tuoshpreecq

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Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you think modern feminism has been co-opted by corporations. But what you don’t know is that that meme is not from Instagram, it's not from Twitter, it's not from Tiktok, it’s actually from Tumblr. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in January 2021, Tumblr user missnumber1111 posted, "today's agenda: gaslight gatekeep and most importantly girlboss." And then I think it was a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e, wasn’t it, who reblogged it with an image of the phrase edited over a piece of "Live, Laugh, Love" wall art? And then gaslight gatekeep girlboss showed up in the feeds of eight different Twitter repost accounts. Then it filtered down through Instagram and then trickled on down into some tragic “alt side of Tiktok” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that meme represents millions of notes and countless Tumblr users and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from Tumblr when, in fact, you’re wearing the meme that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

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Sometimes the cruelty is just a happy accident of the rent-seeking behavior

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all i can think about lately is buying a house with a big beautiful kitchen and tons of windows and a yard where i can grow flowers and veggies

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THE MUMMY 1999, dir. Stephen Sommers

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Older And Far Away kinda fell flat for me on a first watch, but on a second I found it incredibly charming. Spuffy thoughts is no particular order:

— Buffy is generally less hostile towards Spike this episode (by their fucked up standards) even though he crashed her party. I'm convinced it's Tara's good influence, cause once Buffy is no longer completely alone with her feelings it's almost like she gossiping about her actual boyfriend with her good friend. And Buffy lets herself enjoying his company, bts justifies his presence and even if protests never actually looks terrified of the idea having a quickie under her friends noses. She wants to, just doesn't see a safe enough opportunity.

— Speaking of quickies, I'm headcanoning they eventually did it somewhere between cake and morning cards. While demon is not yet released from the sword and the curse isn't discovered, but their friends are already distracted due to lack of sleep. Probably in a basement, so throughout s7 Spike would have a full horny jail experience with flashbacks every night.

— Speaking of their friends: Spike clearly brought Clem as a moral support for himself. But I would argue that Clem is his actual present to Buffy. She needed friends outside her codependent circle, and having a demon friend could also have a good impact on her and Spike's relationship. Which it kind of is, as we'll see in by the end of s6 and in s7.

— Finally, Halfrek being Cecily means Spike has never been in love with a woman who's not a demonic creature of some sort, with severe daddy issues and emotional unavailability, yet somewhat sympathetic towards his swagless persona. Certified monsterfucker, ladies and gentlemen.

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It will never not be funny to me that in S6 the BTVS showrunners thought that instead of reading the scene of Buffy and Spike boinking down a house as a (hot) metaphor for demolishing the past and sweeping away some rickety old though processes, that instead audiences were supposed to go: oh no, property damage is bad.

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love basira's vibes at the tail end of s5. she just rocks up like "hey guys I finished my character arc so I'm chill now. is the position for snarky third wheel still open. I can do it for yaoi or yuri couples I'm very flexible."

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Listening to a podcast

"Let's take a word from our sponsor."

*Skip ahead a minute* "You can-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "Use code-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "300,000-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "300,000-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "T-shirts-"

*Skip ahead a minute* "Motherfuck-"

*Go back 15 seconds*

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John Oliver gets it, as usual. AI Slop is one of the best episodes of Last Week Tonight I've seen so far. Gen AI is theft. Those who use it are not authors or artists, they're grifters profiting from real creatives.

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When I think about it, I think my favourite thing about Spike is that he does the work, you know? He's the only significant man in Buffy's life, let alone of her love interests, that actually takes a good, hard look at himself and decides that he needs to be better.

Angel, at least for the duration of his tenure on BtVS, doesn't change. He remains high-handed and paternalistic for the entirety of his relationship with Buffy, unilaterally making decisions 'for her own good' and ignoring what she, herself, wants. He makes the decisions. He doesn't accept when Buffy tries to. Literally. He does not accept her breaking up with him until it's time for him to break up with her.

Riley remains a misogynistic jerk who has an inferiority complex when it comes to his girlfriend. He also abdicates responsibility for his own damn actions when they all culminate in his life exploding in his face, and skips town without ever actually examining how he landed in that position. It's just Buffy's Fault, with no examination of his own culpability or thought processes.

Giles doubles down on his terrible decisions, especially in Season 6 onwards. He makes wrong call after wrong call, and gets offended when Buffy doesn't trust him anymore after he actively betrays her. Instead of doing anything to earn that trust back, he just fully turns on Buffy completely in Empty Places, and the fractures in their relationship are never addressed afterwards.

Less said about Xander, the happier I'll be. He starts the series as an entitled little shit and he ends the series not much better.

Hank abandons her. He just straight up peaces out and is never any help to Buffy, ever.

Spike, on the other hand, reaches his lowest point due to the implosion of his relationship with Buffy. In response, he realises that there's something he lacks, something he could do to be better, and then he does it. Not only does he do it--once it's done, he recognises that his feelings are his own problem and doesn't burden Buffy with them at all. He becomes a steady, nonjudgemental support when she needs it most, and asks nothing of her for it. He expresses his love with no anticipation of reciprocation, just states it as fact and explicitly states that he's not asking for anything in return. He just loves her. For her. He doesn't need her to love him back. Yeah, it would be nice, but that's not the point. He changes for and because of her. Loving her transforms him at a fundamental level, and he is a better person for it. None of that is a burden he places on Buffy.

Accountability is so attractive in a man. So is emotional vulnerability and passion, which is only something she really gets from Spike. The other men in her life are so wrapped up in themselves or their own need to be right/in control, and it actively harms her.

Yeah, Spike is physically very pretty; but it's his invisible qualities that make him as attractive as he is. There's a reason he's so beloved while other characters have a more mixed (or even negative) reception, and it has very little to do with the cheekbones.

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I think it’s very telling linguistically that Angel is most commonly referred to as having “a soul” but Spike is identified as having “his soul” - there’s a clearer sense of ownership and connection to a part that he recognizes is inherent to his existence and self, whereas Angel acts as if the soul in his body is a separate, preventative force.

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anyway in case you don’t know it yet

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there are two competing sects on this website - one that uses the word "spicy" to mean "neurodivergent" and one that uses the word "spicy" to mean "sexual content." i do not like either of them

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Get a job? The thing that killed Jonathan Sims?

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when ur mutuals are mutual with each other 

pro: squad con: i saw this post like 18 times today

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Spike understood buffy in a way and on a level that angel and riley never did and probably never could and thats such a big factor in why they actually work well

Spike is also much more open than angel and riley were and that openness also makes a difference

And out of the 3 of them i also definitely feel like spike is the most dedicated to her specifically

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I love a reading of Giles that considers his class background and how it makes him interact with everyone else. Like with what we know about Giles, his Father, and the council, we know he’s very much upper class. Like he’s beyond posh. Plenty of ppl have spoken about how differently he treats the working class kids (faith and Xander) to the middle class ones (buffy and willow). And lowkey I kind of love that reading. I’ve said before that Ripper is essentially the girl in Pulp’s Common People. Ripper was an era of Giles playing pretend at being something other than what he is. He was a posh boy slumming it for fun, but when he faced actual consequences for his actions, he jumped ship right back to the council.

I also love how it relates to how he treats Buffy in s6. He sees a struggling, traumatised, 20 year old and essentially tells her to pull herself up by her bootstraps. And then you compare her to Giles at 20, who was the ultimate nepo baby!! Ripper was around that age when he returned crawling back to the council as the prodigal son. Giles got the help he needed when he killed a man, but he expects Buffy to sort her own problems out (that are not her fault!) herself. Because at heart he is always that posh boy who refuses to acknowledge how privileged he is in his upbringing. Nevermind that he’d made his living for the last 4ish years (on and off) through practically exploiting Buffy.

Full disclosure: I do love Giles and he does genuinely grow and change his outlook through the series. But man is Ripper such a fun backstory when you look at it through the lense of ‘Giles is just a posh idiot’.