#buffy discourse

aside from the huge elephant in the room that is Angel’s curse and Bangel, Angel and Cordelia can never consummate either due to plot fuckery. she dies before their relationship gets off the ground. same with Wesley and Fred. same with Giles and Jenny. this pattern is starting to get suspicious…

and when we ask ourselves what couple DID we see actually and constantly get it on throughout the show? Spuffy - whose relationship dynamic was intended to symbolise the destruction of Buffy’s psyche. sex becomes an act of shame and a catalyst of ultimate sin. we see this dynamic play out with Wesley and Lilah. people only fuck who they don’t really care about and for self-harming reasons. but when you’re actually in love? it’s off the table, OR there are catastrophic consequences.

We open on Xander flirting with Willow, almost kissing her, and then immediately hopping back on the "I want Buffy" train. Go go lead her on man! what a great guy! Buffy is clearly depressed and traumatised, Joyce and Hank can't tell whats wrong, people who actually know what happened don't even notice an attitude change until (at this point) Bully Cordelia points it out?

Giles the adult finally realises whats up: She's traumatised from being assaulted and dying and being kept in the dark about a prophecy about her death.

Cut to Buffy being understandably upset that the Master (her murderer) has been retrieved from this grave that was supposedly 100% safe, and that they are trying to revive this guy (HER MURDERER)

... And instead of offering her any support system they all just opt for different variations of "you're being a bitch. You need to get over yourself Buffy!" At least Angel is physically there for her after she DESTROYS THE MASTERS BONES

Buffy is left feeling bad about treating her friends like a jerk for doing a sexy cibo matto dance on Xander- and yay... they make up* ofc... oh wow Xander is making a joke out of Buffy coping by destroying the Masters bones.. okay... um...

And yep that is the ONLY word any of them ever say on Buffy being traumatised. Still no support system, words of understanding or help, no "hey Buff! You were being a real dick but since you literally got drowned and had to save the world at 16 your actions were understandable! Not excusable but still understandable!"

*we can assume that she apologised for acting bad off-screen because next episode she and Willow talk about her "never living down" the "sexy dance with xander" and Buffy asks jokingly if she will "ever live it down"

In episode 2 "Some Assembly Required" Willow tells Buffy to "go easy" on the dude that has been literally disassembling girls. Lmao. None of them can go easy on Buffy for dying and being a jerk but they can tell Buffy to go easy on this guy whos brother "died" and is literally disassembling girls? Um okay.

Moral of the story is that Buffy never had a good support system lol. Her friends didn't stop her from drowning, just helped her tread water for a little bit longer.

So, first of all, I think we should all probably temper expectations. Yes, it's been green lit, but there is an ocean of pitches and scripts that were green lit and are still sitting in development hell for the last bazillion years. I'm taking this all with that grain of salt liberally applied here.

That said, I think a BtVS reboot could swing a lot of different ways, and like most of you, I'm leaning toward it not going in a direction i find satisfying.

One of the reasons this universe appeals so deeply to me is the time at which it came into my life and the years I spent growing up with it. My struggles reflected that of the characters, and together we made it out of childhood-- out of the hellmouth.

Now I'm living on a very different hellmouth, and so is Buffy, but BtVS isn't for us anymore. The target audience will ultimately have to be for younger generation, the new slayers, if it has any hope of being good.

I have a lot of feels on that. On one hand I want to be stingy, I want to claw my nails in and scream "get off my lawn!" At these hooligans mucking up my long labored over and pruned fandom. But I understand too that isn't fair. To them or to me.

Old fandoms live on the introduction of new blood, we thrive when others come to us with fresh eyes and an excitement we havent had the chance to share in a long long time.

A new BtVS won't be for me. And maybe that's okay, maybe I can simply enjoy having a resurgence of the fandom, new gifs and fic and art. I certainly hope that a new show will be fantastic of course, I want it to be, but the expectation just isn't there.

But what WOULD make it great?

I've long said I thought they missed the mark on not capitalizing on the surge of supernatural highschoolers shows we had a few years back. A Buffy Academy show with old alum coming in to mentor new spunky slayers would have fit in perfectly with Sabrina and early seasons of Teen Wolf (yes, I'm still ignoring everying post s3, leave me alone) . I think as well with the popularity of anime, an animated BtVS would have a good potential for success and the aging of actors wouldn't really be an issue..... But that's for everyone else. That's a good Buffy for TV ratings.

If I was making my own--just for me, it would follow an older Buffy, traveling across the world to help slayers with hellmouths and fear demons, and unruly cults of the obscure in a world where Wolfram & Hart took out swaths of some of Earth's greatest Heroes (sorry Angel and Spike I love you but this isn't your story. Come back as ghostly voice overs or something) It would be a hardened Buffy, weighed down by the loss of friends and lovers but kept afloat by the hope and resilience of the younger generations. She would be the Bobby Singer of the Buffyverse and we'd get an old taste of the Moster of the Week format layered with new and creative character development.

I personally would want a grown BtVS. Darker, gorier, scarier. It's not the story BtVS was really meant to be, but that would be my personal choice if this show was made just for me. (Okay, let's be real if it's just for me, we're rebooting ANGEL , and wait-- I'm already writing that. So we know exactly what I want.)

and it really makes me see how far we’ve come. Like. Look at Buffy. That show is KNOWN for its ships of an underaged girl with vampires who, even before they became vampires, were more than “of age.” And yet, I’m 2019, years after show show ended, I still see people shipping her with them and being apologists for their fucked relationships.