How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Post-Series Spuffy

[snick_backup]

Short answer: it's in the icon. *points*

For quite a long time I was pretty sure I'd never write post-series (or post-S6, really) Spuffy. For one thing, I just plain don't like canon after S6, and I'm not committed to any particular events in it. I've gone on at length about my feelings on Spike and Spike/Buffy in S7: I'm disinterested in newly soulled Spike, particularly as written, and Buffy's actions towards him from "Touched" on just make me mad.

Second, Spike makes no sense to me in Ats S5. In Chosen he dies (which also makes me mad; it's a cheap and ineffective bit of emotional manipulation, considering he's resurrected 17 days later) and comes back with a personality transplant. It's like we're watching a fic as written by someone who never care about Spike/Buffy or Spike's arc and would rather forget they happened. (Oh, wait...) I know some folks have no trouble viewing Ats S5 Spike as being IC, but I just can't manage it. Other than a few odd moments and the brilliance of Damage, Spike bears little resemblance to the character I see in S7, and the change in company is just not sufficient explanation for me.

And finally, based on what we see of Spike and Buffy in BtVS S7, it seems to me that there's an awful lot of emotional baggage to work through before we can get to a functional relationship, possibly even more baggage than post-S6, because now the old S6 baggage is stale and buried, and Spike and Buffy can pretend it isn't there, and the new S7 baggage ("Does it have to mean anything," the tongueless kiss in End of Days, "No you don't, but thanks for saying it.) exists largely because of everything they don't say to each other. They've built an entire friend/relation/something-ship on not talking about things. That'd be a difficult obstacle to overcome, especially since by the end of Ats S5 that lack of communication has built up a fair bit of inertia. Getting them to the point of attempting a real relationship would be a major undertaking, I think, and not one I have any interest in.

But! None of this has ever stopped me from reading and enjoying post-NFA Spuffy written by other folks. I didn't quite see how they got from canon to their characterizations, but since I preferred their characterizations, I couldn't be bothered to care much. Their Spike tended to be a happy blend of S7!Spike's soulful sensitivity and Ats!Spike's recovered self-image and sense of humor; their Buffy tended to have recovered somewhat from her three seasons of wrenching angst. Both were often nearer to being whole, stable people than we ever saw in canon.

And you know what? I've decided I'm fine with that. These are not the direct extensions of Spike and Buffy as I saw them on screen, but I like these better. I'd just as well like to read stories about them as about the canon versions, and fandom has amply provided! And in fact, I think I've reached the point where I can try writing those stories myself now. I've had two big post-NFA Spuffy projects bubbling in my brain for a while, and one of these days they just might get written.

So, I'm turning in my membership card to the canon-whore club (and is there any other, less offensive term? Because I hate that one more every time I have to use it). That's what I'm saying. I've put a lot of value in canon for a long time, and when we're talking anything pre-S7 it's still what I'm all about, but I don't have to be all the time, and that's okay. Embrace the fanon!

And if the next word out of your mouth is 'claiming,' Spike will HUNT YOU DOWN and SMACK YOU WITH A SPOON. You have been warned.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Canon characterization. I can't even budge on it, you know? My every attempt is to maintain canon characterization (and here's hoping it flies!) so it's more like I don't understand willfully choosing to not go there. Do people deliberately portray characters not as they are? Consciously? Or are they biased against a character, can't see them clearly, and thus their portrayal in no way resembles canon?

As for events, I think I tend to view it as a mash-up opportunity. Maintaining the canon forces at work but remixing the specifics. (Does that make sense? I'm not sure how to express it better.)

Well, you're doomed to not have your face stuck that way then.

[snickfic]

People do deliberately write characters as other than canon. "I know it'd never happen this way, but I wish it would." That kind of thing. I see it in fic headers sometimes.

What I was saying in the post, though, is that I've about gotten to that point with post-series Spuffy. Not that I'm convinced they could never develop into the relatively stable and mature couple, but that I find it unlikely, particularly in the timespan often portrayed. OTOH, a lot of the fic I'm thinking kind of skips the messy reconnection stage altogether by being set several years after their reunion.

Note that I find such fic much more likely if I accept your and Lauren and Quin's interpretations of Spuffy in S7. I can't seem to get there on my own by just rewatching the canon, but if I take y'all's interpretation as a starting point, then I can get to the functional post-series Spuffy space with a lot less effort. And I like the implications your interpretation, even though I can't get directly to it myself.

Maintaining the canon forces at work but remixing the specifics.

Yes. Although how much I care about preserving the canon forces depends a lot on what we're talking about. Like, I have no attachment to hardly anything that happens in S4, and I would merrily sweep the whole Riley/Initiative arc away with a single event, if I needed to for some reason and could find the event to do it. Whereas with S5, it pretty much has to be about Dawn and Glory (because if there's no Glory there's no Dawn) and Buffy's identity as a Slayer. (I mean, the entire show is about Buffy's identity as a Slayer at one level or another, but when I think of "Buffy as Slayer," I think of S5.) Likewise, I'm pretty much committed to Joyce dying in S5, because that element of prosaic tragedy versus supernatural tragedy is really key to the show, and also because finding a way to prevent it convincingly would be hard.

Well, you're doomed to not have your face stuck that way then.

Drat! Foiled again!

[deird1]

Note that I find such fic much more likely if I accept your and Lauren and Quin's interpretations of Spuffy in S7.

*is curious*

How would you define your position and theirs?

[snickfic]

In my less charitable moods I say that Buffy spends the whole second half leading Spike on a leash, fully aware of his feelings but preferring to pretend they don't exist. He's useful, so she uses him. She has some feelings for him, too, but doesn't define them for herself or anyone else ("I'm not ready for you to not be here" - can you vague that up some more?). And then, in Touched, she gives him what he later says is the best night of his life, and when he asks her to please please please tell him what this means between them, she says, "Does it have to mean anything?" And then there's the Angel-kiss, and Spike telling her she doesn't love him, which breaks my heart but for which I can't really blame him.

Like I said, that's on my less charitable days. On others I say that Buffy was simply too busy with and exhausted from Slayer duties and the Neverending Sleepover of DOOM to give her relationship with Spike the attention it needed, which resulted in general miscommunication and confusion and hurt feelings on Spike's part.

Whereas of those who really like S7 Spuffy, the consensus seems to be that they build an intensely deep, meaningful, and personal relationship expressed almost entirely in action and body language and facial expression; that the most important part of the post-Touched speech isn't "Does it have to mean anything" but "Were you there with me / I was" (or possibly "Let's go be heroes"), and that the flamey hands scene in Chosen is an apt and glorious symbol of their mutual and mutually-understood love.

It's largely a matter of emphasis, I think. (The real mystery is why three of my four Spuffy icons are from S7, considering my feelings...)

[quinara]

Whereas of those who really like S7 Spuffy, the consensus seems to be that they build an intensely deep, meaningful, and personal relationship expressed almost entirely in action and body language and facial expression; that the most important part of the post-Touched speech isn't "Does it have to mean anything" but "Were you there with me / I was" (or possibly "Let's go be heroes"), and that the flamey hands scene in Chosen is an apt and glorious symbol of their mutual and mutually-understood love.

Heh, just thought I should say that for me, at least, that's a sort of 'close but no cigar' representation of my view. I'd say 'were you there with me' / 'I was' is the most important bit, but I haven't really cared about the flamey hands in a long time (I don't really put any value in stuff from Spike turning up in Touched onwards, to be honest, because I don't really like his speech and the Angel kiss really doesn't work with my Buffy characterisation). Anyway, for me Buffy's facial expressions say a lot, but not as much as lines like 'I'll help you' in Sleeper, 'I believe in you' in NLM and the contextually defined 'I'm not ready for you to not be here' (because it's explicitly not about fighting). I like S7 because they at least approach being straight with each other.

But I totally agree with you about Angel S5. :D (Though I think he's actually most IC at the end of Life of the Party when he's staring out over the city, looking a little lost. But when I first watched that I was still convinced he was going to contact Buffy when he became corporeal...)

[snickfic]

Thanks for the clarification. I was sort of lumping together what I'd remembered from reading everyone's previous discussion, but didn't recall the differentiating details very well. I'm with you on the speech and the Angel kiss.

(Though I think he's actually most IC at the end of Life of the Party when he's staring out over the city, looking a little lost.

Yeah. I just expected Spike to be a whole lot angstier than we see. His emotions are so naked all through S7, and then to have him return into the crude joker of Ats S5 was a rude shock. But, as you say, there are bits here and there that make more sense.

[quinara]

Heh, well, the differences don't really become relevant until things like the comics anyway, when they result in vastly different interpretations of how things stand in relation to S7 - that's the only reason I emphasise. :D

I don't actually watch AtS S5 anymore (or, at least, I haven't in ages), because I can't not read Spike as essentially putting on a massive front over upset and misery. All his scenes make me sad. :(