The implication I got from the deleted scene was that he planned on, umm, well, making her feel it, consent be damned.

Really? I didn't get that *at all.* I read it as being just Spike's normal sexual routine; I didn't think he would have used the toys without Buffy's consent.

Spike's only regular partners we know of before that were Dru (who was insane and, apparently, fond of torture) and Harmony (who would pretty much do whatever he asked as long as he called her his snuggly-wuggly afterwards). I don't think Spike has anything in his experience that would lead him to see handcuffs and stun guns as being especially kinky.

Some kind of outside life they left behind. Parents looking for runaways, or girls calling home to reassure Mom and Dad that everything was just dandy at Professor Giles's School for the Gifted.

I totally agree. The thing is, in S1-S5, the demony stuff was intertwined with the outside world. In S7, especially the later half, it felt all … floaty and detached. I don't just mean the potentials never calling mom; I mean things like Willow pretty much ignoring college, and Dawn's shoplifting and school life almost never being followed up on, and Xander only being at work when the script had no other use for him.

this was hardly the first time rape was used as a plot device to connote the Worst of the Worst...along with smoking.

Allyson, that's interesting, and I hadn't thought of that before. Maybe "Seeing Red" was harder to take because it was so much onscreen, and it was characters we cared about, rather than just a Demon of the Week.

I do agree he'd have been miserable with Buffy as a vampire. But it's pretty well established that Spike makes great plans, then gets bored and acts on impulse, abandoning his plan

Yes to this.

I mean, if he'd thought about it, he wouldn't have tried to rape her, either. He was angry. Spike's brain does not work well when he is angry. Hell, even when he's calm, he's not Long-Term Plan Guy. (See: "The Yoko Factor," "As You Were.")

Not in the alternate reality, but in Buffyverse reality, when she really was committed for telling her parents she saw vampires.

Here's a wank of that scene: In Buffy's 1996 reality, she was never committed. This fits with canon for most of the series.

But in the reality Buffy remembered as of 2002, she had been. It's a false memory caused by Dawn's presence – either Buffy told Dawn and Dawn told their parents (not exactly what B. says, but close enough), or she told her parents because she was afraid the vamps would come after Dawn.

Anyone agree?

I always felt Joyce knew Buffy was the Slayer, but would never bring it up directly.

Disagreed. I think Joyce knew something was up with Buffy, and she'd changed around her 15th birthday. But I don't think she knew it had to do with vampires, because she didn't know vampires were real.

aside from that, it seems to me that the writers simply stuck it in there to make it all seem more emotional...the trouble is that I just find it unbelievable that Buffy never told anyone about it.

This is what I thought, too. I found it a cheap scene.

I think Joyce knew something was up with Buffy, and she'd changed around her 15th birthday.

Certainly by "School Hard," Joyce had good reason to know that her ("her" = both Buffy and herself) world wasn't what Joyce thought it was. And at least during that ep, she seemed to be somewhat less in denial/coverup mode than most Sunnydale adults.

I just had the best idea.

They need to do a celebrity episode of Queer Eye and have NB and DB on it so that they can discuss the whole unfortunate facial hair issue, meaning that neither of them are to EVER leave the house with facial hair EVER again.

And watching them all flirt with each other like mad would just be a bonus!

t /rare sign of brain working before noon

But in the reality Buffy remembered as of 2002, she had been. It's a false memory caused by Dawn's presence – either Buffy told Dawn and Dawn told their parents (not exactly what B. says, but close enough), or she told her parents because she was afraid the vamps would come after Dawn.

Anyone agree?

Lyra Jane, that's the only fanwank that works for me.

Yeah, that works pretty well. We didn't see any references to institutionalization when Joyce found out about vampires because Buffy wasn't ever actually put away, but now she remembers having been as yet another fringe benefit of Dawn's presence. Though going with that explanation does make me wonder if the monks' plan involved making Buffy overprotective of Dawn by turning everything else in her life crappy.

But in the reality Buffy remembered as of 2002, she had been. It's a false memory caused by Dawn's presence – either Buffy told Dawn and Dawn told their parents (not exactly what B. says, but close enough),

In the only version of the story we have so far (the comic version) it is Dawn that rats Buffy out, so it works.

In the only version of the story we have so far (the comic version) it is Dawn that rats Buffy out, so it works.

Heh. Fanwankery and quasi-canon collide!

Eons ago, on the Bronze, Joss said we could consider the comics (including Fray) as part of canon, but not the books, and I think not the film.

Of course, he was probably just tossing out an answer to shut up whomever asked him (no - not I).

Could he mean just his and the ME writers books?

That would make Tales of the Slayers, Fray, the Angel miniseries and Buffy/Mayor miniseries...

Could he mean just his and the ME writers books?

I was wondering the same thing - because the current Buffy comics are also telling Giles' backstory. So far, it gels with the canon established in the show, but it and the Giles-centric one-shots they have done equal a whole lotta previously unestablished Giles canon if all the comics count.