drusillathekiller:

Imagine how sad it would be if- at the start of the series- the Scoobies knew what was going to happen to them further down the line.

What if the perky, playful Buffy we see in Welcome to the Hellmouth knew that she’d come home one sunny afternoon to find her mother lying dead on the couch? What if she knew she’d be forced to sacrifice her first love, that she’d have no choice but to claw her way out of her own grave one day? What if the bouncy, indomitable Buffy who wanted to join the Sunnydale Razorbacks and spent time giggling about a guy she met in the library had any idea that she’d be made to stab one of her dearest friends in the gut, to lead girls as young as her at the time into almost certain death, that she’d be betrayed by Giles, by Willow, by nearly everyone at some point?

Imagine the adorable Willow Rosenberg, with her softer-side-of-sears wardrobe and precocious crush on Xander knowing that she’d have to watch her lover be shot dead. That she’d have to nurse her through the unforgiving jaws of insanity. That she’d be driven to the point that she’d try and end existence itself rather than endure it any longer. That she’d torture and murder another human being.

And just think about the skateboarding, wise-cracking Xander Harris knowing that his engagement would fall apart before his very eyes, that the love of his life would literally be bisected without ever having a chance to say goodbye to her. 

And who could forget Giles, Giles who had been so excited to start his duties as watcher in the pilot? What would it be like if he was aware that he’d come home one night to roses, romantic music, and a beloved ally of his lying on his bed with a snapped neck? If he knew he’d be coerced into betraying Buffy, that his dark past as Ripper would be exposed, how different would he have been?

Last but not least, picture Cordelia, confident, self-assured, happy Cordelia foreseeing a future of horrific demonic pregnancies, of comas, of being forced to feel the collective misery of the entire world. Would she be the same person?

Think about how devastating, how shattering it would be to know your future and for it to be filled with horrors. Horrors you couldn’t change. Horrors you couldn’t escape.

And then feel sad, because that’s literally what happened to Drusilla Keeble.