this ain't going well

happy new year lesbians and others also

buffy summers in her room dancing around and singing into a stake like microphone

anyone who says willow raised buffy JUST bc the scoobies couldn't handle dealing with sunnydale themselves or whatever can fuck off. the pure agony in her voice when the urn was shattered... she was devastated. she was ruined. the dead collapse once xander had told her that she'd failed to bring buffy back. like how r u just ignoring that. willow LOVES buffy. it's just that willow's love is a dangerous, selfish thing, and buffy has to bear the brunt of that love a hell of a lot

i cannot stress enough how important btvs is in found family trope media. ESPECIALLY series 5. A queer woman escapes her abusive culty family and is accepted and loved within her found family who threaten to, and are literally capable of, destroying that abusive culty family. Two teenagers (Buffy is like barely 20 in this series I think) lose their mother and are supported and loved unconditionally by their found family to the point where they are able to save the world mere months after, where most people in that situation would completely fall apart here. an ex-demon and (heavily implied) autistic woman who has literally JUST entered humanity finds her footing among the gang and thrives there. a 15 year old learns that she is not really a part of her family in the traditional sense and is not even human and the entire climax of the series is Buffy saying, to her face and to the universe, "Fuck that, you're mine and I'm yours"

canon sapphic rep be like "i like a girl..but im!?!? also a girl!? >-<??" meanwhile queerbaiting is "you kill me, you become me. you're not ready for that, not yet".

society if the writers had let buffy and angel be friends instead of regressing their characters every time they were on screen together post s4