Giving up on Spuffy?
Long ramblings under the cut. Help from fellow spuffers needed!!
I think I may well be about to.
I have really reached a very dark place, and although hope dies last, it seems always more difficult for me to come out from this very dark place, and find my faith in Spuffy again.
The stupid comics are ruining the whole thing for me in retrospect, even though I’m not reading them. Since I have started reading about them, I started thinking about things, rethinking, re-evaluating my previous assessments.
I loved Chosen; it wasn’t perfect, by all means, but it dealt with the Buffy ships in a somewhat satisfactory way, giving validation to both Bangel and Spuffy, leaving them more or less on even ground. Also, it left us with a feeling of hope, a prospect of a better future for Buffy and the gang. That was a good ending, and it should have been left alone. All good things must come to an end, even BTVS!
Instead, season 8 is more depressing than ever, Buffy is still going through the same endless downward spiral, repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and we are back to square one, i.e. Bangel twu luv forever and ever (whether it will be subverted and destroyed, it’s not relevant for me, at the moment. Buffy is still emotionally stuck on Angel, as Angel is stuck on her. Actually, it is harder for me to believe it in Angel’s case, than in Buffy’s…but whatever!)
Basically, the comics are undoing everything that season 7 had established, or attempted to. Not to count the ridiculousness of the plots, with superpowered people frakking in outer space and giving birth to baby universes (????????? °_° ).
Onto Spuffy… I don’t think the writers - well, we know Joss will never let any couple be happy. But he is rumoured to have said he is a Bangel shipper…is that true? And I’m really sick of Jeanty and Allie shoving their Bangel love down our throats. Be professional, people! - care much about it. They hint at it from time to time because they don’t want to alienate the fanbase completely, but I don’t see them having much interest in going there again. I may be wrong, but I think Spuffy will be treated as friends from now on, with a subtle subtext of sexual tension at best. Buffy/Angel is the epic, trademark couple of the verse, as sucky and dysfunctional as they are.
My vision may be tainted by the stuff I have been reading on the net in these last few days. Not that Spuffy hate and Spuffy trivialization are a new phenomenon, but for years I have been over Btvs and I have stayed away from anything Btvs-related, and now that I had a look again, things seem to have gotten worse.
Many people loath the ship, and diminish its importance/treat it as merely a sordid tryst. Everyone except Spuffy shippers (and by everyone I don’t mean only Bangel-shippers, who are biased, but non-shippers/neutral viewers) seem to think that Buffy never loved Spike, not like he wanted her to, and that it was always Angel for her, all the way, for everyone he is the love of her life (why? They don’t even know each other, they don’t trust each other…and yet I am somehow asked to believe they are each other’s love of their lives, because… why, again? ). Impression that the comics and the people involved in them are doing nothing to prove wrong.
And an impression I have come to agree with over time, to my great dismay. I think Buffy loved Spike in the end, for what he did for her and the person he became, but that given the choice she would always go back to Angel.
I am starting to feel like a delusional person… are we Spuffy shippers seen as a bunch of deluded people who only saw what they wanted to see, by the wider fandom?
I am not willing to sit here, yearning for crumbs from Joss and co… I don’t like the Bangel over-drama and soppiness, and I very much prefer subtlety, in the Spuffy way. But at a certain point, too much subtlety is too much. If the comics don’t give us (me) a reason to believe that Spike actually meant and means a lot for Buffy, re-establishing the balance between the two ships, I’m out.
I am ready for Spike to move on and find someone else! For real! I never thought I would have arrived to this.
If someone can cheer me up and prove to me the many ways in which I’m totally wrong about everything, that would be great!
I think I may well be about to.
I have really reached a very dark place, and although hope dies last, it seems always more difficult for me to come out from this very dark place, and find my faith in Spuffy again.
The stupid comics are ruining the whole thing for me in retrospect, even though I’m not reading them. Since I have started reading about them, I started thinking about things, rethinking, re-evaluating my previous assessments.
I loved Chosen; it wasn’t perfect, by all means, but it dealt with the Buffy ships in a somewhat satisfactory way, giving validation to both Bangel and Spuffy, leaving them more or less on even ground. Also, it left us with a feeling of hope, a prospect of a better future for Buffy and the gang. That was a good ending, and it should have been left alone. All good things must come to an end, even BTVS!
Instead, season 8 is more depressing than ever, Buffy is still going through the same endless downward spiral, repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and we are back to square one, i.e. Bangel twu luv forever and ever (whether it will be subverted and destroyed, it’s not relevant for me, at the moment. Buffy is still emotionally stuck on Angel, as Angel is stuck on her. Actually, it is harder for me to believe it in Angel’s case, than in Buffy’s…but whatever!)
Basically, the comics are undoing everything that season 7 had established, or attempted to. Not to count the ridiculousness of the plots, with superpowered people frakking in outer space and giving birth to baby universes (????????? °_° ).
Onto Spuffy… I don’t think the writers - well, we know Joss will never let any couple be happy. But he is rumoured to have said he is a Bangel shipper…is that true? And I’m really sick of Jeanty and Allie shoving their Bangel love down our throats. Be professional, people! - care much about it. They hint at it from time to time because they don’t want to alienate the fanbase completely, but I don’t see them having much interest in going there again. I may be wrong, but I think Spuffy will be treated as friends from now on, with a subtle subtext of sexual tension at best. Buffy/Angel is the epic, trademark couple of the verse, as sucky and dysfunctional as they are.
My vision may be tainted by the stuff I have been reading on the net in these last few days. Not that Spuffy hate and Spuffy trivialization are a new phenomenon, but for years I have been over Btvs and I have stayed away from anything Btvs-related, and now that I had a look again, things seem to have gotten worse.
Many people loath the ship, and diminish its importance/treat it as merely a sordid tryst. Everyone except Spuffy shippers (and by everyone I don’t mean only Bangel-shippers, who are biased, but non-shippers/neutral viewers) seem to think that Buffy never loved Spike, not like he wanted her to, and that it was always Angel for her, all the way, for everyone he is the love of her life (why? They don’t even know each other, they don’t trust each other…and yet I am somehow asked to believe they are each other’s love of their lives, because… why, again? ). Impression that the comics and the people involved in them are doing nothing to prove wrong.
And an impression I have come to agree with over time, to my great dismay. I think Buffy loved Spike in the end, for what he did for her and the person he became, but that given the choice she would always go back to Angel.
I am starting to feel like a delusional person… are we Spuffy shippers seen as a bunch of deluded people who only saw what they wanted to see, by the wider fandom?
I am not willing to sit here, yearning for crumbs from Joss and co… I don’t like the Bangel over-drama and soppiness, and I very much prefer subtlety, in the Spuffy way. But at a certain point, too much subtlety is too much. If the comics don’t give us (me) a reason to believe that Spike actually meant and means a lot for Buffy, re-establishing the balance between the two ships, I’m out.
I am ready for Spike to move on and find someone else! For real! I never thought I would have arrived to this.
If someone can cheer me up and prove to me the many ways in which I’m totally wrong about everything, that would be great!