#buffy thoughts

And I feel like part of the reason people think that is maybe they don’t actually love Buffy? Like really love her?

I don’t know if I’m explaining this right … Having watched the show from the beginning, grown up and fought and cried and suffered and laughed and loved and lost along with Buffy, seen how beautiful and funny and tough and vulnerable and amazing she is as a warrior and as a person … why wouldn’t Spike fall in love with her? Like, it seems impossible not to love her if you really see her.

He gets it wrong so many times, part of the charm and hilarity and heartbreak of especially s5 is him continuously trying and failing to do human behaviour and courtship after 120+ years of doing it the demon way. And then he learns, little by little, fails again and tries again. He’s slowly unearthing more of William.

Even the HOW DARE you speak to her like that in HER OWN HOUSE!?" of it all is very "angsty adolescent who just moved out for the first time and is acting like a brat to their parents after coming back on holiday " coded. It shows how the Scoobies never are truly able to see things from Buffy's point of view because they are still youths wanting to be grown ups but Buffy was forced to grow up from the moment the fate of the world was put on her shoulders, she can't ever truly relate to them as a fellow peer because she has been responsible for their lives since she herself was a child. Willow and Xander in particular act like they are voting for who is team captain when really Buffy has both an innate authority as the one with superpowers and earned authority from having been Doing the Thing for years while the rest of the group got to have some semblance of a childhood (other than Faith the other Slayer, who never had a childhood either, never had a mother who cared for her, so her lack of respect comes from a different place) they're unable to truly grasp the danger because Buffy has always kept them safe, hell she even died twice protecting them.

My favourite thing about this episode is how it portrays student-teacher relationships. Through Buffy and Doctor Gregory, we see a healthy and supportive relationship between a teacher and a student. That is the way it should be. He is stern but he's also encouraging. He communicates to Buffy that she has value based on her own merit and not on what others think of her. Throughout their conversation Doctor Gregory builds a report with Buffy while also maintaining boundaries. He's still the teacher and she's still the student.

Then we see the entirely inappropriate relationships that Ms. French is making with her students, the ones who are inexperienced and desperate for affection (Xander and Blane). The fact that they literally made her a predator is so perfect and really cements the idea that any romantic or sexual relationship between a student and a teacher is inherently predatory.

7.04, "Help"

7.05, "Selfless"

7.07, "Conversations With Dead People

7.16, "Storyteller"

7,17, "Lies My Parents Told Me"

7.22, "Chosen"

But he got it as punishment. After being a shitty human being that got turned into a master murderer, he was punished with his soul to feel nothing but misery and managed to brood his way into Buffy's life.

Then there's Spike. Who was decent as a human, took his lack of soul and tried to find purpose and meaning in the wrong ways, and then even soulless, fell for the girl.

Except they didn't try to fluff his character by inviting love. He still had no soul. He was still capable of horrific things despite his love because at his core, he didn't have a soul. He did plenty of things for good, but he hurt her in a way William never would.

So he went and fucking got William back??? He took his anguish, he took his guilt and his need to change, and he set out to make a deal thru torture and pain to get his soul back so she could have the love she deserved.

And then once it was back, it was used against him so she would kill him and he fought that, too. He did everything he could. He saved the damn world with that soul.

(my biggest wish is that he never left, but the actor wanted to go so this is my second best wish).

but hear me out- Giles reconnecting with a buddy one night, maybe he's drunk, and maybe they're waxing poetic about old times, maybe the friend is telling Giles that the council has changed or is at least changing and since Giles isn't doing much anyway has he ever thought of doing something else?

maybe giles agrees out of the blue or he thinks about it over the summer, but there's a potential in Cleveland who's resisting the call, maybe she's the daughter of a single mother and she has to look after a younger sibling and she's got a life and friends and the current watcher is floundering. maybe Giles can help train her?

Maybe he leaves with renewed purpose, of course coming back when Buffy is revived, but this way he's not just leaving coz he's annoyed or whatever, he's leaving because he's got another young girl who needs him more than buffy does? someone he promised he'd never abandon, someone without slayer strength who is still in a dangerous situation.

this would give Giles a (in my opinion) more reasonable reason to leave. as much as buffy would want him to stay, could she deny the needs of a potential slayer?

it could have added extra pressure on her to 'act older' or more mature, could have been the reason why everyone refuses to so much as think about reachign out to him when things started to go badly, why he wasn't at xander's wedding.