Never not thinking about how Buffy has to beg and plead for Angel to not let the sun kill him when the first was tormenting him with what he’s done and that fact that soul or no soul he still wants to hurt Buffy and he concludes the only way he won’t is to kill himself….. and the only reason he didn’t dust was the storm and he was fully gonna let her watch him die again because he couldn’t face what a worthless piece of shit and a monster even with the soul he really is (and then suddenly they’re back together even though Buffy said they couldn’t be together anymore like RIGHT before all this so essentially Angel threatens to kill himself and then suddenly he and Buffy are back together 🙃 i hate it here)

Riley was gonna let himself die rather than become even weaker than Buffy while she again begs for him to stop being a whiny attention seeking toddler and grow the fuck up and do what he needs to do so he won’t DIE (my words not hers obviously lol) and when that doesn’t work and she still doesn’t “pay enough attention to him or need him enough” in his eyes while she’s ya know being the slayer, raising her sister and taking care of her sick mother…. He cheats on her in a way that again threatens his own life and the lives of everyone he could easily kill in her life if he were to be turned and when THAT doesn’t work he threatens to leave forever unless she forgives him IMMEDIATELY

And Spike who is the only one to actually die after she again is pleading you don’t have to do this “no there’s still time you’ve done enough” because Spike knows Buffy doesn’t deserve “good enough” Buffy deserves everything, she deserves to be free of the hellmouth even though that means they can’t be together and he’ll die

Two man-children who threaten to kill themselves because they can’t handle what they’ve done or that they’re not as strong as they think they are and drag an overburdened and traumatized young woman they had no business even dating in the first place along for their self-destructive ride vs a man who literally already sacrificed everything he was to become someone she could love without guilt, sacrificing everything he fought to become, for her and her beloved world she loves so much and fights so hard to protect.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MEN WHO THREATEN DEATH VS THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY DIED AND THE VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THESE THREE EVENTS 😭😭😭

Spike dying BECAUSE he was worthy of Buffy’s love rather than because he wasn’t like the two who came before him

I think one of the biggest differences between bangel and spuffy is that angel isn’t a partner to buffy. he’s not even someone she knows that well. he’s not someone she’s ever familiar with, and he’s not someone she can ever fully rely on.

yeah their romance was big and grand and all the things a tragic fairytale romance is. but at the end of the day their relationship is so incredibly surface level. all there is is the idea of love, and not even the real thing.

it’s always been spuffy 🩵

do you guys ever think about how buffy loved spike, so unabashedly honestly, in s7. how she tells him he has to stay because she isn't ready for him to not be there, how he's there because she wants him there (which already insane bc this a vampire in her house) and then he dies. and she obviously has to grieve him, even though we never saw it. and then it's like he's dead and then he's not and his first thought is about her, how he has to go to her and angel has the absolute gall to tell spike that she wouldn't want to see him, that buffy never loved him- KNOWING that isn't true because buffy said so. like people always say how bullshit it is that spike didn't contact buffy when he was resurrected but how insane is it to think about him being alive and her still thinking he's dead.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your thoughts on angel x buffy? :)

Hii i don't mind, thank you for asking 😊

So, I used to love bangel sooooo much when i first watched the show. I was 100% into it, (with a crush for Boreanaz too) and i cried so much for them in s2 and when Angel left the show in s3. And I truly, sincerely, unironically hated Spike too (I thought he was a great character but i just loved hating him, you know? Lol). When we saw Spike's dream of kissing Buffy I swear i felt nauseous.

... and then they aired Fool for love.

By the end of that episode I was left in utter existential crisis in front of my tv because i felt my whole world shift. There was a part of me that still liked Angel and Buffy, but there was also this new part that wanted her to be with Spike now.

So anyway, that's when i decided to switch teams and i became team spuffy, and for as much as i had been obsessed with bangel before, it was nothing compared to how deep i was caught into the Buffy and Spike relationship. I never looked back. They were just much more complex and real and compelling. And it made me reevaluate Angel and her relationship with him too. Angel never really knew Buffy, always treated her like a child, and let's be honest--and that's something that hit me only years later when I got older--she was a child when they were together. He was spying on her and falling in love with her when she was just fifteen years old and he was a 240-year-old vampire who had been sired at like 26 years old, and they got together when she was 16/17 and he broke up with her when she turned 18... I don't think that's something the writers did intentionally of course, because (as everything else in buffy) it's just meant to be taken as a metaphor for the ideals and struggles and the intensity of drama of a girl's first love, but it still comes off as icky.

And before anyone comes at me, I know spuffy isn't healthy either, but that's kinda the point and the appeal. First of all, it's fiction and a metaphor, and secondly, it's about two broken people that are supposed to be mortal enemies but are actually two sides of the same coin, so different and yet so much the same, who can understand each other as a whole, light and darkness, in a way that no one else ever could, who yes, hurt each other along the way, but whose love saved them from the deepest darkness, ultimately bringing them into the light.

This is what spuffy is to me, and this is why i think it's not only the superior ship, but one of the best ships of all time (thee best, until i saw destiel, now they're sharing the podium).

So anyway, to get back to your question, the moment i became obsessed with Buffy and Spike (and i have been ever since 2005, lmao, they've been my first real obsession, alongside btvs, until spn and destiel) Angel sort of became the enemy 😅. And I hated him so so so so so much when he appeared in 7x21 and kissed Buffy (pure fanservice, but okay) and brought the medallion that ultimately killed Spike. So i spent years very maturely holding my vendetta against Angel (like, rooting for every demon that fought against him when I watched Angel, lmaoo). In most recent years, I've (sort of) made my peace with the character, after rewatching Angel. I mean he's still the enemy (of course, duh!! Who am i if not eternally petty??) but i appreciate him in his own show.

So i don't ship Angel and Buffy anymore, but I can understand why someone would (as i myself used to), and more importantly, i respect other people's right to ship them.

If we're joking, I'm going to insult Angel and keep saying he's the enemy. But on a mature serious note, I think Buffy and Angel were a great first love (for Buffy), but they were supposed to be just that, the impossible teenage girl's dream of a first love, eternal but doomed to end and break your heart.

I think Angel was much more well paired with Cordelia (which is something I'd never think I'd say), and i found myself shipping them so much when I rewatched the show. It felt so much more mature and profound than what we saw with Buffy and Angel (and that's probably due to the fact that we got slow burn for them - as we did for Buffy and Spike- and could actually see the feelings growing, while Buffy crushed on Angel in the pilot and she was madly in love (as teenagers do) in 0.5 seconds for no apparent reason than the fact that he was hot and mysterious.

So when I say the kiss in btvs 7x21 makes zero sense, I'm not just talking about spuffy, but also about cangel. I feel like both characters parted ways and lived on in their own shows to grow and become their own persons, developing other relationships that were more adult and meaningful, and that kiss was just disrespectful for both (but anyways, it doesn't change anything).

I have so many thoughts about all this honestly, and I hope I haven't gone too much off the tangent with my reply, but i couldn't just give you a simple reply because that would've had to be something like "angel is the enemy and i don't like bangel" but as you can see my thoughts are a little more complex than that 😅

S2 Bangel

So I'm fresh off a rewatch of S2 and I want a universe where they continued the "it's toxic, don't" vibes rather than retconning Bangel into One Twu Love because for real, you have Buffy saying things like, "I am immature. I'm a teen. I have yet to mature" while Angel is calling Xander (who is Buffy's age) a kid and a whole episode about a predatory relationship between a student and teacher, FFS. Like, S2 isn't subtle in its "this dynamic is not healthy" message even before he goes evil. (Even if the blame for the predatory relationship in IOHEFY falls on the student, for some reason, when in the previous season, they made a literal predator a woman teacher lusting after young boys, which is a whole other rant. At the very least, though, you do have a direct, nonsubtle comparison to what few people have a problem calling a gross, inappropriate, predatory relationship in 2024 to Bangel. One where the adult should have known better.). Like, I know they wanted to give DB his own show, but they trounced all over their own metaphor to make it happen.

I just remember that Angel said he loved Buffy since he first saw her. She was fifteen. FIFTEEN. This was no period drama.

If she looked like Dawn had in season 5 they wouldn't ship Bangel that much.

FIFTEEN.

so I like the concept of the cookie dough speech. I think, independently, it's a good conclusion for buffy to come to by the end of the series. However, the context... look, it's been pretty thoroughly established throughout the series that buffy and angel will never work. can never work. is it a great romance, does it make me feel for the characters, do i love the angst of it? yes absolutely. but why am I being told, despite being shown the opposite, that there's a chance in hell that buffy will end up with angel? why am I being told continually by the writing across both shows that a codependent teen romance between two people who like... barely know each other is what buffy should aspire to? for the rest of her life?

this insistence is such a detriment to the characters of both buffy and angel. each grew so much on their respective shows. i love both buffy and angel as characters. I love what their relationship means for their past and how it informs their characters moving forward. but god, just leave it there. framing buffy/angel as the truest love that will ever be, automatically eclipsing any other relationship either of them try to have, is honestly not great messaging. personally i will always be affected in some way by my first love, I think that's a normal, relatable experience. But there's no way that love is a viable part of my future, and it wouldn't be healthy for me to think so...

it also takes away from the meaning that people like spike and cordelia might have in their lives because whatever they do, however they grow to love each other, they'll always be 'consolation prize' to... what? buffy's high school relationship with an older guy? no thx

sorry, now that I’m on the topic but the problem with IWRY is that the basic plotline would only work if Buffy Summers were a totally normal girl who was only wrapped up in the supernatural because she was dating a vampire. But she isn’t, she’s the fucking Slayer. Whether Angel deigns to be in her life or not, crazy fucked up supernatural shit will be in her life and it will be trying to kill her. Angel cutting his ties with her will not save her from anything, and so you watch the episode and it seems so obvious that Angel is lying to himself; this isn’t about Buffy at all. This is about him.

So naturally, he doesn’t bother to get her say before he makes his decision to undo it all.

I just started watching White Collar for the first time and a realization about most male written and directed media smacked me DIRECTLY in the face which is that SO MUCH media written by a for men is genuinely just male nerd self insert, non-canon compliant, AU fan fiction??????

Like them writing and creating stories is just “ok so these guys are soooo smooth and well dressed and women just flock to them at every turn and they can get away with anything and everyone believes and supports them when they do mess up and everyone thinks they’re sooooo brilliant”

This media isn’t just portraying women “for the male gaze” it’s EVERYTHING. Everything in these stories is supporting and uplifting mens’ delusions about who they are, how they’re perceived, and how they should expect to be treated. Which is incredibly ironic because anytime media portrays women or the world in the female gaze in a more “in my ideal world things would be like this” instead of portraying us as nothing but weak, broken, unloved, traumatized, victims OR one dimensional sex symbols with no needs or emotions they’re screaming, crying, throwing up about how stupid and unrealistic the story is….

This explains SO MUCH about how male characters are handled in shows like Veronica Mars and Buffy. Even though they’re shows staring women all the “good guys” get the delusional self insert, y/n, AU fan fic treatment (Buffy still wants Angel in season 3 and Riley in season 6 even after everything they did and Xander is CONSTANTLY forgiven for all the atrocious shit he says and does and is wanted by all women besides Buffy. Veronica forgiving Duncan and getting back together with him and even CONSIDERING Piz could truly only be born from men being delusional AS FUCK. Writing how they want men to be treated by women rather than being based in reality and the woman having even an ounce of self respect.)

Which is why the “bad boys”, Logan and Spike are such better characters. They’re so much more realistic, they get held accountable by the women in their lives, have better growth and are just way more appealing and attractive because they’re not the walking embodiment of what MEN want men to be treated and act like.

Oh god this feels like such cursed knowledge to have like it’s important to see this media for what it really is but now watching it feels that much yuckier like finding the porn of someone you DO NOT LIKE but like their emotional porn “this is what life would be like in my fantasies” and they’re the fantasies of the grossest men alive 😭😭😭😭😭

Also it shows their emotional maturity like all of these things are what 13 year old boys fantasize about not actual mature, grown men….

Also just realized this is why the Star Wars sequels were so hated. It wasn’t just Rey being powerful and loved by her found family and Kylo. It was that the movies showed the reality of men like Kylo. They destroyed the male fantasy Darth Vader created. They aren’t super cool, powerful badasses. They’re extremely sad, broken, temper tantrum throwing lost little boys who just want love and acceptance but have lost the ability to accept it because of the dark side (aka the patriarchy) which is the reality and that made me SOOOOO ANGRY lololololololol and this is why Joss Whedon THOUGHT making Spike into a sad pathetic mama’s boy of a poet would make the audience not like him because that DOES work on misogynistic men who enjoy the male gaze but does NOT work and only humanizes and makes Spike even more complex and lovable to the female gaze 💀💀💀💀 oh good lord

I don't ship Buffy Summers with Spike because I like Buffy. I ship them because I LOVE her. I love how they were not supposed to be, how they represent the parts of each other they fear the most but eventually they embrace.

For the first time, she has an equal partner, who is not intimidated by her strength or to be *only* her sidekick.

Buffy’s journey to understand she does love Spike is something unmatchable, she spent the last 3 seasons being afraid she can not love anymore, and then… her last 3 words on the show are “I love you, Spike”. It’s healing, it’s self care, it’s… I’M GOING TO BE INSANE BECAUSE OF THEM.

cleaning out my drafts when tf did i write this i'm crying

Spike in 3x08 is being the mirror that Buffy won’t look in, won’t acknowledge, won’t even say exists.

Until he drops the bravado and is vulnerable - until he exposes his feelings in a speech, in a statement, about love, regarding love, defining love. Until he says “at least I’m man enough to admit it…”

And she finally is able to admit to herself - that this love she holds onto with Angel can’t sustain itself as it exists now - not like this - not as friends…not as anything more than they once were…

Spike is the mirror Buffy won’t look in until the mirror holds the glass up itself in order for her to see her reflection.

so like obviously buffy has a type* and spike totally doesn't fall into that category. but he somehow always draws her in. they have this kindredness from the very beginning -- a sort of perverse attraction to one another -- that has less to do with having "a type", and more to do with who the other person is: how they fight, how they love, what makes them tick, their passion. <- which spike and buffy pretty much parallel each other on every account.

and i think that, combined with the fact that the show was not planning or gearing towards buffy x spike at all, is the reason they just work. it's not supposed to work between them. they're not even supposed to be into each other! but they are, and no one (not even the writers of the show) can deny it or stop it.

*brown haired tall man with innate misunderstanding of her and her strength & value

Me before watching season 4 of Angel: No ship in the entire Buffyverse will ever be worse/more forced than Bangel.

Season 4 of Angel: *has Cordelia/Jasmine hooking up with CONNOR*

Me: Fuck, I take it back, I take it back, I TAKE IT ALL BACK! Buffy, Angel, please make me cringe by saying cringe "romantic" things to each other before fucking in the kitchen and having some food play, PLEASE! I was a spoiled, ignorant fool! I'll take ANYTHING but this! WHEDON, WHY MUST YOU RUIN EVERYTHING?!

(Still a Spuffy girl tho)