also physically cant read the spuffy after life reunion scene as anything other than wedding imagery like. spike standing at the threshold / altar all in black, buffy appearing at the top of the steps /aisle in white
the way she's preceded by dawn, like you would be at a wedding by your maid of honor, the way dawn's head is turned to look at her coming down the way you would when a bride enters a chapel
the way the look on spike's face, just awe and disbelief and love, is SO close to the classic 'groom starts crying when he sees bride in her wedding dress' moment .
the way them just looking at each other in profile, holding hands, looks SO much like saying vows. the way there's something about the '147 days yesterday, 148 today' that has this energy of wedding vows. just something so succinct and honest that says i am devoted to you, with everything i've got.
and honestly like the classic wedding vows feel so relevant to where they're at at this stage? like, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part. and there's something about how the scoobies' refrain across the last two episodes and this one is like, buffy is something that can and should be fixed, they actively ask if she's 'broken' at the start of this episode. the way, whether or not they would have accepted that buffy was in heaven, she didnt perceive she could tell them that. the way the vibe is very much in health and not very much in sickness. and she grows closer to spike because he makes room for her to be messy. for her to be sick.
and there's also something about till death do us part because it already has. like. this episode being called "after life" is one of my favorite episode names in the whole show, like this is the afterlife, and we're after the after ife, and we're also like, doing life we shouldn't be doing, because life ended. it was supposed to end, and yet here we are, with more of it. like, the fact that we are starting marriage vows from a place of not even til death can do us part i will be with you forever. the way spike is buffy's shadow, the way spike is the parts of buffy she feels shame about, and that part of her also loves her unconditionally, buffy's own shadow will never stop loving her even though she hates her shadow. buffy's shadow loves her past the point of death, even though being dead itself is one of the things buffy hates her shadow for .
and just !!! the way she comes back and it's like oh, he's been waiting for her, it almost feels like he was made for her, for this moment, where she is undead, and suddenly this undead person who loves her unconditionally is just waiting, right where she left him at the foot of the stairs of her house in "the gift"!!!!!!!
and they werent matched before, not as equals, but they are now, because the death is inside her too. .... literally thinking about "death is your gift" and in some way spike, her own personal dead man, feels like this gift that someone left there for her, that this vampire fell in love with her and didnt realize it and got neutered and learned out to enact morality for her and all those pieces didnt fall into place, into clarity, until right now. there's almost this divine timing to it. like, all those things had to happen so that buffy, coming out of heaven, coming into her new life as someone resurrected, would have spike there, waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, ready to understand her, ready to be devoted to her, past death, and nothing do them part
titsay
izzy806
2087
