It's a bit like Tara's speech, only how it should have gone.
As a tangent to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angearia's post on Buffy and Forgiveness I've been trying to formulate how I actually see Spuffy in S7. Thankfully, Tara pretty much had it nailed in Entropy, with one or two minor adjustments:
Things fall apart. They fall apart so hard. You can't ever put them back the way they were. You know, it takes time. You can't just [rely on each other because no one else is quite so dependable ] and expect... There's just so much to work through. Trust has to be built again, on both sides. You have to learn if you're even the same people you were, if you can fit in each other's lives. It's a long, important process, and [you can't just skip it, because otherwise all you're doing is shagging through the mistrust until one of you gets shot, which isn't a long-term solution].
I don't think I have anything insightful to add to that, really, so my meta's basically stalled before it's begun. But, just for a bit of personal colour, I'll say I'm optimistically cynical, so I don't think they had finished negotiating the process by the end of Chosen, but at the same time I think it would have been perfectly feasible for them to make it into a stable, only-new-issues-plz relationship by the end of a (hypothetical) season that came after. The immediate things I see that they had left to fix, after all, are relatively simple: for a start they needed to normalise their sleepy cuddles into something that wasn't coloured by 'the world might be ending - there's no need to visualise the future', and then they needed to make headway into the scary realm of actively attempting leisure activities, rather than 'I need to sit in the quiet - do you need to sit in the quiet? - let's sit in the quiet'.
Not that I'm trying to knock sitting in the quiet, I hasten to add, but it's a difference of planning to spend time with someone because they are someone and spending time with someone without planning partly because they aren't everybody else. 'I can be alone with you here' says something important, but it's a lack-of-negative rather than a positive. And while clearly Buffy and Spike were seeking out each other's company by the end of S7 (which is a step up), they equally weren't making plans and only negotiated things (like where Buffy was sleeping in Chosen) as and when it was necessary to do so. Short-term stuff =/= putting all their issues behind them. (And oh, hell, did I just argue that what Buffy and Spike needed to do was agree they were 'going steady'??)
So, yeah, that's where I am, I think. S7 Spuffy: means to an end, the conclusion of which we were so rudely deprived of. Still my favourite Spuffy season though. ;)
ETA: Off for pizza (yay pizza!).
angearia's post on Buffy and Forgiveness I've been trying to formulate how I actually see Spuffy in S7. Thankfully, Tara pretty much had it nailed in Entropy, with one or two minor adjustments:Things fall apart. They fall apart so hard. You can't ever put them back the way they were. You know, it takes time. You can't just [rely on each other because no one else is quite so dependable ] and expect... There's just so much to work through. Trust has to be built again, on both sides. You have to learn if you're even the same people you were, if you can fit in each other's lives. It's a long, important process, and [you can't just skip it, because otherwise all you're doing is shagging through the mistrust until one of you gets shot, which isn't a long-term solution].
I don't think I have anything insightful to add to that, really, so my meta's basically stalled before it's begun. But, just for a bit of personal colour, I'll say I'm optimistically cynical, so I don't think they had finished negotiating the process by the end of Chosen, but at the same time I think it would have been perfectly feasible for them to make it into a stable, only-new-issues-plz relationship by the end of a (hypothetical) season that came after. The immediate things I see that they had left to fix, after all, are relatively simple: for a start they needed to normalise their sleepy cuddles into something that wasn't coloured by 'the world might be ending - there's no need to visualise the future', and then they needed to make headway into the scary realm of actively attempting leisure activities, rather than 'I need to sit in the quiet - do you need to sit in the quiet? - let's sit in the quiet'.
Not that I'm trying to knock sitting in the quiet, I hasten to add, but it's a difference of planning to spend time with someone because they are someone and spending time with someone without planning partly because they aren't everybody else. 'I can be alone with you here' says something important, but it's a lack-of-negative rather than a positive. And while clearly Buffy and Spike were seeking out each other's company by the end of S7 (which is a step up), they equally weren't making plans and only negotiated things (like where Buffy was sleeping in Chosen) as and when it was necessary to do so. Short-term stuff =/= putting all their issues behind them. (And oh, hell, did I just argue that what Buffy and Spike needed to do was agree they were 'going steady'??)
So, yeah, that's where I am, I think. S7 Spuffy: means to an end, the conclusion of which we were so rudely deprived of. Still my favourite Spuffy season though. ;)
ETA: Off for pizza (yay pizza!).