'most girls aren't attracted to dead guys'

Is what the pfp icon says. You know, conveniently placed behind known vampire-fucker Buffy Anne Summers. (sideblog for cynicalcrow aka temporarytitle)

[ethanhunt-deactivated20230911]

Okay. I’m cookie dough. I’m not done baking. I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day, I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies. Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

[coraniaid]

Will you be slaying? (S3E02)

I don't like Dead Man's Party. I didn't care for it before this week, and after rewatching it my opinion hasn't really changed. Actually, of all the episodes I've managed to finish during the group rewatch, this was probably the one I enjoyed least.

I mentioned last week that I liked Anne more than I thought I probably should 'objectively', and I suspect something similar (but in reverse) is happening here. There have been, I'm sure, worse episodes of the show, at least on paper. Teacher's Pet is worse. The Pack is worse. Inca Mummy Girl and Reptile Boy are worse. And yet ...

Well, the truth is, I just didn't dislike watching any of those episodes quite as strongly as I disliked this one. Apart from any objective flaws in the episode -- which I'll get into in a moment -- I think there are a couple of reasons for that.

The first is that all the episodes I mentioned before (and both the episodes I skipped rewatching) can be easily ignored in a way that I'm not sure this one can. They didn't have a place in the wider narrative arc in a way that this episode has (or at least aims to have). The viewer can basically skip them without losing anything important. But you can't really not want to know what happens in the aftermath of Buffy coming back home from her three-month long exile. This episode matters to Buffy's arc (or at least, it should matter).

The second is that, while I have no problem at all with intra-group character conflict, and I think this is something the show has done well before and will do well later (for example in When She Was Bad, in Revelations, and in what I remember of The Yoko Factor, though it's been a couple of years since I last watched that), I really don't like intra-group character conflict done poorly. I don't enjoy seeing characters I like act in strange, inconsistent ways just to serve the demands of the plot, or to watch arguments go unresolved and the impact they should have on a relationship be handwaved away. And despite the successes I mentioned above, the show has something of a habit of doing this sort of thing poorly (Empty Places is probably the worst offender, though this very episode runs it pretty close).

My notes for this episode quickly descended into a running commentary on which character I thought was being the least sympathetic (naturally Xander Harris emerges as the winner of this dubious prize, though I was surprised by quite how unpleasant I found Willow to be this episode, and probably very few people will be surprised that I end up deciding that Joyce wasn't actually that bad until a specific point in the final party confrontation).

More on that, some discussion of the shooting script for this episode (which includes quite a bit of cut dialogue that I think would have been good to include), and my thoughts on how I'd rewrite the episode all to follow in a subsequent post (or perhaps multiple posts: for an episode I didn't like I found I had quite a lot to say).

In the remainder of this post, I'd like to focus on what I think the objective problems with this episode are.

Basically I think there are three interconnected issues.

The episode doesn't allow itself to dwell on the events of Becoming as much as it really should.

The episode can't decide which of two different stories about Buffy it's trying to tell, to the detriment of both.

The episode is also telling a (mostly unrelated, not particularly interesting) story about zombies.

[1] The episode doesn't allow itself to dwell on the events of Becoming as much as it really should.

This is somewhat understandable, in a way. We're still not in a era of network television when everything is expected to be highly serialized. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is the start of a new season for the show which is still trying to grow an audience and appeal to new viewers. And there's no easy way for people to easily catch up on or remind themselves about older episodes (at the time this episode first aired, I believe some episodes of Buffy had recently been released on VHS, but it would still be a couple of years before full seasons started to appear on DVD).

But however understandable it is, it's kind of fatal to the whole episode. In Becoming, a second Slayer -- a girl all the Slayerettes had met, who had only a few months ago helped save their lives -- died fighting to protect them all again, in the school library where they continue to hang out, and Buffy was wrongly accused of her murder. What pay-off does that major, no doubt life-shaping event get in this episode? Well, Oz tells Buffy in passing that "Hey, so you're not wanted for murder anymore", to which Buffy replies "Good, that was such a drag". And that's it. That's all we get (in this episode, and indeed forever). Kendra who?

Equally, when we last saw the Slayerettes they did not know what had happened to Angel. Did Willow's spell work? Had Buffy left with him to be "alone together"? Or perhaps the spell wasn't in time, and she was forced to kill him? They explicitly did not know. They cannot have learned Angel's fate since that episode (who would have told them?). And when Buffy comes back they do not ask her about Angel! The most we get is a sneering reference to Buffy leaving town because of "boy troubles". None of them even bother to check whether or not Angel is alive!! How can this not be a question they think to ask?

How can it not be a question Xander in particular thinks to ask, given the nature of Xander's Lie to Buffy at the end of last season? Is he not worried that Buffy will talk to Willow and realize she didn't tell her to "kick [Angel's] ass" after all? Is he not worried that Buffy did have to kill Angel, and that she blames Xander for having tricked her into doing this? In a sense, this is something that should be hanging over Xander's head all episode: a lens through which all his subsequent strange behavior can be examined and interpreted. In another, more accurate sense, the writers of this season just doesn't care about the Lie at all, and it won't be brought up again for another four years (and won't be taken seriously even then).

Again, however understandable this is from one perspective, it has the side effect of making Buffy's friends seem almost pathologically uninterested in why she actually ran away or how she must have been feeling at the time.

Which is a huge problem in its own right, but also feeds into the second of the fundamental issues with this episode....

[2] The episode can't decide which of two different stories about Buffy it's trying to tell, to the detriment of both

I think Dead Man's Party is trying to tell two parallel stories -- one in which Buffy finds it hard to adjust to being back home because all her friends seemed to have moved on to a life without her, and one in which Buffy has to accept that she shouldn't have run away and will have to deal with the fallout of that decision. That is, one perspective in which Buffy is actively trying to rebuild her life in Sunnydale but her friends are rebuffing her, and one in which Buffy's friends want her back but she's refusing to be open with them about what she went through, and she has to learn that it's up to her to make things right.

Except, when I say the show is trying to tell two stories, I'm not entirely sure this is a conscious decision. We follow Buffy's perspective for most of the episode, and it's the first of these two stories we're actually shown. Then, at some time during the big party scene, the show seems to abruptly pivot and decide that actually it was telling the second story all along.

But the problem is that, because we've been in Buffy's head for so long, and because her friends have been so callously uninterested about the death of Kendra and the fate of Angel and what Buffy actually had to do to stop Acathla, that pivot doesn't feel remotely earned. We go from Xander whining that Buffy "ruined our lives" (while wondering out loud if she "met any nice pimps on [her] travels", because of course he does); and Cordelia cheerfully telling Buffy she picked "a freak for a boyfriend" and that his subsequent "killing spree" was "pretty much [Buffy's] fault"; and Willow ludicrously suggesting that Buffy having to stick a sword through the chest of the man she loved and watch him be dragged into hell isn't as important to talk about as the fact Willow has started dating (and never mind that Willow started dating during Season 2 -- at Buffy's urging! - and did, in fact, talk about her boyfriend with Buffy); to ... Buffy apologizing unilaterally to Willow at the end of the episode and conceding (somehow??) that Willow has gained some degree of "moral superiority" over her(????).

This is not earned, to put it mildly.

I think there's potentially compelling way you could tell this second story -- Buffy herself certainly is very closed off when she comes back, and repeatedly refuses to talk about what happened to her while she was away, and clearly running off to wait tables in LA did not actually improve Buffy's life in any way and I do think it's fair (if rather needlessly unkind) to describe this as a "bad choice" -- but the Slayerettes as we see them in the first two thirds of the episode are just very, very unpleasant! I think people throw around the word "selfish" to describe Buffy's friends far too much, but in Dead Man's Party that's exactly what they are. We are hardly being primed for Buffy to apologize to them. Certainly not if they don't also apologize for their own less than stellar behavior during the episode itself.

[3] The episode is also telling a (mostly unrelated, not particularly interesting) story about zombies.

This is a problem on four counts. For one thing, it takes away time from the interpersonal dynamics that this episode should really be about, exacerbating the second of the two big problems with the episode. For another, none of this is very well justified by the show's internal logic (does the mask starting raising the dead because of the proximity of the Hellmouth? surely it can't have always been doing that or somebody would have noticed? if Joyce received the art for her gallery, why is she hanging the pieces up in her house? why is a dead cat resurrected but no other animal at all?). For a third, we're back at Inca Mummy Girl levels of engaging with other cultures (what is the link between Nigeria and Hollywood-style undead zombies? what is "primitive" art, and is it inherently evil?).

And fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it's a problem because the zombies in this episode are here to serve a metaphorical reading that (as I think I first saw pointed out in this Insect Reflection essay) does not actually make sense in the context of this episode.

Xander tells Buffy that "you can't just bury stuff, it'll come right back up to get you". So, okay, the zombies are a representation of all the things Buffy was struggling with after Becoming and has been trying to repress. Repressing your feelings like this doesn't work, so the zombies rise from the dead and attack Buffy and her friends, in parallel with Buffy and her friends having a ferocious row. I'm following so far. This is a solid if somewhat heavy-handed metaphor of the sort that Buffy is very fond.

But then ... each of the zombies is actually trying to get hold of a mask that will grant them incredible powers over the others? The body of a friend of Buffy's mom, who was killed by the zombies, is the one to claim the mask for herself? So Pat represents ... what? The most important and dangerous of all of the issues Buffy was repressing? And the trick to defeating zombie!Pat -- which Giles figures out but, as it happens, Buffy doesn't need him to explain, making his trip to the house ultimately pointless -- is to ... not look at her? At killing this one zombie magically makes all the others vanish?

In other words, you can't bury your problems, but if you try that and suffer the consequences you can overcome them by ... pointedly ignoring them? I think the metaphor might have escaped us a little.

And this ties back to the first of the three issues I have with this episode, because the worst of the personal trauma Buffy is presumably burying can only be ... well, the death of Angel (and in a better version of the show than we got the death of Kendra too). But that isn't something the show wants to discuss, so the impression we get is that Buffy hasn't actually learned any kind of lesson.

The episode tells us she needs to do something, and then doesn't show her doing it. The literal defeat of the zombies isn't followed by any sort of resolution of the problems they were supposed to be a metaphor for! Instead, Buffy and the others all seem to decide to pretend their fights didn't happen. The exact opposite moral to the one Buffy is meant to have learned.

(And I don't think that reading is intentional, because by next episode the gang will all know -- somehow? -- that Buffy killed Angel to stop Acathla. And if this episode is supposed to be her figuring out that she needs to talk about that, it's a very strange decision for her to do it off-camera after the episode ends.)

[badwolfwho1]

I don't particularly care for Dead Man's Party end of post.

Okay fine. I think the problem with Dead Man's Party is it'd be really good if it was good. Like Anne it's looking at the consequences of the s2 finale, unlike Anne it just doesn't feel particularly coherent about it. It should be really good there's so much you could mine or explore there about those interactions but the ways that they choose to do so just feel kinda baffling to me. It's very much not a When She Was Bad situation where Buffy is framed as being somewhat intentionally abrasive, she's very much trying to get back into things whereas everyone else isn't but the resolution of the episode feels like its very definitively saying Buffy's the one in the wrong for not trying, everyone else is valid.

The biggest one to zero into for me for me is Willow, we even have the previously on "Wouldn't it be great if Buffy could show up tomorrow like nothing happened," and then that happens and Willow's entire response is well I'm going to just refuse to interact with Buffy and then blame her for me not interacting with her. Which I'd be fine with if the show thought this was a character flaw but it clearly doesn't what with how we textually end with Buffy agreeing that Willow has the moral high ground.

I don't particularly have anything to say about Xander here he's also bad for sure, he's probably the worst, but in a way that he feels consistently bad here, so he's got that going for him.

Anyway Cordelia's done nothing wrong in her life (she's done some things wrong in her life I can admit this, perhaps even in this episode), the only one vaguely standing up for Buffy. Obviously the execution leaves a lot to be desired, she was so close, almost there until those last two words "which is pretty much my fault", the one other person at the party that I can almost respect. Also shout out to Giles I feel like I dunk on him a lot but he's pretty good here good for him.

I don't think Joyce comes off particularly well but it's in a believable way. I actually broadly like this for her character on the most part. It does however feel weird to invite Giles specifically to the dinner considering the whole "I blame you," of it all that was important enough to be in the previously. It's also not even necessary considering that Giles doesn't go to the party until it's well underway since he's busy researching.

I don't think it's the way I'm meant to read the resolution of the episode, but personally I like the idea where this is just a battle Buffy chooses to lose because of how much she does want everything to go back to normal. Everyone's exploded at her, she's not even really allowed to defend herself because she's in a room full of people who are not allowed to know any context so sure fine she'll say Willow has the moral high ground and concede everything just so things go back to the way they should be, which I feel goes with the stuff going forwards with the whole not really letting herself process the entirety of the Angel situation and taking the easier path of doing nothing.

Also as an aside on the other half of this episode the supernatural plotting I really hate the inciting incident it feels so stupid. Joyce just deciding that oh this Nigerian artefact that's meant to be displayed at the gallery just belongs to her now and she's gonna hang it at home is so paper thin, it's gotta be one of the most just shrug this is how we're gonna get the plot going in the entire show. It's also really convenient all the zombies' bodies just disappear after the mask is broken. Considering the thing they're meant to represent is you can't just bury your problems well they sure get buried no problem.

And something I do like, Willow's magic summer of among other things trying to communicate with the spirit world. I like to think it was either with Jenny Calendar since obviously Willow was fairly close knit with her and it'd make sense for one of her first forays into magic to be in that direction, or an attempt to contact Kendra in some form of find out where Buffy is Slayer connection thing. Either way it fails but fun reminder that this is the continuation of her becoming a witch.

Anyway some live notes below, honestly I'm not gonna lie I don't think I took many notes this week.

"Wouldn't it be great if Buffy could show up tomorrow like nothing happened"

The inciting incident being that Joyce just decided oh this Nigerian artefact that was meant to be displayed at the gallery is just gonna be mine now is wild.

"It's angry at the room, Mom. It wants the room to suffer."

"It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye," I know I joke about foreshadowing a lot but I really don't think this is intentional foreshadowing I'm fairly certain this is just coincidence

"How did you find her," "Well I pretty much remembered the address,"

"Hey so you're not wanted for murder any more," Rare allusion to Kendra.

"I'll go all the way to the mayor," It's just a fun line from Joyce, now this is ironic foreshadowing.

Willow living up to her wanting things to go back to normal by standing up Buffy

Rare Joyce knowing someone outside of Buffy in Pat

"You're not allowed on school property," Meanwhile. Or I guess imminently. Faith's whole deal. I guess to be fair Faith wasn't expelled she was just never enrolled so maybe its easier for her

I'm really surprised Joyce and Pat are still having a good time at this party

Willow really wanting to connect with Buffy on Witchcraft or as we'll later learn being gay

"Do you like my mask, isn't it pretty? It raises the dead," "Americans," This line is almost funny enough for me to not point out that I doubt the British are any better about acquiring such artefacts from other cultures .

"You found out who I really was and you couldn't deal," Why would the students of Sunnydale think she was gay? It is a mystery.

"Put yourself in Buffy's shoes for just a minute," I respect you Cordy, you're the only other person at this party I can respect.

Faith would've loved going out that window.

Not sure of the moral of solving you can't bury things and such and such to be resolved by not looking at it

"I'm not a full fledged witch that takes years," meanwhile Amy Madison would say skill issue to this idea. I think depending on how we define full fledged witch this is arguably a correct assessment though for Willow though, like she starts at the very end of s2, her full fledged witch era is truly going starting in mid s4 I think personally that's 1.5 years. Close enough.

I think Amy should've been hanging out with Willow in a scene in this episode, presumably post or pre magic sesh. I think Buffy should've seen it and decided oh no I've been replaced (Amy wishes), vaguely in a similar shape to whoa her mom now knows someone who is outside of Buffy's circle. One of them would've bailed immediately upon seeing the other. The closing scene between Buffy and Willow would still be Amyless.

[lesbianmarrow]

it is a bit funny when ppl are like well it’s good that faith put herself in prison bc that’s her taking responsibility for her actions. like ok and how does sitting in prison help anybody, at all………like, part of the reason the scoobies are so badly off at the beginning of season 6 is because they need a slayer and buffy is dead and they have no slayer. because faith is in prison. it would have done much more material good if she had gone to help them instead of staying in prison. the show wants us to believe that by putting herself in prison, faith is making up for her harmful actions. but she’s really actually not! and this is not her fault but it is the fault of the writers who think that the prison system is in any way logical or just

[thesearemycurrentobsessions]

Ok, I've finally gotten around to reading all the posts about last week's episode Anne! So glad to see other people really like this episode. One thing I thought was funny though was that other folks seems to find the factory-hell-world to be confusing or inconsistent. Which... ok, there are some aspects that I agree don't quite work, but I think a lot of it can make sense if you're willing to be flexible with the lore (which the show is with itself kinda constantly lol). Anyway, I love this weird little dimension we get a glimpse of this episode and need something to wash the DMP from my mouth, so I'm gonna talk about it a bit!!!

(and yes, ok, I've spent too long thinking about this for fanfic reasons which we're not gonna go into dont worry about it)

If there's a time dilation of approximately 100 years/ 1 day between factory world/ our world, why has barely any time passed between when Lily enters and Buffy enters? I'd always chalked this up to Lily being concussed or disoriented when she lands, so she's not really mobile for a while. But honestly, I like @badwolfwho1's idea that the time dilation is momentarily paused while people are passing through the portals way, way more. Kudos on a great headcanon!!!

The sheer volume of homeless kids needed to fund this operation is staggering, how do they maintain this gig without anyone catching on? This one I mostly agree with and requires some mental gymnastics to work with. Logistically it doesn't make sense. The closest working explanation I can imagine is that there are multiple portals beyond the one we see leading into factory world and they're pulling in people from other places in addition to LA. Maybe even from other dimensions besides Earth.

What are they making in the factory and why do they need human slaves to build it? I think Ken tells us! "What is Hell but the total absence of hope? The substance, the tactile proof of despair." They're not really building anything, they're growing it. Farming and cultivating something they need via the cruelest methods they can devise - it's despair. They're harvesting the despair from their victims. In a universe where ghosts can feed off of sexual repression, or demons can read your future from a song, this makes perfect sense to me. @btvsfemslashenjoyer seems to have had a similar thought in parallel and I loved reading their ideas about it being tied to an Old One!

Why do they release the people after they've been worked nearly to death? See the previous note. If the cruelty is the point and whatever generates the most despair is the best option, it's much more advantageous for them to spit the humans back out when they can no longer work for two reasons. 1) If they're able to still suck more despair out of them post-release, what better way to do it than to free them when they've reached a point where they're too haunted by their experiences to enjoy life? I'm thinking of the astonishingly high rates of suicide among people released from prison in conjunction with finding out that Ricky does kill himself. It's pretty awful. I'd imagine a demon that thrives on despair would love it. 2) The other possibility, which could work in addition to this, is that Ken & co don't want people dying in their world because the other prisoners might come to see death as a form of release, give them something to hope for, and they can't have that. You only get to die after we've physically exhausted you, stripped you of your identity, and driven you mad - and by then death won't even matter to you.

Why does the portal conveniently close behind them? We have a near-canon explanation for this! "Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop" (The Gift). Ken is the one pulling people into Hell. Ken is the leader of the demons we see there. The portal only closes after Ken is dead. To me, this positions Ken as the "key" of this world. His life force sustains the connection between worlds. Yes, yes, the timing doesn't quite work - if we were meant to make this connection, the portal should've closed immediately when Buffy bashed his head in. But, oh, I don't know, maybe Buffy's blow only partially caved his skull and he then bled out in the next couple minutes, or maybe his demon physiology meant that it wouldn't be immediately fatal! It doesn't sync up perfectly, but I think it mostly works pretty well.

I think there's more, but that's all I've got time for tonight. I'm just happy to no longer be thinking about DMP.

[thesearemycurrentobsessions]

Season 3, Episode 2: Dead Man's Party

I feel a deep sense of dread as I embark on a rewatch of this episode. While the previous episode is one of my top-5 favorites, this one is all the way on the other end of the spectrum. There are parts about DMP that I love, truly. The quiet moment we spend with Giles after Buffy returns is touching, SMG's big, wet eyes are at their biggest and wettest, and Buffy's sense of isolation even while surrounded by people almost feels like foreshadowing for season 6; these are some great highlights, along with a few really fun lines.

Unfortunately, most of the episode feels like a dirge. The constant barbs tossed at Buffy feel overbearing and by the end it feels as though nothing was resolved so much as left out in the August sun to fester for hours before being quietly swept it into the garbage.

The first scene with Buffy at the Espresso Pump is a good example of some of DMP's problems. It shows Buffy waiting alone for Willow to come while sad music plays. We, the viewer, are meant to feel for Buffy in this moment, not Willow. We are clearly meant to understand that Buffy is hurt and confused. The problem is it works. We do feel bad for Buffy and confused about Willow's evasiveness. We are never shown why Willow doesn't come to meet up with her, or what conflicting feelings Willow might be sorting through. For all the audience knows, perhaps Buffy's worst fears are correct and Willow is avoiding her, has moved on from having Buffy in her life, or has abandoned her in retaliation for Buffy leaving. When the episode later positions Willow as justified in her anger at Buffy (see the fight at the climax but also the fact the the episode ends with Willow teasing Buffy about "messing up" while Buffy takes it on the chin) it comes as a surprise to us, and not a good one.

(See also the scene with Buffy in the basement, reflecting on a picture of her and her friends while sad music plays, or the scene as she's going to bed and reflecting on a picture of her and her friends while sad music plays, or the dream sequence where Angel tells her her friends are 'here' and 'waiting for [her]' while sad music plays. Coupled with every instance that someone needlessly pokes at the open wound of Buffy having run away, it makes us feel bad for Buffy.)

We are locked into Buffy's POV, perhaps harder than we ever have been in an episode, and it works to the episode's detriment. Even when we're shown scenes of Joyce, Willow, Xander, Oz, or Cordy without Buffy present, the cinematography does not yield any insight into their thoughts or feelings other than the ones they clearly demonstrate: frustration, anger, resentment. The aforementioned scene with Giles in his kitchen is the only example I can think of that shows any empathy or compassion. Unless you count the two seconds of Willow looking sad, almost apologetic, when she comes up to talk to Buffy ...before she sees Buffy's packing and bag and we begin some of my least favorite 15 minutes of the show.

So, we feel bad for Buffy and have only been shown her loved ones judging her harshly. If we're going to have an emotional resolution to this episode, clearly, it will need to involve Buffy having some kind of emotional breakdown during which her friends see how much she was hurting at the end of the last season, they apologize, and reconcile. ...Right?

I'm not saying it's bad that we don't get that! There's a part of me that loves how messy all the characters are this episode; each of them just acting on their worst instincts and lashing out in hurt, fear, and anger. But, I think we're meant to see the fight at the party as a way force Buffy to confront the "reality" that she was selfish and cruel to the people who love her. (I don't really want to get into whether or not Buffy's actions were justified so much as the way the show frames it.) And the "reality" that we're suddenly being told she needs to acknowledge is incongruous with the one we've been shown all episode.

The emotional message of the episode seems to be "You can't just bury stuff... It'll come right back up to get you." However, for all the stuff from previous episodes comes back up in DMP, most of the important issues feel as though they are buried, never to be exhumed again. The message of the episode falls flat when compared with its contents, and that, more even that the needlessly overdrawn beating down of Buffy, is what makes this a bad episode to me.

Some moment to moment notes:

"Will you be slaying?" "Only if they give me lip." Fantastic underrated exchange

Of course, "'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!' Americans" is an all-timer for good reason.

"Would you like me to convince you?" I am not immune to finding this line kindof sexy. 😔

Willow said she tried to communicate with the spirit world. I wonder if this was an attempt to speak with the dead? If so, could it have been an attempt to see if Buffy was dead? Or perhaps to reach Angel?

Examples of the worst of the unnecessary slander to reeeeally hit the point home

"Mad? Just because you ran away and abandoned your post and your friends and your mom and made him lay awake every night worrying about you?"

Every word out of Pat's mouth

"Buffy, you made some bad choices. You just might have to live with some consequences."

"'So, Buffy, did you meet any nice pimps on your travels? And oh, by the by, thanks for ruining our lives for the past three months.'"

[everything at the party from Willow's "You're leaving again?" to "We might as well try some violence."]

[all of Willow's little "teasing" insults at the end]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh

[lesbianmarrow]

spike's crush on buffy in season 5 is sooooooo funny and silly and fun to watch but there is something so heartbreaking about it in that like. this guy thinks he's in love and he wants to love and be loved so bad but there is something intrinsically broken in him that renders him fundamentally incapable of feeling love, true love as opposed to the perverse obsession he mistakenly believes is love, and it's that same intrinsic brokenness that makes him so loathsome and evil that he could never ever ever be the object of true love, and it's absurd and laughable that he imagines he ever could be

[lesbianmarrow]

and that's why spike is a lesbian. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[lesbianmarrow]

and if i said spike & buffy as cupid & psyche what then. what fucking then

[lesbianmarrow]

it’s just!!!!!! imagine you had a lover you could only meet with in the dark, whose face you were never allowed to see. and all your loved ones warned you that you must stay away from him, for if he won’t allow you to see his face then surely he must be a monster. and you start to wonder if loving a monster means there’s something monstrous in you too. and yet when you’re with him it doesn’t feel like being with a monster, it just feels like being with someone who loves you. but you’re all twisted up inside anxious and unsure so one night you break the rules and light a candle and see his true face for the first time and realize that all this time he was not a monster but a god. and then as consequence for your rash actions everything goes to hell. just imagine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[buffyseasonsix]

Season 6 anya gets to kiss giles AND spike but no gay? No anya gay? No silly little anya gay episode? No awkwardly charged tara/anya moment after tillow breaks up? Pathetic

[breezybeej]

Buffy, I'm not going to say goodbye. I'm just leaving to attend Standing Lessons.

[breezybeej]

Please be respectful. He can't help the way that he was built (rectangularly, with a protractor). This is about the things that he can change, particularly learning how to stand.

[angelthemanspanker]

my god its not Angel at all its...

a decoy!

[breezybeej]

Buffy, I'm not going to say goodbye. I'm just leaving to attend Standing Lessons.

[breezybeej]

Please be respectful. He can't help the way that he was built (rectangularly, with a protractor). This is about the things that he can change, particularly learning how to stand.

[angelthemanspanker]

my god its not Angel at all its...

a decoy!

[breezybeej]

Buffy, I'm not going to say goodbye. I'm just leaving to attend Standing Lessons.

[breezybeej]

Please be respectful. He can't help the way that he was built (rectangularly, with a protractor). This is about the things that he can change, particularly learning how to stand.

[angelthemanspanker]

my god its not Angel at all its...

a decoy!

[breezybeej]

Buffy, I'm not going to say goodbye. I'm just leaving to attend Standing Lessons.

[breezybeej]

Please be respectful. He can't help the way that he was built (rectangularly, with a protractor). This is about the things that he can change, particularly learning how to stand.

[angelthemanspanker]

my god its not Angel at all its...

a decoy!

[loversblvd]

“can we rest now, buffy? can we rest?”

[b5ffy]

girl who has NOT spent any time fantasizing about faith's pouty lips and heaving bosom. or faith crying and being vulnerable with her.

[b5ffy]

i'm thinking abt this still. like ok. angel has told her point blank he doesn't want faith like that at this point. and not just because he was with buffy at the time; he said outright that he's been with girls like faith but he doesn't want that again. buffy doubting faith's intentions here makes sense given the pattern of wanting the guys buffy is attached to in some way and the previous making out with angel and the very fresh bodyswap, but also buffy very much said making out with faith looked fun when angel was doing it and now she's describing a fantasy of faith, vulnerable and honest for the first time since buffy helped her slay kakistos, and being weirdly horny about faith's tits (when we KNOW buffy is a tits girl!!! see bangel, spuffy, and whatever her and riley's ship name is!!!!) even though angel is not taking this bait or reacting as if he wants faith at all. like at a certain point girl you're thinking about faith's tits cuz you like them!!!

[b5ffy]

#ats#buffy summers#fuffy adjacent#also i've said this before but the way Buffy talks here is so deliciously repressed#as if she can't bring herself to even use age and period appropriate like Cosmo magazine level language#i mean i think she's a little old for Cosmo here but she prob read it in middle school#anyways the language she uses is very i spent that summer at my friend's house and read ALL of her aunt's trashy romance novels#heaving bosom?#also we also know she's a tits girl bc of how she looks at VampWillow#in a different show this would just be weird slash bad writing by people who don't know how to write Buffy#but in this show she is very much repressed so it perfectly matches#and oh yeah this scene is absolutely the mirror of Faith in Buffy's body speaking to Spike

oh exactly! and somehow it's honestly more bafflingly uncalled for cuz at least faith talking abt her sexual fantasies surrounding buffy is consistent with her use of sexuality as a shield to seem cool and/or tough. buffy is so repressed that a normal person would've asked her if she wanted to tell them something

[comradesummers]

the reason buffy summers is a much better protagonist than a lot of the main characters in other teen supernatural shows is that those characters tend to be good people in a passive, boring way. they're generally nice and care about doing good, but they're rarely placed in situations where they have to make difficult decisions with no good outcomes, or pushed to extremes that force them to contend with the ugliest parts of themselves. btvs meanwhile is absolutely obsessed with the idea that passivity is inherently unethical. as such, in order for buffy to be a good person, she constantly has to make active choices. she never gets to be indecisive in the face of a moral dilemma. she always has to choose, to make tough calls, and that makes her genuine heroism and goodness far more compelling than a character who's just kind of passively nice.

[shesnake]

Hey what the fuck