The only problem with turning friends on to Buffy is when they turn out to be the kind of Buffy fan you don't really like. I mean, you hook them on the show, which is awesome, but then they try to start up conversations about how "Buffy is so mean to Spike, what is her problem? It's the last episode, THEY SHOULD DATE, it could totally work! It works in my brain!"

Who cares????!?!??!

I mean, sure, Spuffy provided a lot of important elements to the stories over the years, and it all needed to be dealt with and whatnot, and I have no problem with it, but I just know that the one thing this girl is going to bring out of 7 seasons of Buffy watched in about 4 months is that Buffy was mean to Spike, the cute little cuddly kitten-vamp. It's Dawson's Creek to her.

I just wish everybody saw it as more.

Perhaps if Marti Noxon had, there wouldn't have been as much of a problem...

Well, I mean, in pre-Spuffy days all she cared about was BuffyNAngle4EVAR! and whatnot. Same thing, this was just a particular rant about tonight's conversation as she finishes off the series.

As she finishes off the series—as in the season 7 finale?

Oy.

All right, I can see where some of the UST and the RST in S6, maybe made your friend forget what we learned in Crush. But you mean your friend has gotten through Spike telling Buffy in Dead Things, that killing one person (Katrina--which granted, Buffy didn't, but at the time, they both thought Buffy had) is somehow wiped away, because of the other people Buffy has saved (cf Faith's excuse after killing the Deputy Mayor in S2); that it's wiped away As You Were; Entropy's, "Well it was good enough for Buffy..."; and Seeing Red's rape attempt. She has seen all seven seasons, and still feels that way?

I mean, I will not pretend that the cocked head, abs, cheekbones, and pretty blue eyes left me cold, either. And although I consider Angel feeding off Buffy in Graduation Day, one of film's most erotic moments, the scene with walls crumbling upon and around Buffy and Spike in Smashed, is surely in the top five. And granted, Season 5's Intervention, particularly the beating Spike took from Glory, for Dawn's sake, increased my sympathy for him.

But those Spuffalicious moments did not happen in a vacuum. ijs.

I can't even blame this on Marti, Matt. We got it, after all, as did a preponderance of Bronzers. Now, sure, some of us maybe never liked Spike, or stopped enjoying the character after season 3. Some folks don't care for JM, for that matter. But above and beyond them, there are plenty of us who did, who still got it. I don't think I can blame Marti for the extreme brand of Spuffyism that's made Spike a woobie, and Buffy a bitch.

To be fair, I think Buffy was a bitch in much of Season 4. But they returned the character to her more sympathetic mode by season's end.

Well, yes. I agree. Buffy could be a bitch, or better yet, she could be bitchy. So could every character really, even St. Willow. I prefer my hero to have feet of clay. But this Spike-is-a-woobie, and that-bitch-Buffy-doesn't-deserve him take on the series as a whole makes my head spin, and I just can't blame Marti for it. I think there are tiny crack molecules which fly through the air, and are attracted to, and attack some folks, and not others. It's the only logical explanation. For a lot of stuff, really.

No, I'm with you Cindy, and that's speaking as someone who found Spike and the B/S relationship very compelling all the way through. I'd even go so far as to say that the increasing darkness of that relationship began with Buffy (though I wouldn't call it her fault) but to watch the whole series and come out of it with Good Spike/Bad Buffy is boggling.

And I am with you, brenda.

I just don't understand how people who are drawn to a Joss Whedon show in the first place are prone to protective woobiefying any of the characters. I mean, I'm nearly as fond of Lindsey as most of the Spike fanatics are of their boy, but my reaction was always "Throttle him some more, Angel! Wheeee!"

I probably shouldn't judge the Spuffies' splinterlike woobification of Spike, while I'm still trying to remove the plank of Buffy woobification from mine own eye.

(But Buffy makes this boo boo face, and I want to feed her warm, chocolate pudding, pat her on the head, and tell her to think of it tomorrow at Tara.)

(Of course that'll bring up unpleasant associations of its own.)

(Like it wasn't bad enough Willow freeloaded off of Buffy, while Buffy was wearing a frigging chicken on her hat to keep the repo man at bay.)

(Who do we think had to scrub to remove all that dead lesbian cliche from the carpet? Willow? I think not. She was too busy getting close to the earth with Giles. Which is ridiculous, 'cause Wicca good and love the earth, and womyn power and I'll be over here...)

(There's not Willow/Giles fic, is there? Oh, man that was a stupid question, for heaven's sake, I've had people—and let me stress this was completely against my will—prove to me that there's Transformers' slash, of course there's Willow/Giles fic.)

(Bleach. Need bleeeeaaaaaaaaach. Where's the bleach? Frigging Spike probably used it all up on his hair. How'm I ever going to clean my brain, now?)

(I'm done.)