tinkthatsme

[tinkthatsme]

Look

Either Angel and Angelus are the same person

Or Spike (Season 7 and on) isn't Spike (pre-series-season 6).

Angel doesn't get to be separate from Angelus just because he decided to give his soulless side a new name. And if he does, then it applies to ALL souled vampires, regardless of whether they call themselves a different name.

Or maybe, just maybe, having the memories, personality, and experiences of the person you were before you were turned means you're (gasp) that person. Just that you give less fucks than you did before.

Evidence for this: Jesse, Harmony, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, Xander, Willow

The only vampire who presents as completely different when he's soulless is Angel. And even still, this is ONLY true if you ignore everything he was canonically up to until he found a new obsession (Buffy).

What was he doing before then?

Killing people and trying to get Darla to take him back (he drew the line at a baby, but scoundrels and thieves were A-OK)

Letting a demon consume a hotel full of people who hurt his feelings

Isolating himself from people and being a self-centered prick (instead of doing, you know, any good)

Letting a dude die so he could eat.

Eventually eating rats, which he would then claim he did for 100 years (also known as lying)

And when he IS finally dangled a prize in the form of a 15-year-old lollipop sucking prize with special powers, he decides to stalk, creep, and neg her for months before taking her virginity while always reinforcing their age difference and positioning himself as someone who knows better.

But sure, Angel and Angelus are totally separate characters. Uh huh. If anything, the use of "Angelus" for soulless Angel is a nice, tidy way for Angel to absolve himself of his soulless actions. "It wasn't me, it was someone else! Why am I on a journey for redemption? No clue. 'Cause I didn't do anything wrong."

You know who didn't do that? Spike.

[tinkthatsme]

I have a love-hate relationship with s6. Actually, scratch that. It's more of a full-blown bdsm relationship with no safe word. It punishes me for deciding to keep watching after s5, but it's so damn good at it that I can't help but enjoy the pain. I'm just waiting for the torment to be over, yet I'm completely captivated.

And yet, it is good. It tackles heavy issues, has a solid structure, and masterfully balances charisma with sheer depression. That's why I love it.

But that doesn't mean I won't wonder about the "what ifs."

So, one of the things that bothers me most this season is how Buffy's storyline was handled. I feel like I didn't quite get it.

The entire season, she believed she was brought back wrong. She blamed herself for seeing friends as enemies and enemies as friends. She punished herself for feeling broken.

All season long, we were right there with Buffy, forced to ask: why does she perceive her world this way? Is it because she's become a creature of the dark, like a vampire? Is it because her mind was put back wrong after the resurrection?

Or is it because she used to pretend everything was fine for her friends' sake, and now that facade is finally crumbling?

You see, this season was the perfect culmination of the conflict between Buffy and the Scoobies. For five seasons, we watched the thread of their relationship being pulled tighter and tighter. By s6, it's stretched to its absolute limit, ready to snap. That's how little they care about Buffy's state of mind, and how toxic her silence has become.

A silence that was finally broken in "Once More, with Feeling," where Buffy literally sang her truth. The Scoobies heard her confession, so the situation should change, right? The tension created by their pressure and her silence should finally ease now that Buffy has found her voice, shouldn't it?

But it doesn't. The thread is still taut because the Scoobies ignored Buffy's direct cry for help. In fact, it pulled everything even tighter, pushing Buffy further away and into the shadows with Spike.

It sounds like a vicious cycle where things just get worse with every episode. But nothing can last forever. Sooner or later, that thread had to snap.

And this is where my problem with the season begins: the thread doesn't snap.

We were given the perfect setup for it: Buffy dumps Spike and finally breaks the cycle. Finally, she does something that makes her feel genuinely free from the guilt, and she likes it. She's glowing, and it's not because the dress is radioactive.

This was the perfect moment to re-examine what was "wrong" with Buffy. Remember, the season kept asking us: what's wrong with her? And through Tara's words, it gave us the answer: nothing. She's fine. Her feelings and behavior are completely justified.

And in that moment of true liberation from self-torment, Buffy should have asked: if I'm okay, then why have I been feeling all of this? Who is actually in the wrong here?

It's not Spike. Throughout the season, he wasn't the source of Buffy's depression. Their toxic relationship was a symptom of her state, not the cause. In fact, when Buffy rejected the toxicity, her dynamic with Spike almost began to heal because she started talking to him again. Honestly, openly, without a trace of shame in front of him or anyone else.

Their dialogue scene in "Hell's Bells" is a breath of fresh air in the closed loop of their destructive relationship. Because the loop is broken.

But if Spike isn't the source of Buffy's problems, then who has been all along?

And this is where the season should have answered: The Scoobies. For example, after Xander left Anya at the altar, Buffy could have asked herself, "Was that the right thing to do?" Maybe that would have made her start looking at her friends'actions from an outside perspective. To see their actions through the eyes of Anya and Tara and realize that it's Willow and Xander who hurt the people they love, not Buffy. That they are the ones making mistakes, not her. And that would have led to the ultimate question: what if they've been wrong all along?

Do you see what I'm getting at? The central question of the season—what's wrong with Buffy—needed to find its answer so that the strained thread of her relationship with the Scoobies could finally snap. This Chekhov's gun had to go off and finally break the vicious cycle of Buffy's pain. The arrogance and impunity of her friends finally needed to have consequences.

I'm not saying she should have told them to fuck off and never spoken to them again. No, I'm talking about a final liberation from guilt. That guilt was the source of Buffy's depression, and the Scoobies had been feeding it the entire show. This needed to change to lead us to the season's main theme: life is movement.

Buffy was standing still, which is why she felt more dead than alive. Only changing her circumstances made her feel better.

So, the third act of the s6 after "Hell's Bells" could have given Buffy a chance to keep making those changes. To introduce change into her relationship with the Scoobies.

I'm sure it would have been good for them: to look at themselves from the outside, see what they were becoming, and want to be better. Imagine if Spike hadn't been the only one who wanted to change. What if Willow wanted to change not just to earn Tara's forgiveness, but simply to stop hurting the people she loved with her ambition? What if Xander wanted to change to avoid turning into his parents and become someone truly worthy of Anya? Imagine if everyone this season had wanted to change. To move forward. And to move forward is to live.

What an incredible sense of hope that would have given us. It would have been a beacon of light in an impenetrable ocean of pain and darkness. It would have taught us that after every dark patch, there is light, and you can only reach it by starting to change the things around you.

But instead, we got "Seeing Red."

So I guess we just have to deal with it🤷

[tinkthatsme]

I think I know what he was going to say...

[tinkthatsme]

the level of tenderness between buffy and spike during the last few episodes of s7 makes me want to claw at the walls!! the way they hold each other all night. the way she says "spike is in my heart." when spike says he is terrified and buffy says he doesn't have to be. "were you there with me?" "I was." the way she looks at him while he's dying, takes his hand, and tells him that she loves him...please I can't take it

[tinkthatsme]

“Intervention” (5x18) is one of the best episodes that shows Spike’s humanity, while simultaneously showing some of the worst parts of him.

Part of why I love Spike and Spuffy so much is because of his complexity as a character, and his development over the course of the show. Sure, he’s a soulless demon who has a twisted obsession with Buffy (so much so that he makes a sex doll of her, which yeah, is gross as all hell), but he would also gladly die to protect her and Dawn, even without a soul.

And he loves Buffy so damn much. You can just tell. Every time I’m so struck by the scene where he’s in the elevator, Glory’s little demons about to attack, and he stands up strong, ready to fight. And then Buffy walks in, and all the fight goes out of him, and he just drops like a ragdoll, like he’s realised everything is finally okay, Buffy’s here, everything is going to be okay. It’s so beautiful and speaks so much to the bond they have, even just as friends, or “colleagues”.

And the whole, “This is real, and I won’t forget it” at the end??? UUUUUGH. I feel like in that moment, Spike realised that the real thing, even if it’s just platonic, or just him dying for her, is so worth it. The real thing is worth all of the pain and suffering he went through. And he was a fool for ever thinking he could manufacture it.

GAAAAAAAAHHHHH I LOVE THEM I LOVE THIS EPISODE.

[tinkthatsme]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 6.10 | Wrecked

[tinkthatsme]

i love spike btvs. he loves life more than any of the other characters and he’s literally dead

[tinkthatsme]

The secret sauce that makes Spuffy work so much better than most newer Enemies to Lovers is that that Spike is weird little freak who shows in painstaking detail the embarrassing growing pains of developing as a person. He's not some ~secret good guy~ who's just misunderstood, he was actually an evil little shit with just enough charisma to be too human to stake so the main characters let him stick around. He had to claw his way to humanity and it was that growth, and the slow development of Buffy's affections in response to it, that makes it so compelling.

[tinkthatsme]

The greatest proof of love, and no one will convince me otherwise.

While Xander accepted the friendzone just to be close to Buffy, even making jokes and freaking out over her boyfriends; Riley had fragile masculinity and hated being weaker than her; and Angel wanted to be her entire universe…

Spike simply went after what makes a being more human: the soul. The soul wasn’t a curse, it was the way he saw himself as being worthy of what she deserved a man with a soul. And the fact that he had this thought even without having one makes him so superior.

[tinkthatsme]

this is the cutest shit ever i’m losing my mind!

[tinkthatsme]

skimmed this au comic for spuffy. my spuffy

[tinkthatsme]

Who's as excited as I am for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer sequel? 🥲🫶🏻😍❤️ (Forever #spuffy 😌➕🧛)

This is just a small tribute, but I feel like I'll do something more elaborate in the future 🤭

[tinkthatsme]

This scene from s7 makes me think.

Buffy loves Angel with a soul—that’s a fact. However, she doesn't need him, neither when he has a soul nor especially when he loses it.

[...] that’s what I need: someone I can count on. (3х05)

Funny enough, she loves Spike with a soul, but she also needs him without one. There are no parts of his personality that she denies or suppresses for the illusion of a comfortable relationship.

Without a soul, he’s unreliable. With a soul alone, he’s useless as an ally. Spike doesn’t suit her when he relies on only one part of himself. She needs him whole—both with a soul and without it. She needs him with a strong moral compass and with the bloodthirsty nature of a warrior.

It sounds somewhat pragmatic, but that’s Buffy. She herself is an extremely dual-natured person, combining things that shouldn’t go together: playfulness and seriousness, awkwardness and battle-ready coordination, the mundane and the supernatural, etc. She needs someone who can also harmoniously balance between opposing traits within themselves—between reliability and danger.

Angel was loved but unnecessary. Riley was necessary but not loved. Spike is both loved and needed.

[tinkthatsme]

there’s something really poetic about the difference between buffy having to sacrifice angel to stop the apocalypse and save the word and shielding him from what she’s about to do - she’s 17 and she tells this 240 man to close his eyes, she kisses him and the stabs him. He has no time to worry, to stress, anything. Buffy is carrying the burden of fixing his mistakes alone both physically and emotionally vs spike and buffy sharing the burden together and being completely present and there for each other as Spike chooses to sacrifice himself and that means buffy is going to have to leave the man she loves behind. Buffy was always so alone in all of her relationships except with spike because he is the only one who actually lifts burdens and responsibilities off of her shoulders. Idk just the difference between the insane and intense eye contact and holding hands between spuffy as they both are about to do equally difficult things that tear them apart vs bangel eyes closed angel at complete peace while buffy quietly sobs and how that encapsulates the entire dynamic of both relationships.

[tinkthatsme]

" Ohh think twice

Cause just another day for you and me in paradise

Ohh think twice

Cause it's just another day for you

You and me in paradise

You and me in paradise

Paradise, paradise

You and me in paradise..."

Phil Collins / Dj Snake & Bipolar Sunshine

When it's hot, a vampire is always useful... 🌞🥵🧋

[tinkthatsme]

btvs as textposts pt6

[tinkthatsme]

"They have really good chemistry, i'm not going to lie. I loved this scene between the two of them."

"But what I don't like about Angel - like this is the second time we've met Angel; the first time he was gifting her a necklace and kinda like not really talking about who he was."

"And by the way; crushed black velvet - he really did come a long way."

"In this scene, I said why are all the boys so mean to Buffy. First Xander tries to manipulate Buffy and make her feel bad for being inadequate and less of a man. Like, grow up."

"And then in the very next scene Angel makes a snide remark to Buffy about not figuring out the passageway to the Master's lair fast enough and he probably thinks that he's flirting."

"Ladies, if you are watching this; please make note - these behaviours are red flags. Run away from boys that insult you or try to manipulate you because of their own insecurities."

"Okay, why does he say good luck under his breath after she walks away instead of saying it to her face. Why didn't he just tell her good luck right in that moment?"

~ Charisma Carpenter The Bitch Is Back Podcast