#Anti-Buffy Summers

[kyliafanfiction]

“If Buffy isn’t your favorite character, why are you watching?”

Oh, I don’t know, a show with a well written cast of characters beyond the main character? The number of shows where my favorite isn’t the MC vastly outnumbers the ones where my favorite is, because I hate protagonist centered morality.

[littlenastieswewhispered]

“buffy ended the show single :)” ok but only because her current love interest just DIED!! (he near quite literally died in her arms! in sacrifice for her!) her last words of the entire series were telling him she loves him and then saying his name in admiration. she isn’t single; she’s a widow.

[slayer-pride-parade]

If I had a nickel for every time a guy on Buffy metaphorically cheated on his girlfriend via supernatural means and then killed the woman he cheated with and also left town immediately after his girlfriend found out about the metaphorical cheating I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly what i find most valuable about buffy's relationship with spike is that there is absolutely nobody else that could have followed her through the melting point restructuring phoenix fire ruination and rebirth of her entire life and come out the stronger for it with a bond forged of unbreakable steel except for him. i cannot imagine either angel or riley even coming close to surviving that process. they'd have burned and melted away completely before they ever reached the quenching.

[hello-nichya-here]

Every now and then I just remember how Riley was painted as the victim in his relationship with Buffy and it just makes me so mad. The writers keep telling us that she didn't appreciate him and his way of loving her, but we are SHOWN that it was actually the other way around.

Buffy was not perfect, and it's clear she first got attached to Riley because he was a normal dude and she very much needed something in her life to be normal - but when it turned out he also had a secret life, that he was also the "hero" of his group, she accept it. She continued to like him. She still wanted him around.

Riley meanwhile seemed to resent her for being the slayer, for being stronger than him, for having other stuff going on in her life, for having dated/being the object of affection of guys that were stronger than him.

His insecurity is ridiculous. He was literally willing to die just to be a very strong, but also very dead guy, instead of being a completely healthy dude with the strength of a regular dude. He even acts like him not being able to beat Buffy in a fight, even with the "power up" is what is causing her to be "distant" sometimes, not the fact that, like he said himself, she needs to prevent the end of the world every other week and that's kinda stressful and takes a lot of her free time.

He also complains about her asking him to take care of her younger sister, the most important thing in the world to her, so she doesn't have to worry about that while out killing vampires and demons - and he thinks of that as her "not letting her be useful", and then complains again when she gives him a bullshit role in the whole "stopping the doom of all of humanity", even though he just refused the thing that would make him actually useful. He also conveniently forgets things like Buffy asking HIM specifically to take care of her after she was wounded in a fight. He doesn't see any of that as her truly including him in her life and full on needing him like he wants her to - because it's not in the way that allows him to pretend he is THE hero, not the hero's boyfriend. Being important TO her doesn't actually matter, what he really wants is to feel superior, to be more important than her.

And even outside of the Slayer stuff: this dude really heard that his girlfriend's mother was potentially dying, and instead of thinking of how he can be there for her (something he CLAIMS he wants to do) all he can think about is "Why didn't she immediately call me? Why did she tell Spike first?" (I'm a spuffy fan, but come on, she only told Spike because he just happened to show up at the very second she was ready to open up about it and just needed a shoulder to cry on). Everything, even his girlfriend's struggle with the possibility of her parent dying and her needing to step up as a parent to her sibling, needs to be about HIM, his feelings, his wants and needs.

The fucker even has the nerve to cheat on her during all of this. Compare that to Angel going to Sunnydale to give her emotional support after Joyce died, or Spike comforting her before even knowing WHY she was crying and then sending flowers without a card to honor her mom and offer Buffy some compassion, but without disrespecting her very explicit "stay away from me, Spike." It's very clear which of these three guys never actually cared about her, even a little bit.

Hell, Riley is 100% sure that the only way for Buffy to "prove" her love is to suffer for him. Her sister tells him "I like you much more than her ex, you would never break her heart like he did" - and somehow, he doesn't take that as "Buffy and her family fully trust that I'm a good guy that would never do anything to hurt her" (something Buffy herself says to Angel's face in his show) but rather as a "Nothing I do would ever hurt her because she doesn't actually love me the way she loved Angel."

Not to mention: his assumption that Buffy was only ever attracted to Angel because he was a vampire, and thus any other vampire like Draculla or Spike could easily steal her from him, just shows how much he didn't understand her at all.

Buffy started crushing on Angel thinking he was just a normal human that knew about the supernatural and wanted to fight the good fight. She didn't find out about him being a vampire until he lost control for a second and went vamp-face after their first kiss, and it freaked her out.

She fangirled for a second meeting Dracula, but man, come on, OF COURSE the slayer will be excited to see the most popular vampire ever, and she was more than willing to kill him. The whole reason there were any flirty vibes between them was because the dude had literal mind-control powers.

Spike is the closest Buffy ever got to "dating a vampire because he is a vampire" and that was because she was literally craving death. Even then, she was horrified at her own attraction to him, AND there was a different side to their relationship, with Buffy liking Spike because he was the one person that wasn't disappointed and resenting her for being depressed.

For fuck's sake, she had a thing for PLENTY of normal guys - RILEY VERY MUCH INCLUDED!

He was the one that only cared about "who is stronger" and kept insisting that Buffy was the same even after overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

And for the show to then make HER go after him, make HER all sad when he is dating someone else, make one of her closest friends blame HER for everything that went wrong in their relationship, and then make HER basically claim he was right with bullshit lines like "I wasn't there for him like I was for Angel" is ridiculous - specially when, again, what made Buffy want to be with Riley in the first place was her trying to not fall into another unhealthy relationship like the one she had with Angel. They were codependent and when he left it nearly destroyed her. OF COURSE she's gonna try not being as obsessed with the next boyfriend (or with the one after him) because she knows that shit doesn't end well.

Again, say what will about both Angel and Spike, but at least Angel walked away after realizing their relationship was a dead-end that would never make Buffy truly happy, and Spike put himself through hellish torture to get his soul back and make sure he'd be a better man who would never make Buffy suffer.

RILEY being framed as "the perfect guy Buffy couldn't appreciate and let get away" is just insulting. Of all the guys Buffy has ever been with, he is the one that deserved her the least.

[raisedbythetv89]

UNHAND HER YOU GIANT FREAK

YOU CHEAT AND THEN MANHANDLE HER LIKE THIS WHEN SHE CLEARLY DOESN’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU!!!!!!??????? RILEY FINN AKA JOSS WHEDON’S DREAM MAN WHEN I FUCKING CATCH YOU!!!!!!!! GET YOUR GRIMEY, GOVERNMENT/MILITARY LOVING, VICTIM BLAMING, CHEATING, LYING, UNWORTHY MAN BABY HANDS OFF OF HER THIS INSTANT

[loseremzo]

im reading the scrip for BTVS 6X15 and Sam, Riley’s wife, exists for literally no purpose other then for j*ss wh*don wanting to be a fucking bitch to Buffy. Like look what you can’t have now, look what you gave up blah blah blah. THEY DIDNT BREAK UP BECAUSE OF HER!!! HE FUCKING CHEATED AND BLAMED FOR ALL THIS EXTERNAL SHIT THAT SHE DIDNT ASK FOR AND ALL HIS INTERNAL FUCKING FEELLINGS!!!!

Anyway Sam. Based on the script, cause I haven’t actually watched the episode in awhile, literally comes in to help capture the demon and tell of Riley for not explaining the mission to Buffy which makes Buffy feel bad that she killed the demon cause RILEY DOESNT FUCKING EXPLAIN SHIT AND DOESNT EVEN TELL HER ABOUT HIS WIFE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE LIKE SUPER CLOSE AND SHE CHANGES NEXT TO HIM IN CAR??? But Sam is the chill girl who doesn’t get insecure or care. Then she literally does nothing the rest of the episode. She gives Xander wedding advice and patrols with Buffy. SHES LITERALLY SOMEONE WE ARE JUST SUPPOSED TO ATTACH TO RILEY. I FORGOT WHAT HER FUCKING NAME WAS KINDA SHIT.

Like I get it. Gave him a wife to further Buffy’s development or healing and break up her and Spike. Whatever. But could you not do more with her character. Make her some actual badass instead of just getting one fight. She wasn’t even there in the end for the actual egg stuff, which was also her mission. But Riley didn’t bring her along. Cause he knew shit was gonna go down with Buffy and that they were still gonna have that weird tension. Anyway, once a cheat always a cheat. Especially when it had barely been a year and they were married. Like he didn’t even grow as a person before he was married. He married like his rebound.

In case you couldn’t tell I hate Riley.

[lilatara]

the irony of Something Blue is that despite it being an audience fave episode, it's maybe one of the preeminent examples of writer/audience dissonance. Like, fandom may not fight about it. There's no discourse about writers room disagreements, it's not controversial. But is there a final episode note that feels as off as the intended hopeful Buffy/Riley scene trying to make us root for them? They gave us an episode of Spuffy and Scooby hijinks and chemistry, and then capped it off by trying to tell us that we SHOULD be rooting for the parts of the episode that brought it to a dead halt every time.

instead of going out on cookies and Wind Beneath My Wings, we leave with the promise of more Buffy/Riley. And instead of being the promising note they're aiming for, it's more like a sinking sense of dread that we're in for months, possibly YEARS of boredom.

[dreamsuvivor]

Riley boy… if you can’t handle dating a bad bitch, don’t date the baddest of them

[hersterical]

Literally one of my all time favorite interactions in btvs is in season four when Professor Wells is all like

“Riley has the highest kill count in the entire initiative and has been responsible for the execution of 12 subterrestrials.”

And Wells and Riley both look so freaking proud and smug and are fully expecting Buffy to just be blown away but then she’s just like

“Oh yeah, it’s been a slow week for me as well. I’m only at about 15 vamp dustings but there’s a nest I was planning on hitting tomorrow if you want in.”

[kryptiqa]

it’s always been spuffy 🩵

[kyliafanfiction]

STOP WOOBIFYING BUFFY

[thedailydescent]

Looking at a lot of Loustat shippers and how they view/talk about Louis, is making me think of the BtVS fandom, the first fandom I joined when I was 16/17.

Anyway, a lot of the Spuffy shippers were out there calling Buffy derogatory names, saying SHE was the actual abusive one in the relationship, writing the most vile essays/fanfiction about her needing to be brought down a peg and admit she was wrong and Spike was right, saying the show was boring without Spike, despite Buffy being the main character, could not talk about Buffy as a character separate from Spike, propping up James's acting skills over Sarah's, made it sound like Spike was a better parent to Dawn than Buffy was (?), saying that the other men she was in romantic relationships with were much more abusive than Spike, excusing Spike for basically all of his actions and woobifying him because of his trauma....

and then you'd have the more critical Spuffy/non-Spuffy shippers (mainly woc) pointing out the blatant misogyny and victim-blaming in this way of thinking, pointing out how Spike represents some of the worst aspects of racism and the patriarchy, both textually and subtextually, even providing scholarly articles and literature to back up their claims, and asking why do you even ship Spuffy if you hate Buffy? Which of course received extreme backlash and harassment from people racing to defend Spike themselves, saying, no of course they didn't hate Buffy, but Spike is more complex than you're making him sound, and no he's not a racist or hates women, he's actually a feminist and a punk/anarchist and doesn't kill based on race, you're just a vile sjw and an anti who loves ruining everyone else's fun.

Anyway. Why do you even ship Loustat if you hate Louis?

[queenqunari]

Reading a Spuffy fic that takes place during season 4 and getting to the chapter about R*ley’s behavior

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly i find the 'i loved him more than i will ever love anything' speech fascinating because buffy has never more clearly been lying to herself. and not even because of any of her other romantic partners - but because of dawn. because of how she's changed. because of what she's built now and how she's built now.

it's true in a way that buffy will never love anything the way she loved angel, because no two loves are the same. but more than? i'm afraid she's already crossed that line. with multiple people in multiple different ways, as she's changed and grown into adulthood, strengthening existing bonds whilst her bond with angel has been left to wither and fade. her past self loved a past version of angel in an idolized memory. but that has nothing on her present or her future. at once her statement exists as both the truth and a monumental lie.

[raisedbythetv89]

Weird (not weird) how once riley shows up and see’s Buffy in all her “shame” (sleeping with spike and working for minimum wage flipping burgers) and she feels completely humiliated having him see her like that - magically money isn’t a problem anymore and she’s not drowning in bills that force her to work AND slay AND raise dawn 🤔

While yes this does reinforce the idea the job was her attempt at “normal girl normal job” as spike says because she couldn’t keep up any other part of the act she used to before her death - this is apart of such a clear pattern of how much focus is on humiliating Buffy in regards to sex and relationships and how that same focus isn’t given to important aspects of the plot.

We get an entire episode about his new life and wife, their wedding etc and they couldn’t be bothered to come up with a fix to buffy’s money problems that are never addressed despite nothing in her circumstances changing????

They want to paint Riley as the hero and “the one that got away” yet failed to take any opportunity to show him actually ACTING like it. They could have EASILY had him showing back up in her life, seeing where she’s having to work and make ends meet and that she LOST HER MOTHER and going “hey I talked to such a such people in charge and got you this big sum of money for both help with the initiative and for your help on this mission” before flying away on his stupid helicopter like the dramatic ass piece of shit he is.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO EASY AND HELPED SO MUCH IN THEIR ATTEMPTS AT MAKING HIM THE HERO

But riley is by and for the male gaze exclusively so rather than actually supporting buffy at all we’re supposed to see him with his scar and “badass” military gear, authority, helicopter and “chill cool girl” wife and be like “wow 🤩 what a dreamy and desirable man! Buffy made such a big mistake!” 🤢 the man who never says anything about joyce or follows up about buffy’s dying comment and is withholding critical personal and mission information and who cheated on buffy and abandoned her and always made her feel horrible for being the slayer and being stronger than him….. YUCK