Just saw someone being judgmental towards Buffy and Buffy ALONE for victim blaming in the Beauty and the Beasts episode…..

GEE I WONDER WHY BUFFY WOULD CURRENTLY THINK EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO VICTIMS IS THEIR FAULT AND WAS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT

Calling out only ONE character in btvs for this behavior, and the one who is victim blamed herself the most is not the call out you think it is…. Like have you been paying attention AT ALL up to this point??? Do you only see the victim blaming when it’s that blatantly obvious???

Btvs has a SYSTEMIC victim blaming problem that obviously stems directly from jw himself as xander is also the biggest perpetrator of blaming Buffy for every single terrible thing that happens to or even AROUND her followed by Joyce, Riley and Faith. Anya, Cordy, and Spike’s (in season 4) are used less frequently to blame Buffy as well with joss pretending they are just being blunt and honest but it’s just furthering the “everything is Buffy’s fault” narrative and that is NEVER countered by the narrative or any of the other characters!!!! Occasionally Willow will advocate for not attacking Buffy or assigning blame but even that is rooted in her fear of conflict and wanting to keep the peace more often than it being about believing Buffy isn’t at fault and just defending her.

It’s not until season 6 and joss is less involved that we finally get Spike telling Buffy “it isn’t her fault” with Katrina and Tara forgiving her for both loving and using Spike and girlie has an entire mental breakdown both times because being forgiven and accepted instead of blamed for mistakes literally DOES NOT COMPUTE and she BEGS to be punished and told she’s wrong because she doesn’t know how to accept anything else because of her treatment at the hands of her “friends”, family and romantic partners for the last five years

Even in fiction we need to practice not just looking at a person’s problematic behavior on an individual level but within the context of the systems they live in and the community they are surrounded by.

If you’re genuinely shocked and confused the parentified slayer who has heard “one girl in all the world” more times than she can count, was blamed by her mother for “not making better choices and having better judgment” when she was the victim of a manipulative and predatory older man and feels responsible for all the harm and deaths ANGELUS caused just because she had sex once AND for having to send Angel to hell and therefore feels responsible for nursing him back to health as well you haven’t been paying attention to the actual dynamics at play or what’s been going on up to that point AT ALL.