Holly's Spuffy Stuff

Remember back in Help when Cassie gives him that prophecy? She tells him: “You die, she’s right there, and she’ll tell you.”

In my headcanon, Spike obviously knew he had months to prepare in the back of his mind, but it doesn't truly click until the very end. The moment he realizes what the amulet does the moment he realizes he is the champion who has to stay behindhe has this sudden, terrifying, beautiful epiphany. He thinksI’m going to die, and she’s going to say it.

Because he has those final hours to think about it, his reaction to Buffy's love confession in the Hellmouth is thought-out.

When Buffy says "I love you," she means it with her entire heart. Buffy isn't the type of person to throw those words around lightly just because the world is ending. It wasn't just a heat-of-the-moment confession made out of panic or pity. She genuinely, deeply loved him.

But Spike uses the realization Cassie gave him to build the ultimate emotional defense mechanism for Buffy's sake.

Chloé Zhao, who just won an Oscar for best director, writes fanfiction.

2. We know Academy Award-winning Director Chloe Zhao is Buffy fan.

3. We know Academy Award-winning director Chloe Zhao ships Spuffy.

One could conclude that Academy Award-winning director Chloe Zhao wrote Spuffy fanfiction.

In this hypothetical scenario, how are you feeling? A little uncomfortable, perhaps. The age gap isn’t sitting right with you, is it? Dawn being 14-16yo and Spike surpassing that by over a century; even if we don’t look at the years he spent as a vampire the age and maturity gap is still very… what’s the word? Illegal? Immoral? Predatorial? Perverted? This is a situation in which we would say the minor has been groomed

"Buffy was mature for her age." - What in the groomer justification.

"Spike was ALSO attracted to Buffy in s2 when she was underage."

JM said he played an attraction to Buffy as part of his character, correct. Whether you consider this canon confirmation or not, I don't care because --

Spike was *checks notes* a villain at this point. Remind me, what was Angel?

S2 Spike *checks notes again* didn't act on this attraction. He didn't start interacting with her like that until S4, again when he was still very much a villain (or at least demonstrably Not Being Portrayed as a Good Guy). Remind me, again, did Angel act on his attraction?

Spike didn't have a soul until S7. I can't remember, when Angel pursues Buffy, whom he canonically says he fell in love with when he first saw her (age 15 max), did he have a soul?

If you use any of these arguments to justify or downplay Angel's actions, congrats, you're an apologist.

The last one is, "Of course there are age gaps, it's vampire fiction!" And I will say this -- yes, I expect age gaps in vampire fiction. That's fine. That's a surface read. A deeper contextual read would be determining how those age gaps are presented and explored within the narrative itself.

Angel constantly uses his age and experience to both condescend to and make decisions for/about Buffy. He considers Giles a peer and Buffy a kid. He doesn't include her in any of the decisions that affect them as a couple until after he's arrived at a conclusion, then explains that he knows better in a way that completely dismisses her agency in her own life. Leaving Buffy WAS the best thing he could have done, sure, but the way he did it was extraordinarily condescending, to the point that Buffy started doubting her own heart and judgment. We don't see him treating Buffy as an equal until after they've been apart long enough for audiences to forget that this has never been their dynamic.

On the other hand, I can think of only one (ONE) time in the whole of the series run where Spike ever said, "I'm older than you," and it was in an effort to build her up, not tear her down or control her. Age gaps where the parties, regardless of age, treat and regard each other as equals? Oh no, the horror.

Age gaps where the age gap is expressly baked into the story in a way that supports the metaphor of "predatory older man preying on young girl" (you know, what Bangel was originally designed to be before they decided to keep DB around for reasons), yeah, I'mma call a groomer a groomer.

And you know what? I still support you if you know all this, accept it, but prefer Bangel to Spuffy. Because it is vampire fiction and I do not come to this fandom looking for uncomplicated, healthy relationship dynamics. In fiction, you can enjoy a lot of shit you would never condone in the real world. That's perfectly fine.

What I will argue against until I'm dead: pretending these Bangel dynamics do not exist, that Bangel is healthy, that Angel isn't a creep, that the actions of a souled "good" guy are 1-to-1 comparable with those of a unsouled bad guy, that this is just "vampire fiction" when the entire fucking show, especially in the early seasons, was monster-as-metaphor code for growing up. What other metaphor could Angel have been in S2?

For fucking real.

How can you say you love a character if you refuse to see them at their rock bottom? She went through the worst possible scenario of her life. She was pulled back from heaven into hell, and she bloody acted like it.

I hated how she treated Spike, and I honestly wanted to hate HER for it, but the thing is, I could never. Because no matter how terribly she treated him, you had to understand where all that was coming from after everything that happened to her. I could never, ever hate her for anything she's done.

S6 is the moment we saw Buffy represent humanity in its purest, most tragic form. That's why I will always love it. It's the moment we see behind the mask of the hero who had to have it all under control. The hero who had everything and everyone always depend on her, falling apart like the human she is. She's being pulled under by all the expectations and judgment, and she's drowning.

“I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman.”

Elysian Fields Archive welcomes back Mystery Month this July, which means it’s time for the most important part of the event: Creating the mystery!

That’s right—WE NEED PROMPTS.

The fun thing with Mystery Month, is that all the prompts are created by the community.

What do we do with the prompts? Every week, a small selection of prompts will be shared. Creators will have ONE WEEK to write and post the next chapter of their fic/artwork that includes their prompt of choice in some way. You only need to choose one, but if you really want to challenge yourself and use all, feel free! We’ll certainly be impressed.

What prompts? Well, for that, we’re turning to all of you beautiful (and totally not slimy) chaos demons for ideas.

Prompts can be the name of a character, an object, a location, a color, a number––pretty much anything you want.

‐‐‐-

When we got together, I had a position of authority over you at school we were equals. That has changed.

You being your real, whole self & very competent makes me feel like less of a man and less of a person. This is a problem caused by you not an insecurity carried by me!

You should make yourself less so that I can feel better. I shouldn't have to think of kind and useful ways to support you! You should just break yourself into a smaller person so I can feel very needed and important. Also, you should pretend it was really like that all along. Don't you dare for a minute let me remember the truth. Pretend. Lie about yourself, and me, and reality.

You can't? You won't ???

You are a heartless bitch who doesn't care about me or this relationship.

You can not, will not, be what I want need.

I am now free to fully emotionally abandon you & betray you do what I need to do; not only by cheating on you taking care of my needs that you've neglected, but also by intentionally seeking out dangerous people (your enemies!) to do so.

Who cares that already have so much pressure in your life, or that you have the literal fate of the world in your hands every night?

Who cares about all the worries you already carry, or that your heavy burdens and responsibilites walk hand in hand with the competency & power I resent you for having? Who cares that you want to do the right thing, that everyone is counting on you, and that it is literal life-or-death?

You should ignore all that & fail, so you can show me how important I am.

Who cares that you can keep so few in your life to love, and that you love each of them all the more desperately, worry all the more for their safety, because of their rarity?

Who cares that you say I am one of those few?

You will not break yorself to make me happy, so I will hurt & endanger myself in a way that is guaranteed to make you worried about me and feel a sick crawl of shame up your throat, because clearly you have forced me to do this by being too much & also not enough yourself. A person trying to do good that others rely on who is selfish & cold to me.

I am a good guy, and it is your fault I had to do these bad things. I am the healthy and normal one. You are twisted, wrong, sick. I am great and you should apologize.

‐-

But they don't usually just SAY that, do they? They frame it as a tragic mismatch- or say that you were being self destructive & pushed them away. Or that you didn't see how GREAT you were together, etc.

And then everybody wonders why you couldn't keep that "lovely young man" (or woman,etc.) that you were seeing.

not my tweet or my fic (and there’s a good chance of this comment being a bot) but yeah, don’t do this. sure, some writers wouldn’t mind having fanfics (or direct continuation) of their fanfics written by someone else. some may even be thrilled and happy. but the fandom etiquette is that if you want to write a fanfic or a continuation of someone’s fanfic, YOU POLITELY ASK THE WRITER FOR THEIR PERMISSION. not their readers.

Angel: True* Love (Mythic)

I put an asterisk next to true because I’m not using the word true in the sense of something being truthful. I’m using it in the sense of something being ideal, of being pure.

But that’s the thing — purity is an illusion. Buffy’s love for Angel emanates from a truthful part of the soul — from the part of her that believes in redemption and goodness, even in the face of darkness.

Buffy’s greatest superpower is not her strength or speed or cunning: it’s her ability to locate humanity in everyone and every thing. Even for all of her self-righteousness and moralizing, Buffy lives and loves in the gray.

Buffy and Angel express that they are in love with each other — Buffy to Willow, Angel to Giles — before they even really know each other.

This is a love built from mythology. For Angel, Buffy represents purity and his lost humanity. For Buffy, Angel represents her lost innocence, and the opportunity for light and dark to exist as one.

This is why Buffy is the one who initiates sexual contact with Angel and also why he turns evil after this act. Sex is a loss of control — something they both desire and both fear.

Buffy wishes to touch darkness without engaging with her own. Angel wishes to touch light without believing he is actually worthy of it.

This is why their relationship fails the moment it is consummated: it is a love built on purity, idealization, and fantasy. It is love in theory, not in practice.

After Angel returns in season three, the next year is one long negotiation with reality — Angel negotiating with the truth of who he is and what he wants, and Buffy negotiating with her desires and what she can endure in the name of love.

During their breakup, Buffy says, "I can’t change. I’m never gonna change."

This is the defiant cry of a young woman on the brink of adulthood wishing to not have to face the solemn and heartbreaking reality that love alone is not enough.

Ultimately, this is the true moment that Buffy must accept and begin to grieve her loss of innocence.

Angel is not the person who can show Buffy what it means for darkness and light to exist as one. His attempts at this are too steeped in shame, too perfect, too clean. The person who can show Buffy this is the person who lives in the gray — the person who is willing to make a mess…

"What did this?" "Spike…"

Riley: Acceptable Love (Conditional)

This is yet another attempt on Buffy's part to negotiate with reality.

Initially, Buffy does not want Riley to know about her being The Slayer at all. And when he finds out, she immediately tries to end things.

Buffy is, in essence, disowning this part of herself. She believes her interactions with darkness make her unworthy of a stable, "normal" love. She expresses it as a matter of circumstance, of material risk — but as Riley rightly points out, what she's truly afraid of is opening herself up to emotional risk, loss, and rejection.

Ostensibly, she lets Riley into her life, but she never fully allows him into her heart. She allows herself to pursue her human desires — connection, belonging, sexual intimacy — without shame, but she never fully engages with the true origins of her darkness: her fears of rejection, abandonment, emotional weakness, death, and loss.

Riley's need to be needed, to be useful, collides with Buffy's emotional armor.

Unlike with Spike, Buffy never allows Riley to experience her capacity for cruelty, rage, self-righteousness, and superiority. She knows he can't hold all of those parts of her. As a result, he's also cut off from the depths of her capacity for radical kindness, tenderness, self-doubt, and vulnerability. He cannot hold her shadow, so he never gets the fullness of her light.

Their love is conditioned upon the illusion of normalcy and acceptable functioning.

Which is why Buffy needs to taste the depths of her own dysfunction in order to obtain functional, adult love.

"I may be dirt, but you're the one that likes to roll in it."

Spike: Real Love (Transformative)

Spike is the only person in Buffy's life who is capable of holding her in her entirety.

Ironically, he often refers to her as "Slayer," but he is the one who sees Buffy the person most clearly, most completely. He doesn't think of her being The Slayer as an endless burden (like Angel does) or as something she can switch on or off as is convenient (like Riley). Spike understands that being The Slayer is part of Buffy's essence, and he embraces it and all that comes with it.

Angel attempts to spare Buffy her darkness as a means by which to spare himself his own. Riley attempts to interact with Buffy's darkness out of fascination with his own. Spike embraces Buffy's darkness the way he embraces his own.

Buffy's love for Spike forces her to stretch herself beyond all of her limits. Buffy's relationship with Spike tests her morality, her identity, her self-concept, and her capacity for ambiguity, compassion, forgiveness, and, most importantly, faith.

Spike is the ultimate test of Buffy's belief in love and humanity. He is the only person she allows herself to be loved by when she feels unworthy of love. And he is the mirror that forces her to confront all the parts of herself she disowns and finds unlovable.

He is the only person who has the capacity to grow alongside her through all eras of her life. In their major moment of rupture, after his attack, he knows he has reached his own capacity for growth while existing in his current identity.

He allows part of himself he treasures — his rebellious darkness — to die in order to be reborn in love. And in doing so, allows Buffy to do the same. Through loving Spike, Buffy allows herself to be released from a role she treasures — namely being the singular, enduring source of light in the dark.

She spreads that burden and responsibility to Faith, Willow, the Potential Slayers, and most of all to Spike. She allows him to be The Champion, the bringer of light to the dark.

When she tells him she loves him, he is the one bathed in light and she is the one standing in shadow, illuminated by him. By his love.

When Spike tells Buffy she doesn't love him, it's not because he doesn't believe that she does — but rather an acknowledgment that she doesn't yet fully understand what she's saying.

Spike surrendered himself completely to love. By the end of the series, Buffy's not quite there just yet. She's still baking.