#briley

1- Performative Catholic Guilt Man Who Stares

2- Toxically Masculine Insecure Nice Guy TM

Sometimes you’re just one small cog in the machine. You’re not there to save the world. You’re just there to help people suffer less.

Everyone ridiculed Anya for suggesting Buffy charge for her services, but remember: Giles got paid to be a Watcher.

The way the Council and The Initiative are portrayed does seem to suggest that those who do what they do for money are often easily corrupted. Which is often true. But that’s black-and-white thinking.

Buffy is not more morally pure because she doesn’t get paid. She’s just exploited. And the show doesn’t entirely reconcile this portrayal of the exploitation of young, inexperienced female labor.

Riley is a public servant. And he gets paid for his work. As he should.

Riley is a demonstration of someone who knows their worth economically. Who knows your body is not going to last you forever. That sometimes you need tools and infrastructure and information and hierarchy built to protect the system.

Fiction is very often about bucking the system. The Matrix, Firefly, Evangelion, Fight Club, maybe even this new Pluribus show I’m hearing about.

But mature fiction understands that systems protect human life and that the tension between individualism and collectivism is forever ongoing. And that often the rebels who fight the system are those most in need of the care the system offers to keep fighting.

Buffy might never have considered empowering all of the Potentials were it not for Riley and her exposure to the Initiative. Back in Season 3, when Faith arrives, Buffy has a hard time letting go of the idea that Faith could take over and she could go to college and have a normal life. Buffy is addicted to being useful by this point—no matter how much she hates it. She experiences something similar in Helpless when she loses her powers. Her identity has become wedded to being useful and sacrificial.

Her empowering the Potentials is her letting go of control of the Slayer destiny, her need to be useful, her need to be singular, and her claim to ultimate moral authority.

Since leaving the Council, Buffy has been The Law. She has had to stand in the shoes of Maggie Walsh, Quentin Travers, and Giles and understand the burden of being the one with the final say. This is not unlike Angel taking over Wolfram & Hart and seeing if he could change the system from the inside.

The last season of BtVS is about power. And what it means to wield it responsibly. It is also my pet theory that the final season kinda sucked because Joss Whedon had yet to understand this himself, considering his public disgrace was about abuse of power.

Buffy understands that sharing power with those who are capable of wielding it is part of what it means to fight the powers that be. That’s why she says to the Potentials, “this is where you make a choice.” You have to choose to accept responsibility for power, and you have to do so being fully aware of the consequences. (Although, this is slightly undercut by all the girls worldwide being empowered, lol, but I’ll consider that a metaphor for general female empowerment.)

None of this would have been possible without Riley’s influence.

THE I IN TEAM

don’t worry. i’ve patrolled in this halter many times.

bonus:

Chloe Zhao just said that she used to like sp*ffy as a teen/early 20’s but rewatching now at 40, she understands why Buffy and Angel are so special and that “their chemistry will be there forever” and she said that she appreciated Riley more and in her words “now that I’m older I go like maybe a little less Spike, a little more Riley” LMFAOOO

bestie. i. i think. I think you missed the entire point of my post 😂

just to recap... i've already said this but i'll say it again///

Angel is like. 200+ years old. he had 150 years of the kinds of kinky vampire sex that the rest of us can only dream of

also do you think that Darla would have kept Angelus around if he was bad at sex. tell me do you think she would have settled? no, no I dont think she would have. I think she would have booted him out into the street if he was bad at sex

Also Angel managed to tire out Buffy when she was human

Re: Riley. I think that Buffy absolutely did leave his bed plenty satisfied. I dunno what you all saw in WTWTA but I would have gladly swapped places with Buffy. And I'm ace.

Also obligatory "good sex isn't indicative of a good relationship". And "sex happening at all isn't indicative of a good relationship" (once again. Hello from your neighborhood asexual). And furthermore, "sexual performance isn't inactive of if someone is a good person, and 'small dick' insults are body shaming." hitting the btvs fandom with a stick until they Get It.