What made Willow a bad friend to Buffy? Sorry if I’m bothering you with this, it’s been years since I saw the show

buffyboleyn:

You’re not bothering me! I’m happy you made it clear that you are looking for clarification, because other times the passive aggressive baitiness just radiates off other anons.

like maybe my queen, onegirlinalltheworld, wants to vent on this but I think Willow is a legit bad friend to Buffy because

• she ganged up on Buffy, post-return home, in season 3 at her own party. They have known each other for a year, but Willow (and the others; this was a group effort) were eeky about direct confrontation with Buffy’s feelings so hid their unwillingness to interact directly with Buffy’s trauma by holding an unintimate party at her house against her will
• as far as we see in the text, she is living in Buffy’s house rent free in season 6. still did not get a job or offer textual financial support as Buffy was struggling with depression throughout the whole season
• Honest does not give a fuck about Buffy’s mental agency sometimes; without consulting Buffy, Willow casts a memory erasing spell in Tabula Rasa. She doesn’t even dignify Buffy with the request to erase her memories of Heaven. No, Willow knows best and she goes ahead without informing Buffy
• almost killed Dawn in a reckless magic high (whether her magic addicition is an actual addiction or an extension of her already controlling tendencies is another meta)
• There is an undercurrent of judgmental sex-shaming towards Willow’s attitude re: Buffy and Spike. Remember, Tara said she was making “that face” when she find out about Buffy and Spike in early Seeing Red? In the second to last ep, Willow also makes (I believe, paraphrasing here) some comment about Buffy (who is coping with clinical depression) having to “screw” a gross vamp just to “feel alive” (again, Buffy has been borderline suicidal the whole season; that comment is gross)
• Kicking Buffy out of the house (in which Buffy housed and supported Willow throughout her entire addiction all last year) in season 7

I don’t think Willow is Buffy’s most negative force in her life and I think that Willow geuinely thinks she is helping Buffy most of the time. But she does these things by going over Buffy’s head and helping her whether she asks for it or not. a lot of these thing against her are in collaboration with other people…but she is kinda a common denominator here.