Giles, this is bad, isn't it? A new kind of bad. Just in time for Christmas.

SPUFFY in 7x14: FIRST DATE

DAWN SUMMERS Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 7.12 “Potential”

thinking about an alternate season 7 wherein instead of every potential slayer being hunted and then activated, every past slayer gets brought back to life. I don’t really like post-chosen content anyway, but when I do read / look at it the whole slayer academy, everyone’s a slayer thing is really stupid to me ngl 💀

previous slayers, though… nikki wood and xin rong interacting with spike, actually finding out about the slayer before buffy, slayers with different backgrounds and situations and personalities, KENDRA?! I just love it so much.

you’d be able to focus on a relatively small cast of slayers, much like the potentials, throughout the season. this would include buffy, faith, kendra, nikki, and some other american slayers from varying time periods with a couple interesting international characters too (maybe a slayer from ancient greece / rome / egypt, or an anglo-saxon one or something). these are all experienced slayers, so no need to focus on training - it would be more about lore, history and their personal character journeys, assimilating them into society (creating some fun bottle episodes, maybe a day out on the town with dawn and a historical slayer) and trying to figure out why they were all brought back. also, if you want to keep the first as the main villain, then it can look like any one of them because they’re all technically dead, which means you can still have that episode with the dead potential revealing herself as the first and all the mistrust that’s threaded throughout the season.

plus with nikki back, there would be no need for the stupid sleeper agent thing with spike or the ridiculous fight between him and robin. all the same ideas (and the flashbacks to spike’s mum) could still be explored, and in a way better way imo.

I reckon the reason they were brought back would probably be the powers that be (tying nicely into angel ofc) trying to defeat the first. and of course the ending would be this huge battle, as all the slayers from around the world come to sunnydale, and maybe to add some drama they would all disappear and die again when the battle’s done as they have fulfilled their purpose (a classic finale knife to the heart that would have everyone sobbing, especially over nikki and kendra).

there’s also the added thing of like,, I appreciate the show was leaning towards a theme of “hope for the future” with the potentials angle, but literally every other aspect of the season is about harkening back to the past. faith, robin, the first taking the form of previous characters, the high school, the slayer origins, etc etc. so I just think this idea would work so much better with the themes of the season, and tie in really nicely.

and the most obvious perk of this concept is kendra! she was forgotten about so quickly, and this season would really give the writers a chance to redeem themselves for the terrible way poc characters have been treated throughout the show (ignoring what they did to robin. FUCK that but that’s another conversation). I think the show really downplayed how much kendra’s death would have affected buffy, and seeing the two of them interact after buffy has changed so much and kendra’s still the same would be amazing. there’s also the interesting concept that, having been brought back from the dead, kendra still be 17, and therefore closer in age to dawn than to buffy, which could make for some really nice interactions between the two of them. also of course the biggest most exciting thing is having buffy, faith and kendra all interact. they all represent places on a spectrum in terms of personality, and I would LOVE to see kendra and faith interact and how much of a unit they would likely become as a trio.

there’s also the theme of buffy feeling (and being) alone in this season that would hopefully go away, as she would now have dozens of people who truly understand her, giving her a proper support system which I would love to see (season 7 scoobies can actually eat shit btw <3)

so. was this born out of my hatred for insufferable kennedy and the annoying potentials? yes absolutely. do I now want them to rewrite and re-film the entire last season 20 years later? yes absolutely I’m so glad you understand

side note wouldn’t it be sick if in the final battle there’s just this one slo-mo shot where buffy stakes a vamp and through the dust she sees the first slayer looking at her from across the battlefield before she disappears amongst the fight. WHAT it would literally be awesome hello?!

also also other side note sorry but Mother(TM) nikki wood would NEVER kick buffy out of her own house. fuck them kids fr

This totally happened in canon

Fight me

another parallel that I like and was brought to my attention is that Angel always thought of Buffy as the light and therefore untouchable by him, whilst in season 6 Spike tells her shes part of the darkness and belongs in the dark with him.

But my personal opinions on this is that its Spike’s attempt to keep Buffy with him. If you pay attention to Spike’s attitude towards Buffy in the previous season then you would know that he does see her as better than him and believes she belongs to the light. I’m in full belief that Spike kept tempting Buffy towards the dark and taunting her with ‘the demon’ that she could be, now that he could hit her, because it was a selfish attempt at keeping her coming back to him. Which is selfish and toxic, but he had no soul for one so most of his actions are selfish and self-serving and two it was already known that their relationship was toxic. However I am in full belief that Buffy set the toxic tone for the “relationship” of season 6 and that Spike tried and wanted an actual relationship which she was obviously and understandably not ready for.

I have so many thoughts about Spike and Buffy, and I am like constantly rewatching season 6 and 7 of BTVS because I find their dynamic io two season to be contradiction and also what I hate thats not talked about is the relationship Buffy has with herself and her depression, which is still obviously prevalent, in season 7. But whatever…

x

No hate to Kennedy (really, she is amazing) but Willow was so NOT ready for a new relationship so soon after Tara's death!!! If they wanted a romance between a potential and one of the original scoobies, couldn't they have had it be with Dawn? She deserved her own little adventure after everything she'd been through, and she has basically no arcs of her own in season seven. She mostly just helps out in the background, occasionally revealing that she has taught herself another dead language. Granted, if it was Kennedy she should probably be a bit younger since Dawn is like 17, but I can see that working out!

BUFFY SUMMERS | 7.06 – “Him”

SPUFFY in 7x20: TOUCHED

DAWN SUMMERS Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 7.12 “Potential”

who the FUCK was gonna warn me about Selfless.

dude i could not stop crying at the end, that shit was brutal.

Spike and Buffy | Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7.12 Potential