#briley safe

[riley-summers]

"Wait, there's people who support Riley, even in [that episode that I hate so very very much except for the kinda gay Spriley scene]?"

Well, yeah. I'm one of them, actually. Now, there's not as many of us as some of you might think (people like to act like there's some mob of Briley fans out there, actively stirring up the ship war... uhm, no bestie. There's like five of us and I'm the loudest yeller I fear) but yup, we exist.

Why is that? Maybe I'm just blinded by my shipper goggles, or maybe I really hate Buffy for some reason? Nope.

Actually, I can see both sides of the Buffy/Riley breakup. I think, to some degree, that they're both in the wrong, and they're both in the right. Relationships and breakups are complicated! Things are rarely black and white (but hey, fandom is where nuance goes to die, so I'm not shocked to see fans reacting to the briley breakup in a very black and white sort of way; namely, Buffy Good Riley Bad).

Listen, Riley probably shouldn't have gone off and gotten sucked on by a vampire/self harm allegory/cheating allegory/drug use allegory/whatever you prefer to read it as (personally I read it as a drug use allegory, especially considering his history of (non-consentual) drug use). This was Not Great of him. Man is my blrobo but my guy was definitely not in the right here. (And guess what? That's okay because he's a complex character and he's allowed to have flaws. And also, he's not real, so I'm allowed to love him even if he is bad sometimes.)

But Buffy also... really isn't great. Riley continually tries to be there for her, and she keeps pushing him away, making him feel unwanted. Now, I love Buffy, and I get that she's Going Through It in that stretch of eps, but the world does not revolve around her (the show, however, does, and I'll get to that in a minute). If she needed space, she could have literally... talked to him? Like girl pushing him away without talking to him about why was kind of Not Great of you. Riley (at first, at least, before he got pushed away too much) made the effort to be there for Buffy, and she just can't communicate. I love her but she definitely has some issues with that (that vampire therapist was right about a lot of things lol).

And: Re: Xander's speech: I don't think he was telling her she had to choose Riley. He was telling her she needed to make a choice (stay with Riley or let him go, something she'd been avoiding doing the whole season). He told the truth when he said that Riley loved her, I do truly believe that Riley was in love with Buffy.

Also: I think a lot of fans are more sympathetic to Buffy because, well... the show is called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's about her. It might be filtered through her POV. We're supposed to root for her, to love her, to care about her above all others. And a lot of us do (Buffy isn't my number one blorbo-- that honor falls to Maggie for me, I fear... I have a problem but I love the evil old woman dearly-- but man Buffy has grown on me so so much as I write her more I've gotten pretty attached). And that's okay. That's to be expected.

But Buffy is no saint. She's flawed. (Remember how I said it was okay for fictional characters to have flawed? Flaws are good!!) That's what makes her compelling! She's flawed and it makes her character stronger. BUT. Buffy isn't a saint and shouldn't be treated as one when it comes to "whose fault was the Briley breakup, anyway?"

Anyway. I will continue to love and ship Buffy/Riley. I love them: their tenderness, the romcom-like nature of their early relationship, their softer moments, everything about them, really!

Oh, and the short answer of why I'll defend Riley in Into the Woods (besides the Riley/Spike shipper fuel-- hey, I can multiship!)? I see too much Riley hate and it annoys me so now I'm his defense attorney. I guess. I'll shut up when people quit going out of their way to bash my blorbo.

[riley-summers]

Amazing to me that people don't think there's any Briley shippers. I mean, come on. Everything has at least one fan. This ship has four or five people who create fanworks for it, though that number fluctuates. I know most of the B/R fans personally. We're a small group but we're very supportive of each other, and most of us multiship. We've been shamed enough for our ship that most of us stay out of ship wars and just focus on supporting each other and creating fanworks. I love the Briley community.

[riley-summers]

Age Gaps and The Buffyverse: In Defense of Buffy/Riley

I'm going to start this out by saying that I am age gap ship's loudest supporter. Please please let your blorbo fuck that old man/woman/person. I loooooove age gaps so so so much so understand that everything I say here I say with love in my heart.

But. As one of the loudest Buffy/Riley fan. They are not an age gap or unequal power dynamic ship. And I'm tired of seeing that used in anti-Briley arguments because it's so inaccurate.

How much older than Buffy is Riley? It's hard to tell. It seems to be canon that he was in the army for a while:

I admittedly know jack shit about the army but I think we can assume he was in the army for at least a couple years.

I also think he might be a grad student if he's a TA. He does call himself a psych major at one point but doesn't say if he's in undergrad or grad school:

So... I tend to think based on this, and his general appearance, that he's intended to be in his mid to late 20s. Buffy is 18/19, so yeah he's a bit older, but they're both legal adults and... compared to her other canon relationships (with old man vampires. which good for her. you fuck those old man vampires, girl!) with the old man vampires is... well it's a lot less of an age gap!

Okay, this brings me to my second point. Was their an unequal power dynamic because Riley was her TA?

Well. I sure do like unequal power dynamic ships and Briley sure isn't doing that for me, so my knee jerk reaction is to say "no". And I think canon is with me on this one.

Buffy and Riley finally get together in Hush, which seems to take place right before finals week:

They're reviewing for the final (which presumably is an exam that will be graded by Walsh and not by Riley? Bit of an extrapolation but that'd be my guess from my own college experience.)

Then Buffy catches Riley in this revealing untruth (side note i looooove their early secret identity shenanigans):

[Skipped some irrelevant dialogue]

So Riley isn't going to be grading any more papers. Therefore, by the time Riley and Buffy begin dating, he's not grading any of her assignments any more, and he's not even her TA anymore: we don't see Buffy in Walsh's class after Hush.

In fact, in The I in Team, Buffy even comments that she "thought [she] was never gonna get homework from [Walsh] again" indicating that Walsh's psych class is over:

So. My point here is that there's really no unequal power dynamic here, and there's not much of an age gap either.

I also think a lot of people in this fandom have some pretty hypocritical thoughts about age gaps in general. The bangel fans and briley fans get it a lot (and for non canon ships buffy/giles gets a lot of hate for that too) but spuffy and xander/anya seem to escape most of the age gap hate. I hear "well it's not about the age gap but [insert wank about the age gap]" and i'm like, you're right, it isn't about the age gap. it's about ship war BS. Anyway. Angel and Spike are both old man vampires. Deal with it. Anya is an old woman. Okay? Okay.