reincarnation of the human or person that died but just with personality traits and qualities that are only evil and sadistic in nature depending on what the human or person could be capable of that the newly created demon exacerbates in them with abandon.

Vampire Willow is a very interesting study case for this because what she is depends on whether human Willow can be capable of being that evil and sadistic all the while being a human. And… she can… as Dark Willow eventually and inevitably shows us. Yes, for her to get there it required the themes of power corruption, addiction and vengeance… but the point is that she was still capable of it. And, for me, it only just proves that if somebody that pure can become that evil and sadistic as a human… then so could we all.

Vampire Willow is not a study case for vampires being entirely different from their human counterparts. It’s a study case for learning that they are or can be alike if they’re missing an internal moral compass and therefore their emotions or desires were not being repressed. Vampire Willow is an uninhibited entity. They make that very clear in the writing when using it in juxtaposition with human Willow’s inhibitedness. Willow even acknowledges that both her and Vampire Willow feel like the world’s “no fun” anymore but then recedes that acknowledgement in the final scene, realizing that being “reliable dog geyser person” isn’t so bad. That she could actually be the entire opposite to that and she never wants to be like Vampire Willow if this is the pain and damage that she could cause.

So Vampire Willow truly is what we would get if human Willow was completely free of all constraints on her good character. If she suddenly believed that she didn’t need to be the good person she always is and could do what she wants without any thought for the risks or consequences of her actions and choices and without any concern for any pain or damage she may cause through her carelessness and recklessness. It is very much in her capability and nature to become what we see of Vampire Willow’s appearance. And I think that if Xander had not have been able to save Willow in ‘Grave’, this is precisely what Willow would have become. Not simply just Dark Willow. But Evil and Sadistic Willow. She would have lost her humanity.

Fortunately… she still possessed an internal moral compass and so her humanity won over the battle and Vampire Willow remained just a fantasy in fan-fiction. But it does give me pause to realize that Willow’s selfishness, arrogance and entitlement in Season 6 would still inform everything that Vampire Willow is precisely because she is the human psyche for her.

[mcgnagallsarmy]

Spuffy style Reading Challenge - #27: Monthly Key Word Reading Challenge #3

1st month - Secret, Heaven, True, House, Come, Only, Know, Winter:

A Wonderful Awful Idea by The Danish Bird [NC-17]

With nothing apocalyptic looming on the horizon and hoping to avoid a certain thick-headed commando, it seems like the perfect opportunity when Giles mentions a monster terrorising the good people of Lake Tahoe. What could be more merry than a Christmas trip to the mountains to investigate? The gang is all coming along, defanged vampire in tow. Buffy should totally be able to deal with the demon, ignore Spike and their recent “engagement,” enjoy some resort-town shopping, and be back with Mom on Christmas Eve. Right? What could possibly go wrong? Set in season 4 at the beginning of Doomed.

2nd month - Heir, Night, Bride, Down, Women, Hand, Teach, Guest:

Drive by Holly [NC-17]

Freshly turned and very grumpy about it, Buffy finds herself in a weird place. One where her friends smell like food, her former mortal enemy smells like heaven, and the so-called love of her life has made it clear that killing her is on his to-do list. Throw in some overly zealous army guys and this is not Buffy's idea of a party. So she and Spike decide to hit the road at least long enough to figure out why neither of them can hit anything else. And since they're both single and free, well, Buffy wouldn't say no to a distraction from the never-ending laugh riot that is her life. And Spike can be very, very distracting. Good thing soulless vampires can't fall in love or she might be in trouble.

3rd month - Story, Hunt, Plot, City, You, Cry, Another, Paint:

I Can Get Money by scratchmeout [NC-17]

Spike puts his past to good use to get money for Buffy. However, things become complicated when her ex shows up and targets Spike.

4th month - Darling, Funny, Familiar, Somewhere, List, Meet, Never, Word:

First Alternate by Soulburnt [NC-17]

After ‘Not Fade Away,’ Angel gets the Shanshu. A thrilled Buffy gets her curse-free soulmate. And Spike? He gets his heart shattered again. Gutted and seeing no point in staying in a world without his Slayer, Spike doesn’t hesitate when pursuing a deadly demon through a portal. He finds himself stuck in an alternate reality where he truly died closing the Hellmouth. He also finds another Buffy, one who is devastated that her Spike didn’t believe she loved him. They console each other over their losses… but are they only consolation prizes? Or can two heartbroken people get a second chance for love?

5th month - Library, Dark, Drown, Ex, Iron, Done, Love, Stranger:

If I'm Butter Than He's a Hot Knife by scratchmeout [NC-17]

Buffy meets a man at a bar on Valentine's Day.

6th month - Ink, Fragile, Road, Summer, Breath, Every, Push, Sorry:

Favor by EllieRose101 [NC-17]

Spike asks an impossible thing of Buffy––and is stunned when she says yes. Could he really have gone up in her estimation?

7th month - Mine, Again, Honey, Paradise, Still, Club, Train, Legend:

Eucharist by Holly [NC-17]

He had it all. The prophecy and the girl, merrily ever after and all that rot. But life doesn't stop.

8th month - School, Cut, Sky, Fate, Wing, Belong, Justice, Way:

The Time We Had by Dusty [NC-17]

She was there and then gone. All his life long.

9th month - Twice, World, Man, Quiet, Sweet, Hold, Shallow, Invisible:

Pardon My French by Girlytek [R]

In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to let Buffy perform a spell in French. Begins at No Place Like Home.

10th month - Vampire, Here, Mist, Death, One, Missing, Bite, Witch:

Sweet William by cawthraven [PG]

After the fall of Sunnydale, Buffy’s living in Boston and working as a waitress, grateful that here, not everyone knows her name. She’s free for once to be herself—and to grieve.

11th month - Spice, Life, Hello, Keep, Truly, Couple, Joy, Young:

Candy Corn Mischief by honeygirl51885 [NC-17]

Spike gets roped into taking Dawn trick-or-treating.

12th month - Snow, Season, Ice, Merry, White, Under, Mistletoe, Inn:

A Christmas Wish by all choseny [PG-13]

On one lonely Christmas Eve, Buffy makes a wish to a stranger and is given a glimpse of what might have been with Spike.

[peanutbutterandbananasandwichs]

I have come to the conclusion that season four of Angel, and the way the entire Cordelia and Conner plot is this viscerally horrifying and unsettling story about bodily autonomy and trauma and coercion, filled with victim blaming (of both victims!) and the whole thing being viewed through the lens of Angel's jealousy and pain, all while none of the characters that were once Cordy's closest friends even questioned her out of character behaviour when none of her friends really knowing her was explicitly a major insecurity back in season one of Buffy and she had herself noticed when something was off with all of these friends reminds me very much of how Supernatural treats Sam. There's so much of Supernatural's treatment of Sam that I find incredibly difficult to watch because it makes me feel sick, and now I think I better understand why I feel the same way except even worse about Angel.

Hi Buffyverse anon! Sorry, I think I missed a previous message from you, but I'm so happy to see you again! Cordy, my love, I WILL avenge your utter mistreatment! Yeah I fully agree, S4 of Angel really does just load all of this stuff onto Cordy and affords her very little sympathy, humanity, or perspective through the whole thing. She feels like she just becomes a prop. And again the thing that REALLY makes ATS S4 feel gross in a way beyond anything spn ever did to Sam to me is knowing that the way Cordy was treated was an explicit act of petty revenge by Joss, like he legit is just enacting revenge fantasies on the screen to punish Charisma. It AWFUL! And YES it bothers me sooooo much that no-one questions anything that's happening to her! Cordy, the heart and soul of the show is abandoned entirely both by the narrative, and by the characters within in :(

[coraniaid]

🔥 about tara

OK, so for the record I like Tara a lot. She's definitely in my top ten favorite characters. I am still in the early stages of a (painfully slow) Season 4 rewatch, and one of the things keeping me going is the thought I will get to see Tara again soon.

I think Tara's death is very sad and I can understand why Amber Benson felt poorly treated by the way it was handled (especially with the stupid gimmick of adding Tara to the opening credits just for that episode). On balance -- and especially given the context arround her introduction and her relationship with Willow -- I think that it was probably a fairly significant mistake from a writing perspective for at least a couple of reasons. (It's not really a good look to kill off half of your show's groundbreaking lesbian couple, whatever the context, and the writers didn't really seem to have any sort of coherent plan for what to do with Willow afterwards.)

But it kind of irks me when I see it described as an obvious case of the Bury Your Gays trope because ... it really isn't?

Tara doesn't die because she's gay: she doesn't die shortly after coming out, she isn't targeted because she's a lesbian; she isn't, in fact, targeted directly at all. Her death is basically just a stupid random accident. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Neither is Tara treated as more expendable by the narrative because she's a lesbian. By the time Tara dies, Buffy (and the Angel spin-off) had already killed off (among other recurring and at least occasionally sympathetic characters) Jenny Calendar, Kendra, Larry, Doyle, Forrest, Joyce and Darla. By the time both shows end the writers will have also killed off Jonathan, Anya, Cordelia, Fred and Wesley. Buffy isn't quite a show where Anyone Can Die, but certainly it's one where anyone can die if they're not in the Core Four (and if they're not vampires Buffy has slept with, in which case they can die for a little bit but they'll get over it).

And nor is there some sense that Tara's death affects the rest of the group any less than any of the others on the above list. On the contrary, other than Joyce, who is the protagonist of the show's actual mother and had been a presence in the show for almost twice as long as Tara was, she gets mourned for longer and by more people than anyone else on that previous list. (Xander and Willow's supposed childhood friend Jesse gets mourned so little I couldn't even bring myself to add him to the list.)

Yes, the show is far from perfect. It definitely is, at various times, racist, sexist and homophobic, often in ways that cannot at all be dimissed as the show being a product of its time. I think you could certainly argue that Tara was a victim of the show's persistent narrative misogyny (Willow's first girlfriend, Giles's first girlfriend on the show, and both of Xander's girlfriends die, but neither Oz nor Riley die and neither Angel or Spike die in a way that matters).

But Tara's death isn't automatically an example of the Bury You Gays trope just because she dies and was a lesbian. Even though, as I said, it was a probably the wrong decision for the character and the show and I wish it hadn't happened.

--

Oh, also, a bonus hot take:

In a hypothetical Season 7 where Tara survived, I really don't think I can see her relationship with Willow lasting long. The show sort of forgets about it in favor of advancing the subplot in which Willow becomes a magic addict after her Evil Friend Amy takes her to see a drug dealer and then forces her to relapse, but .... Willow's supposed magic addiction isn't why she and Tara broke up. They broke up because Willow was messing with Tara's memories and consent, well before she'd ever met Rack or de-ratted Amy. Willow hadn't actually done anything to address the things that made her take Tara for granted and consider herself entitled to mess with her mind with magic at all. She'd been sad about the relationship ending, sure, and Tara missed Willow, but ... Willow was absolutely the same person who did this to Tara.

The show doesn't bother to address the actual reason she and Tara broke up, preferring the cheap shock death just when they'd gotten back together again. But after a while I think Tara would have realized this, and without the shock of losing Tara in the first place I think Willow would find it very hard not to fall back into her old habits. Habits which have nothing to do with Amy's supposed malign influence. After all, Willow was trying to use magic to change her best friend's mental state without his consent as early as Lovers Walk, a full year before she ever met Tara. And when she and Oz broke up that same season she very quickly started talking about wishing she had a way to "make [him] trust me". This is much more a part of who Willow is than any addiction to evil magic.

[thetriangletattoo]

How's it going with Buffy? A strong love/hate relationship already budding?

omg hi! YES ours is definitely a strong love/hate relationship. I'm currently on season 5 and I really really really don't want this to end. I'm so glad angel is gone and the focus is now on spike, don't give me a nice bad guy but give me a bad guy becoming somehow a friend and I'll be yours. honestly no matter how bad the show is it still never misses and it never gets so bad you stop watching. they knew how to make bad television good back then. I've already said it and I'll say it again, today's TV show lost so much!

also I love how they build every character, so many main characters and none of them falls flat they each get a personality and a backstory and a meaning. it all comes together so well. and then there's Riley, which you'll probably guess it, I don't like as much as I don't like angel. why do they give Buffy so many boys I don't like? is this a me thing or am I not alone in this?

also the 90s fashion of it all, not a single bad fit in sight. even the worst of them is still ok lmao

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, March 22 - Part 2

[Fandom Discussions]

[anon ask] The only good thing about spike going to LA was him beating angel to a pulp in destiny answered by camellcat

spike was only treated better [in LA] bc he wasn’t treated in the first place by camellcat

[ask by kpchrs] what do u think of spike and angel dynamics and relationship? answered by camellcat

yes riley was a dickhead for cheating on buffy but it’s also canon that she felt something was missing with him by buffster

was thinking about drusilla/buffy and then it hit me… imagine an au where dru falls in love with buffy too by selkiemaidenfae

[ask by lesbiandarvey] who is your favorite buffy love interest so far?? and which is your favorite onscreen romance of the show besides [Calendiles] answered by blush-and-books

[Sequel] I’ll probably be around 40 by the time the new Buffy series will start, so if they will focus mostly on the new generation, which I imagine will be of high-school age, it’ll be a struggle for me to stay interested by djmanemihi

spike btvs repeatedly articulates love as a bodily infection or affliction by lesbianmarrow

What happened to the other Sunnydale students that were possessed by the hyenas? by aphony-cree

More Buffy rewatch thoughts: [1] by disquietiswhatitis

More Buffy rewatch thoughts: [2] by disquietiswhatitis

More Buffy rewatch thoughts: [3] by disquietiswhatitis

how does buffy get buried and how does spike get out of the sun and how does everyone get on the same page about spike taking care of dawn and [...] by nicollekidman

Any new news on the reboot since the passing of MT? continued by Btvs fan

Soulless vampire Buffy by Nothing13, multiple posters

Is there a moment/scene/episode that hooked you? continued by Joan the Vampire Slayer

Issues with The Bronze continued by Joan the Vampire Slayer

Buffy's Philosophy continued by multiple posters

OT Twin Peaks and was it an influence on BtVS continued by multiple posters

Rise and Fall of Glorificus by PJLo1609, multiple posters

Into the woods - Xander's speech by GoldenAmmonite

What are the moments for you in the show where it was getting a bit too real to handle by Cailly_Brard7

[Sequel] Journalist Jeff Sneider drops some “Buffy the vampire slayer” continuation series news on “The Hot Mic” by Arabiancockonato

Season 7 Finale by YahBoiiiKiz

[Sequel] BUFFY Sequel Series Details (Slayer, New Scoobies, Vampire Librarian) by CriticalOl

[Sequel] Buffy Sequel Series Rumor Unveils Fresh Faces and Familiar Stakes by EthanWilliams_TG

How did they manage to hold a funeral for Buffy while simultaneously convincing CPS that she was still alive? by darkvixenofthemoon

[Sequel] There’s no way Spike and Angel can return to Buffy sequel by Snnorlax

[Poll] Which Big Bads from Buffy could’ve easily been a villian of the week in Angel? by Seed0fDiscord

Character Discussion : Buffy Anne Summers by Cailly_Brard7

[Sequel] If a Buffy sequel truly comes to life, should it stay faithful to the iconic ’90s/early 2000s vibe, or is it time to give it a fresh, modern twist? What’s your take on this? by Adventurous_Fly_8652

Apart from Dawn/Xander, what are the dumbest, nonsensical or most OOC moments or storylines from the comics? by brwitch

Are there any Buffy The Vampire Slayer and/or Angel lines that get stuck in your head, pop into your head at random times, or you randomly think about? by Big-Restaurant-2766

Was Angel S5 a “disservice” to the Buffy series finale? by AmbitiousOutside7498

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[jakeluppin]

if you could only pick one show to watch ever again, what would you pick?

okay i thought about it a lot. before i get into what i picked, some honorable mentions:

deep space nine - decent length, good variety in episode types, amazing show all around.

leverage - i've rewatched it already so many times and never get sick of it.

the oc - i rewatch the first season like once a year and the full thing every few years. but despite how much i love it, i don't think i could only watch it forever.

911 - decent length again, good rewatchability. since it's still on air, though, i wouldn't want to pick it in case season eight they do something crazy like kill off buck. but if buddie becomes cannon well.... might have to change my answer haha.

the office - despite not being a perfect show, it is one i've rewatched and enjoyed many times.

it's always sunny - tons of episodes, but similar to 911 in that it's still going and i would hate to end up hating future stuff.

buffy - such a good show, lots of episodes with good variety. i think i'd miss being able to watch it and angel, though.

okay i'll stop here before i start listing out every show i've ever watched haha

so, yes, my final answer is: psych. i can't count the number of times i've rewatched this show since it aired. it's one that i watched while it was airing and always loved. it has so many great elements and variety to it. it's funny, but can also be dark and serious. i get a musical episode there as well. shawn is one of my all time favorite characters. some episodes are weaker than others, but i always enjoy watching it and it's been a show i can turn to when i'm sad and it will always make me smile.