I just did this, and Etsy doesn’t actually tell you anywhere on the site how to find your username (it’s randomly generated), which you need to opt out, so here’s how to do that:
I am genuinely interested–why? Not in a rude way, but in a curious way
So I’m not a Glory fan necessarily, more for personal reasons, but I would venture to say season 5 is the best in the show in my opinion. It really grasps the feelings of growing up into your 20s and put that into a life or death fictional world. Season 6 is similar in how in-your-face it is with the theme, but the original conclusion of the show and that arc– absolutely tops it. I would be lying if I said my fondness for The Body didn’t factor into it too, though, as well. It’s a heart wrenching episode but it’s also so incredibly effective at communicating what these characters are going through and making you FEEL that.
I like S5 best in spite of Glory, not because of her. I found Glory more annoying than anything else, because I don’t feel as if she was a very effective villain, and the only way to make her effective was to make the Scoobs very dense in trying to fight her. (The only thing Glory had going for her was that she was very strong and very tough. They knew this from the beginning, but instead of immediately looking for better ways to fight a very strong, very tough villain, they just had Buffy and occasionally Spike keep fighting her hand to hand and keep getting their asses handed to them.)
But although the execution was IMO flawed, the intent of making Glory a god was to have Buffy confront a literally unbeatable foe, and see how she handled, or didn’t handle that. It was the culmination of Buffy’s struggle to balance the slayer and the woman. And despite the tragedy of the season, it was the last season in which Buffy wasn’t yet completely broken, emotionally speaking, by the weight of her calling.
It was the last season where I loved all the characters, the last where I felt they were all moving forwards instead of backwards. (It’s not that I object to characters making bad decisions. But when all of them make bad decisions at the same time, it becomes wearing, stretched over the course of a network-aired season. Especially when the writers miscalculate the impact of those decisions badly, and then seem to want to just sweep them under the rug rather than dealing with them.) And personally, it was my favorite season for Spuffy interaction. Soulless Spike’s desperate, clueless, existential struggle with his love for Buffy is my absolute narrative jam, for reasons I’ve gone into in detail elsewhere.
Giles’ whole, “which shouldn’t prevent you from eventually procuring some more gainful form of employment, such as I did” line is such utter crap, even in the context of What’s My Line. He’s literally pulled Buffy out of school, during a school event she’s mandated to attend *by her principal*. He and her duty to slaying routinely impact and stymie any chance she has of doing well in school. She is consistently missing class, or falling asleep in class, or not being able to complete class work because there are only so many hours in a day and she has to train and patrol and maintain the image of a girl who does neither of those things to her mother and the world.
And that’s not even getting into the fact that Giles didn’t need “more gainful employment” because he already collects a salary from the Watcher’s Council, something that is never offered to Buffy or any other slayer. He is literally double dipping, money wise. And Buffy is right - no one blinks an eye when Giles spends his days surrounded by books. But even law enforcement will probably be concerned about a recruit who sometimes skips shifts or shoves pieces of wood through suspects.
The show continually makes Buffy’s life more miserable than it has to be by continually showing how slaying negatively affects her ability to engage in mundane but gainful employment but completely ignores the very real solution of having the organization that pays its Watchers also pay its Slayers, especially come season 5 when Buffy flips the script. It’s not overtly apparent in season 2, but the farther along we get in the series, the more appalling it is that Buffy isn’t paid for her work, and that the show doesn’t utilize this double standard as a metaphor for women’s unpaid labor more generally. It’s meant to just be accepted as fact that Buffy’s sacred duty means she can’t accept payment, when her ex is charging for doing essentially the same work - with his own destiny - in LA.
The lack of addressing the double standard in men profiting off of women’s unpaid labor is one of those “you can tell a man who doesn’t actually get feminism” wrote this.
Also not only is Giles drawing two salaries through mid S3 and from mid S5 until the end of S6, he is also clearly shown to be independently wealthy. He spends an entire year unemployed and still has the cash to buy a small business in S5 and the money he gives Buffy in S6 is clearly nothing to him (or her like that clearly wasn’t enough *asshole*.
Season seven was really the season of Buffy’s style maturing! We seen hints of it during season six but this season is where it takes full bloom!!!
Gone are the bright and multiple colours of tHe early seasons and her style is now more neutral focused!!!
But, just because her style has grown up dose not mean that it’s now boring! Far from it! It had a slight ruff patch during the later half of the season but the final stretch of outfits are not only some of her best but probably the most recognisable in the fandom!!!
before you see something and recoil at the price, be it handmade items, services, art, whatever. when you see something and you think, “i wouldnt pay more than $15 for that,” you seriously have to ask yourself: if i were offered that same $15, would i make this object? would i spend the time to teach myself this skill to get this done, for $15? would i do this service for that same $15? would that be worth my time and effort?
yeah, that handmade necklace is $140. you might only be willing to pay $40 for that same necklace, but would you make it for $40 if someone asked you to?
you want to pay the babysitter fifteen bucks for the three hours she’s watching your child. but would you honestly do that for $15? would you go into a stranger’s house and change their baby’s diaper and care for its needs, for $15?
you think its ridiculous that this artist is charging $30 for an icon commission. would you spend years catching up to their skill level to make that same drawing, start using your skill to make some extra cash, and then spend three hours on a drawing just to get $15?
would you be willing to work for $5 an hour?
no?
then don’t be angry when someone else won’t.
you don’t have buy the service, it’s okay if some things aren’t within your budget or comfort zone, and it’s also okay if the product isn’t worth that much money to you. but do not be angry. be glad, because you know of another person out there who isn’t being exploited for their time.
also hot take (?): but vampires DO have souls. the creation of a vampire in btvs lore is literally that a demonic essence/spirit/spiritual energy (in this instance a vampiric one and not some other kind of demon) enters a human corpse and parasitically latches on, altering the human corpse to better suit it with an initial burst of spooky evil demon magic (which is part of why i never think any lore that says vampire can’t do magic makes sense like, how do you think they even function fam?). it then uses the info and identity of the former inhabitant that’s all still locked up in those dead synapses to help it acclimate to the new dimension and build a sense of identity. you can argue that the vampire is not your dead friend but what is a person if not their memories and thoughts? all of which the vampire now shares too. so that’s a fun little thing to puzzle on in philosophy class.
vampires in the buffy world are pretty explicitly a manufactured creature built of a demonic essence/entity grafted into a human cadaver which merge to make a new species which is why they’re so low on the demon totem pole. they’re the most mongrel-y of all the half-breeds. what is the soul if not a spiritual essence that fuels and motivates the body? the metaphysical component that makes the system complete? what is the vampire of not a perversion of the human condition? does it not then stand that the vampire soul is the twisted mirror of the human one?
the thing is that while this is Kinda Common Sense when you sit down and just look at objectively how the vampire is made it’s a dangerous concept in universe and we fall pray to believe the same propaganda built to ensnare our characters.
the slayer was made in almost the exact same processas a vampire only with a living subject– a demonic essence grafted into a human host. there is no magic leash on a slayer, there are no words that can be chanted to bring her to heel, the watchers have to use standard psychological manipulation to control her. a slayer who realizes that she has more in common with vampires on a fundamental level than she does humans (tho not on a moral or motivation level obvs) is very dangerous to their control and to the concept of “slayer as sheepdog” as a whole. conditioning them to see vampires as animals and not sentient humanoid beings with thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, who have souls that while demonic are no less valid in their existence then any human one is integral to keeping the machine working and keeping your young emotionally/mentally vulnerable weapon from having a nervous breakdown because she just you know, massacred a whole bunch of people. fangy people, but people none the less.
btvs and the watcher council mentality the main btvs cast is tainted by is incredibly human centric, watch even a little of ats and it becomes glaringly obvious. ats is extremely flawed but one of it’s strongest points was letting us see the expanded world of demons and non-human culture. the issue is then that buffy and co come off as rabid human-centrists because of how they talk about vampires and demons as a whole. there’s a reason tara didn’t want them to know she was half demon when she thought that line was true. the scoobies spout anti-demon rhetoric like it’s their jobs. the way they treat anya is horrendous and it’s because she has the Taint of demon and neurodivergence coding (which is a whole different kettle so).
the continued talk about spike like he’s a subhuman while he’s either at their mercy or on their side is galling. you cannot be called the good guys and then treat other sentient creatures like animals and vermin to be killed or mocked for your amusement. full stop. you cannot claim a moral high ground and behave like this which is what the scoobies consistently claim. they believe they are in the moral right and have the moral high ground consistently. when in reality they are pretty fucked up and have done repugnant immoral shit multiple times (hello all the various scoobie caused invasions of personal autonomy!). you can be a protagonist and have uh… Dodgey Morals™ (ex. the punisher) but when you claim you are better because you have better morals but also refuse to see the other side as even worthy of being seen as a truly living creature with like feelings and shit now i’m treating you with contempt.
there are people who will say that buffy was the sole victim of the toxicity that is s6 spuffy but if you believe that you also are tacitly agreeing that her belief that spike is an “it”, an animal with no bodily autonomy to respect or feelings to hurt or be manipulated is true. and why? because he’s a vampire? he has a soul, a demonic soul. he literally would not exist if a metaphysical entity/force hadn’t entered william pratt’s fucking corpse and make it theirs. this is an inherently repugnant act and even if we all sit down and agree she did nothing else to contribute to this toxicity she still looked another sentient being who she knew had some kind of feelings for her, used his want and his desperation to abuse herself with and spent the entire time considering him as something between cattle and a lamp. i’m sorry but that’s wildly fucked up at it’s core and if you can’t see that i worry for you.
what if she was dating a nice half-bracken guy and she did all that shit to him? if he tried to stop her from turning herself in for a crime she didn’t commit and then beat him bloody and called him an it, a thing, not a person, not real? are you still okay with that because he’s a demon? are humans the only species in your eyes with the right to personhood in this universe? do you, like buffy and co, prefer to take the words of a group known to manipulate everything and who treat girls like buffy as things themselves over the evidence you see before your eyes on screen and the actions and words of the demons themselves? buffy’s actions towards spike from s4 to s6 are repugnant because they’re no longer enemies and she’s no longer the council’s attack dog but she still refuses to give him the basic decency of personhood.
and you can get into all kinds about shit about how vampires are evil and he’s done terrible things and i will not respect you for using any of that to try and say it’s okay to treat someone who you relay on or are in any kind of relationship with like they’re a thing. otherization and depersonification are tools used to make it “okay” to commit atrocities. for every spike who you say it’s “okay” to treat like an animal, there’s a harmony who isn’t really all that bad and happily switches to bagged blood and integrates pretty peacefully into human society when given the chance. and she will get put right next to spike as an animal to be killed because she doesn’t matter. using his past actions to deny him the right of personhood is a lazy tactic to divert the discussion and absolve buffy and co of moral failings.
the nazis are also evil, but i will not deny they are people. doesn’t mean i wouldn’t take the shot if i had one if i was put in that position. it just means i acknowledge i ended a life that probably meant something to someone. and that’s my issue with buffy and co. that’s my issue with “vampires are soulless” and buffy’s treatment of spike in s6 and how people talk about it. regardless of literally anything else either of them did, denying another sentient being the right to be acknowledged as one while still demanding things from them is inherently a core repugnant act. she is willing to use his feelings and body for her advantage but also refuses to respect them as real and just as valid as hers. again, how would you feel if she treated lorne like this? if she demanded things of him but didn’t respect his basic right to be seen as a valid sentient being just like her?
in btvs vampires have souls, demons have souls, and they all deserve the basic decency to have that acknowledged. even by the slayer. especially by the slayer frankly since she is also in her own way One Of Them and if she’s going to hunt them down and kill them she can at least acknowledge that she ended a life and didn’t just flip an off switch. if you can’t get with this whole concept of the validity of non-human life in a universe where the MCs humanity is frequently questioned and the Other and Otherism is frequently a theme then i really am not interested in talking to you.
One of the reasons I can’t stand the main characters in Buffy is because they always asume they are moraly superior just for being humans. There are many other reasons but this is something that always bothers me.
In most shows I’ve watched some (if not most) of the main characters seem to think they have the moral highground. BTVS has Seven seasons and the protagonist never outgrown this kind of thinking. For them either you are human (witches and slayers included) or you are a thing and that is fucked up. They know, they seem demons/vampires with emotions and personalities and still to them their lives don’t matter.
I get that is easier for Buffy and the rest to think this way so they can kill them without guilt, but its no excuse. They think they are superior because of the soul or whatever wich is bullshit. The Council of Watchers with the Crucinamentun (idk how to spell It) and the Initiative are proof enough of humans being evil. Or they could use their brain but they aren’t big on that.
In season four Walsh had a multitude of demons in cages and tortured them, Buffy didn’t seem to care much about It.
Also the season five thing with the vampires that were paid to bite humans and what happened after Buffy found out was disturbing to watch.
Buffy Summers is a killer. I am not hating on her nor insulting her, is a fact. She kills demons but Demons (many of the ones shown) have personalities and feel things. In my book that cualifies as people.
And it’s not her fault, she didn’t choose that life, wich is the case with slayers. They have to survive and they help people when they kill many of the agressives or feral ones. Buffy saves the world a lot but she is still a killer.
I don’t care about it, it’s kind of her job and many demons are way too dangerous, but when she referes to them as “It” makes me dislike her.
The moral superiority thing is so annoying.
What is the soul if not a spiritual essence that fuels and motivates the body?
This is the issue with Buffyverse lore - it is unclear what they define a soul as. When discussing the creation of vampires, it appears this is the definition they’re using. A spiritual double/entity that contains all of what a human is.
