*****YAY! IT'S SHIPPY DAY!!!!!*****
Feb. 5th, 2011 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blackfrancineDay 6 is my favorite couple, and I’m not even going to play the fake-you-out game where I pretend like my favorite pairing is Xander/Cordelia or Willow/Kennedy, because we all know what I’m going to pick.
So brace yourself, f-list and assorted other readers. Because you’re about to be punched in the face with the full force of my shipping fury.
Day 6: My favorite ship
Spike and Buffy. Buffy and Spike.
Just FYI--this picspam contains only a small fraction of the scenes I had originally pulled. And it should be bigger. But I can't figure out how to size these things correctly. [ETA: AHA! I figured it out! Or I figured something out. I still don't know how to control the size very well. But it's BIGGER now! And that's all I really care about!]
I have never loved two characters the way I love these two. Seriously. I love them both as individuals so much. SO MUCH. And then… and then they kiss each other. First in Intervention. Then in Once More with Feeling. Then in Tabula Rasa. And then again and again and again and again. And basically, it’s the greatest thing to ever happen ever in the history of the world. Ever.
And yes. It’s a messy, dark, scary relationship. At least at first.
Is Buffy using Spike in season 6? Well… yes. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Is Spike driven by a selfish love in seasons 5 and 6? Sure. But, don’t almost all manifestations of love have a selfish component? I mean—truly selfless love is pretty rare. Or maybe I’m just an apologist for the darkness. For lingering in the shadows. For malingering near death.
Because I am—an apologist for the dark shippiness, I mean. I love the secrecy. I love the sublimated feelings. The sublimated ~love, I would argue. I love the desperation and the NEED. I love the hate. The self hate. The misdirected hate toward the other person. I love the complication and the fear and the tension and the anger and the hurt and the passion and the desire and the fleeting moments of peace and comfort, and I love that the peace and comfort recedes when the other person is gone. I love the brief flickers of easiness between them. And I love the bristling against that easiness. I love the dreams of making tender love in between pure white sheets. And I love the realities of wordless, vacant-eyed sex behind a dumpster in an alley, in a club surrounded by people, in the front lawn. I love the sex and I love the violence. And I love the conflation of sex and violence. I love the sparks of creation that come out of the destruction. But I also… I also just love the destruction. I love the idea that love can destroy. I love all of it.
And as much as I love the darkness in this relationship—what draws me deeper and deeper into it is the light. I love that these two are partners—right from the beginning. That their relationship is founded on an unlikely trust. And an unlikely egalitarian understanding. And I love that the show reminds us that this—this partnership, this equality—is always there. Even when there’s selfish love and sexual violence and objectification. The images of their partnership still pop up. They clasp hands, lift each other up. They fight shoulder to shoulder. They defend each other’s lives and each other’s honor.
And I love that they overcome all the darkness. That they do find a way to really lift each other up and to heal each other. I love that they find a way to love each other in a way that each of them needs. Because that is selflessness.
Buffy learns to express herself. She professes her love to Spike again and again and again in every language of love that she knows. And Spike speaks to Buffy in her language as well. And the two of them… well, they have their own special way of communicating. And it centers around humor.
Partnership comes to be represented in the text by clasped hands. We see them in Listening to Fear, in The Weight of the World, in After Life, in Life Serial, in Dead Things, in Potential, and of course in Chosen. The hands—Buffy’s symbol, representing action—show that kinship that exists for the two of them, that equality. Spike, like Buffy is a person of action. And so they get each other on that basic level. And they understand how to be there for each other.
Well, like the symbolism of clasped hands, humor appears again and again. Both within the relationship itself—i.e., the characters using humor with each other. And externally—the text using humor in reference to their relationship. Humor is Spike and Buffy's lingua franca. From the very beginning it always is. There is always an edge of play and vivacity to their conflict. There is always a tension that uses humor to vent itself. And when they start a friendship in earnest, humor becomes the way that they take care of each other.
Buffy, especially during season 6, is a girl (or woman if you prefer) who needs her defense mechanisms. She’s drowning. She’s plunging head first into an abyss. And the more emotion she allows in, the deeper she sinks. Humor has always helped her laugh into the darkness—separate herself from her scary, unsavory realities. She puns as she stakes vamps and cracks jokes in the midst of an apocalypse. But now SHE is the darkness. She’s all that she’s afraid of anymore. So she finds herself at a loss. Taking on too much emotion. Sinking. And not knowing how to stop because there’s no way for her to make a quick and easy pun.
Enter Spike. He knows from experience (consult my Day 2 entry for details) that what Buffy needs in order to survive this season is pleasure without the risk of pain. That she needs distance, that she needs to be able to breathe. And to be able to laugh. He sees her in crisis, and offers her a way out—no, not sex. Jokes.
In After Life, when Buffy approaches Spike in his crypt—before he gives his heartbreaking speech about saving her every night, he offers her lightness. Casual conversation—distance. In Flooded, as Buffy angsts on her back porch about how everyone thinks that she’s broken, Spike offers a few words of comfort. But, when the comfort offers no comfort—he changes tactics. And offers to kill them all. He jokes. And it works. Buffy laughs. She relaxes. She can breathe again.
In Hells Bells, their positions are slightly more complicated. Spike has been jilted. And Buffy admits that she’s hurt by his moving on—by his attempt to make her jealous. They both are opening up to a painful degree in that silly wedding hall—giving each other everything that they can. Giving honesty, giving affection, giving themselves over to pain at the other’s hand. Spike raises the level of tenderness by being happy for Buffy’s happiness. Happy for her glowiness. They’re both so exposed and open. And Buffy lets them both off the hook. With a joke. About her radioactive dress.
And with a laugh, the emotional barometer in the room is reset. And they can function with their difficult reality—for at least another day.
But this isn’t just a mechanism that exists in season 6. In Touched, during Spike’s speech to Buffy, during his pep-talk, his outpouring of love and faith—she’s crumbling. Because he’s really touching her. He’s dismantling the fortress-thick walls she’s built around herself during season 7 just so that he can talk to her. And he succeeds. The emotion pours in. Buffy’s walls are crumbling. But… he knows that she needs the walls. She needed to hear him. But she also needs to be able to find distance and breath and rest. And without the walls, all she will be is drowning in emotion. So, he puts the walls back together for her: “I don’t want to be this athletic and good looking. We all have crosses to bear.”
And here’s where I go a little bit overboard, y’all. (You thought I already had gone overboard, didn't you? Well hold on to your hat, my pretties)
Chosen. One of the most adorable moments of the entire series, in my opinion, is Spike wailing on punchingbag!Angel. With its little x’s for eyes! And his fangs! Oh lawdy. That kills me. So funny.
The Angel-drawing is what I meant when I said that humor exists not just BETWEEN the characters. Sometimes it’s also the show placing humor at the center of the Buffy/Spike relationship. There’s a fair amount of banter in the punchingbag!Angel scene. But that’s not what I find really compelling. What I love, is that this scene of absolutely adorable hilarity is placed basically on top of the most important moment in Buffy and Spike’s relationship up until that point.
He asks for the amulet (makes clear his intention of fighting for good, of being her equal, of being Angel’s equal). She considers. [I’m going to come back to this period of consideration briefly.] And then gives it to him (acknowledges his goodness, acknowledges him as an equal, chooses him over Angel, recognizes him as a Champion). This is huge. HUGE. And all the while punchingbag!Angel is visible over Buffy’s shoulder. During the most important moment of their relationship—humor is ALWAYS there. The main joke preceded the moment. But the evidence remains.
Further, when Buffy considers whether or not to give Spike the amulet, she clearly has a moment when she’s messing with him--when she’s pulling a “PSYCH!” joke. She says, “It’s to be worn by a champion”— implying that she didn’t consider Spike a champion. And Spike interprets it that way. He doesn’t think he’s a champion. But then, Buffy, amused and bemused by Spike’s modesty, gives him the amulet. A little joke to express her faith in him. A little joke to say—I know YOU don’t think much of yourself, but I do.
And, of course. Spike is touched. It’s Big and Important, what’s just happened. But how does he deal with it? How does he express that there’s too much feeling for him to express?
A joke. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time…”
And then. AND THEN! Comes the part about Angel breath and "can’t buy me off with beads and sweet talk" and “Clearly you don’t because the whole having my pride thing was just a smokescreen.” And Buffy laughs, and breathes a sigh of relief and says "Oh Thank God." And they both laugh. THEY LAUGH. Do you see? They’re laughing because they both just admitted that they need each other. They laugh because they feel so much. And they both know. THEY BOTH KNOW. They know the need and the love equally. And so they can laugh. And they can let the words go unspoken. Because, instead, they have the laughter and the easiness.
So basically, the most important moment in their relationship up until this point is just riddled with humor. It’s sandwiched by big jokes, it has punchingbag!Angel playing peekabo in every other shot, and it has Buffy and Spike showing their nurturing and care for each other with humor.
And someone said recently, and I’m inclined to agree, that Spike’s “No you don’t but thanks for saying it” was, in part, a joke. A JOKE. That he was teasing Buffy for all the times that she denied his love for her. At this moment, the most important moment they’ll ever share, she’s expressing her love with words—because that’s what he needs more than anything—and he’s expressing his love with a joke because that’s what she needs more than anything. She’d let the walls down again—just like she had in that abandoned house in Touched—and if he didn’t help her rebuild them a little, she would drown in the emotion.
And that’s why Buffy and Spike are my favorite ship. Ever. In the history of the world. And this includes my own relationships. Because they give each other exactly what they need when it counts.
So brace yourself, f-list and assorted other readers. Because you’re about to be punched in the face with the full force of my shipping fury.
Day 6: My favorite ship
Spike and Buffy. Buffy and Spike.
Just FYI--this picspam contains only a small fraction of the scenes I had originally pulled. And it should be bigger. But I can't figure out how to size these things correctly. [ETA: AHA! I figured it out! Or I figured something out. I still don't know how to control the size very well. But it's BIGGER now! And that's all I really care about!]
I have never loved two characters the way I love these two. Seriously. I love them both as individuals so much. SO MUCH. And then… and then they kiss each other. First in Intervention. Then in Once More with Feeling. Then in Tabula Rasa. And then again and again and again and again. And basically, it’s the greatest thing to ever happen ever in the history of the world. Ever.
And yes. It’s a messy, dark, scary relationship. At least at first.
Is Buffy using Spike in season 6? Well… yes. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Is Spike driven by a selfish love in seasons 5 and 6? Sure. But, don’t almost all manifestations of love have a selfish component? I mean—truly selfless love is pretty rare. Or maybe I’m just an apologist for the darkness. For lingering in the shadows. For malingering near death.
Because I am—an apologist for the dark shippiness, I mean. I love the secrecy. I love the sublimated feelings. The sublimated ~love, I would argue. I love the desperation and the NEED. I love the hate. The self hate. The misdirected hate toward the other person. I love the complication and the fear and the tension and the anger and the hurt and the passion and the desire and the fleeting moments of peace and comfort, and I love that the peace and comfort recedes when the other person is gone. I love the brief flickers of easiness between them. And I love the bristling against that easiness. I love the dreams of making tender love in between pure white sheets. And I love the realities of wordless, vacant-eyed sex behind a dumpster in an alley, in a club surrounded by people, in the front lawn. I love the sex and I love the violence. And I love the conflation of sex and violence. I love the sparks of creation that come out of the destruction. But I also… I also just love the destruction. I love the idea that love can destroy. I love all of it.
And as much as I love the darkness in this relationship—what draws me deeper and deeper into it is the light. I love that these two are partners—right from the beginning. That their relationship is founded on an unlikely trust. And an unlikely egalitarian understanding. And I love that the show reminds us that this—this partnership, this equality—is always there. Even when there’s selfish love and sexual violence and objectification. The images of their partnership still pop up. They clasp hands, lift each other up. They fight shoulder to shoulder. They defend each other’s lives and each other’s honor.
And I love that they overcome all the darkness. That they do find a way to really lift each other up and to heal each other. I love that they find a way to love each other in a way that each of them needs. Because that is selflessness.
Buffy learns to express herself. She professes her love to Spike again and again and again in every language of love that she knows. And Spike speaks to Buffy in her language as well. And the two of them… well, they have their own special way of communicating. And it centers around humor.
Partnership comes to be represented in the text by clasped hands. We see them in Listening to Fear, in The Weight of the World, in After Life, in Life Serial, in Dead Things, in Potential, and of course in Chosen. The hands—Buffy’s symbol, representing action—show that kinship that exists for the two of them, that equality. Spike, like Buffy is a person of action. And so they get each other on that basic level. And they understand how to be there for each other.
Well, like the symbolism of clasped hands, humor appears again and again. Both within the relationship itself—i.e., the characters using humor with each other. And externally—the text using humor in reference to their relationship. Humor is Spike and Buffy's lingua franca. From the very beginning it always is. There is always an edge of play and vivacity to their conflict. There is always a tension that uses humor to vent itself. And when they start a friendship in earnest, humor becomes the way that they take care of each other.
Buffy, especially during season 6, is a girl (or woman if you prefer) who needs her defense mechanisms. She’s drowning. She’s plunging head first into an abyss. And the more emotion she allows in, the deeper she sinks. Humor has always helped her laugh into the darkness—separate herself from her scary, unsavory realities. She puns as she stakes vamps and cracks jokes in the midst of an apocalypse. But now SHE is the darkness. She’s all that she’s afraid of anymore. So she finds herself at a loss. Taking on too much emotion. Sinking. And not knowing how to stop because there’s no way for her to make a quick and easy pun.
Enter Spike. He knows from experience (consult my Day 2 entry for details) that what Buffy needs in order to survive this season is pleasure without the risk of pain. That she needs distance, that she needs to be able to breathe. And to be able to laugh. He sees her in crisis, and offers her a way out—no, not sex. Jokes.
In After Life, when Buffy approaches Spike in his crypt—before he gives his heartbreaking speech about saving her every night, he offers her lightness. Casual conversation—distance. In Flooded, as Buffy angsts on her back porch about how everyone thinks that she’s broken, Spike offers a few words of comfort. But, when the comfort offers no comfort—he changes tactics. And offers to kill them all. He jokes. And it works. Buffy laughs. She relaxes. She can breathe again.
In Hells Bells, their positions are slightly more complicated. Spike has been jilted. And Buffy admits that she’s hurt by his moving on—by his attempt to make her jealous. They both are opening up to a painful degree in that silly wedding hall—giving each other everything that they can. Giving honesty, giving affection, giving themselves over to pain at the other’s hand. Spike raises the level of tenderness by being happy for Buffy’s happiness. Happy for her glowiness. They’re both so exposed and open. And Buffy lets them both off the hook. With a joke. About her radioactive dress.
And with a laugh, the emotional barometer in the room is reset. And they can function with their difficult reality—for at least another day.
But this isn’t just a mechanism that exists in season 6. In Touched, during Spike’s speech to Buffy, during his pep-talk, his outpouring of love and faith—she’s crumbling. Because he’s really touching her. He’s dismantling the fortress-thick walls she’s built around herself during season 7 just so that he can talk to her. And he succeeds. The emotion pours in. Buffy’s walls are crumbling. But… he knows that she needs the walls. She needed to hear him. But she also needs to be able to find distance and breath and rest. And without the walls, all she will be is drowning in emotion. So, he puts the walls back together for her: “I don’t want to be this athletic and good looking. We all have crosses to bear.”
And here’s where I go a little bit overboard, y’all. (You thought I already had gone overboard, didn't you? Well hold on to your hat, my pretties)
Chosen. One of the most adorable moments of the entire series, in my opinion, is Spike wailing on punchingbag!Angel. With its little x’s for eyes! And his fangs! Oh lawdy. That kills me. So funny.
The Angel-drawing is what I meant when I said that humor exists not just BETWEEN the characters. Sometimes it’s also the show placing humor at the center of the Buffy/Spike relationship. There’s a fair amount of banter in the punchingbag!Angel scene. But that’s not what I find really compelling. What I love, is that this scene of absolutely adorable hilarity is placed basically on top of the most important moment in Buffy and Spike’s relationship up until that point.
He asks for the amulet (makes clear his intention of fighting for good, of being her equal, of being Angel’s equal). She considers. [I’m going to come back to this period of consideration briefly.] And then gives it to him (acknowledges his goodness, acknowledges him as an equal, chooses him over Angel, recognizes him as a Champion). This is huge. HUGE. And all the while punchingbag!Angel is visible over Buffy’s shoulder. During the most important moment of their relationship—humor is ALWAYS there. The main joke preceded the moment. But the evidence remains.
Further, when Buffy considers whether or not to give Spike the amulet, she clearly has a moment when she’s messing with him--when she’s pulling a “PSYCH!” joke. She says, “It’s to be worn by a champion”— implying that she didn’t consider Spike a champion. And Spike interprets it that way. He doesn’t think he’s a champion. But then, Buffy, amused and bemused by Spike’s modesty, gives him the amulet. A little joke to express her faith in him. A little joke to say—I know YOU don’t think much of yourself, but I do.
And, of course. Spike is touched. It’s Big and Important, what’s just happened. But how does he deal with it? How does he express that there’s too much feeling for him to express?
A joke. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time…”
And then. AND THEN! Comes the part about Angel breath and "can’t buy me off with beads and sweet talk" and “Clearly you don’t because the whole having my pride thing was just a smokescreen.” And Buffy laughs, and breathes a sigh of relief and says "Oh Thank God." And they both laugh. THEY LAUGH. Do you see? They’re laughing because they both just admitted that they need each other. They laugh because they feel so much. And they both know. THEY BOTH KNOW. They know the need and the love equally. And so they can laugh. And they can let the words go unspoken. Because, instead, they have the laughter and the easiness.
So basically, the most important moment in their relationship up until this point is just riddled with humor. It’s sandwiched by big jokes, it has punchingbag!Angel playing peekabo in every other shot, and it has Buffy and Spike showing their nurturing and care for each other with humor.
And someone said recently, and I’m inclined to agree, that Spike’s “No you don’t but thanks for saying it” was, in part, a joke. A JOKE. That he was teasing Buffy for all the times that she denied his love for her. At this moment, the most important moment they’ll ever share, she’s expressing her love with words—because that’s what he needs more than anything—and he’s expressing his love with a joke because that’s what she needs more than anything. She’d let the walls down again—just like she had in that abandoned house in Touched—and if he didn’t help her rebuild them a little, she would drown in the emotion.
And that’s why Buffy and Spike are my favorite ship. Ever. In the history of the world. And this includes my own relationships. Because they give each other exactly what they need when it counts.
