Tag: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I wish Angel would have acted as sorry as he said he was.

cantspeakfae:

I am not a huge fan of Angel, but I’m also not running a group determined to murder him with rusty spoons. HOWEVER. If there’s any one reason why I will not join his fanclub it’s because of how he treats Drusilla. He told Buffy that he regretted everything he did to her, but he never actually acted like it. He was almost nicer to her when he was ANGELUS than he was when he was souled. 

Angel always treated Drusilla like he found her to be annoying. He was irritated by her and the way she acted. Like he wasn’t the one who stalked her, murdered everyone she was close to, raped her, drove her to insanity, and then turned her into a vampire to make sure that her suffering would be eternal. If he was so regretful of his actions, why would he treat her as though she was just an aggravation to him? If he really felt bad everything he’d done, shouldn’t he act like it? Everyone thinks of him as a hero, but I’m not so sure. 

Drusilla deserved so much more than what she was given from life. She wanted to be pure. And Angelus took that away from her. He took everything away from her. He condemned her to a life that was so hellish that she may never even realize that she’s in hell if someone kills her off. 

I think what Angel did to Drusilla is unforgivable. There’s no making excuses for it.

I was rewatching “Becoming” and now I want to read a million pages of meta about Cordy vs Dru wrt their visions and how a) Spike and Angelus regard Dru’s visions b) Angel regards Cordys vs Angelus regards Dru’s c) Angelus’ past with Dru impacts Angel’s future with Cordy (and Doyle when he’s the one w/visions). But also I want to know what Dru would be like if she somehow got her soul back. I was told you’re the person to talk to about these things. Hope your holiday was good!

drusillathekiller:

darkwingdukat

What an awesome question, I can’t say I’ve ever thought about the parallels between Cordy and Dru before. :3 You’ve clearly thought long and hard about this yourself, and I’d love to hear your interpretation, seeing as yours is as good as mine. And it was wonderful, thank you for asking! ❤

First and foremost, I think it’s important that we establish their visions as a power that takes away their power. Sounds contradictory, right? But really, while clairvoyance in the Buffyverse is a rare and useful talent, it also has a nasty habit of taking away the seer in question’s strength. Doyle’s visions led to him discovering his demonic heritage, which led to his marriage falling apart, which led to his drinking and gambling addiction, for example. Drusilla’s made her a target of the sadistic Angelus. Cassie’s premonition of her death resulted in her feeling helpless and hopeless for the rest of her life. Cordy hadn’t inherited her powers for even a day before she was kidnapped and almost auctioned off as a fortune-telling slave, and that’s tame in comparison to the various miseries her visions caused for her later on. 

So, we’ve made it clear that visions are a power that renders its wielder powerless. This is why when Cordelia gets a vision she experiences crippling migraines, whereas when Drusilla gets a vision she suffers stomach cramps instead. Cordelia gets headaches during her visions because her strength lies in her head. Her mind. Her sharp wit, her willpower, her determined mentality that has always allowed her to survive. Therefore, the visions inflict pain upon her head because that is the strength the visions are attacking. On the other hand, Dru doesn’t get headaches but describes her stomach as getting “all tied up” (Becoming Part 1) and clutches at her belly in obvious agony when she has a premonition in Passion. This is a reflection of how a vampire’s strength lies in their hunger for the hunt, their relentless thirst for human flesh that makes them so dangerous. It doesn’t explain why Dru had stomach pains before being sired, but that’s the best explanation I can think of. This is the most important difference between the two characters in regards to their powers.

As for the difference between how Angel regards Cordy’s abilities and how he regards Dru’s, I think the difference is that he saw Drusilla as a physic, and Cordelia as a person who just so happened to be physic. In other words, Drusilla was sired as a trophy. As an object. Used to entertain Angelus with her insanity and to provide him with useful insights of the future. On the other hand, Cordelia Chase was seen by him as a person in her own right. Not just a crystal ball on legs. This is probably because he met Cordelia with a soul, and as such with a degree of empathy.

And how does Angel’s past with Dru effect his future with Cordy? Well, I’m not sure if it does. Perhaps by helping Cordelia through her struggles with her visions, he sees this as a way of repenting for how he in turn exploited Drusilla for her visions? 

In regards to how Drusilla would deal with a soul, my guess is very, very badly. The rest of the Fanged Four went insane with the guilt of it, and they were more or less psychologically stable beforehand. Imagine how that burden would effect someone who was already insane. I’m not sure if you think of the comics as canon or not, but in the Spike miniseries Dru does get a soul, and it drives her completely over the edge.

Summary:  Cordelia and Drusilla’s powers are very different, and the way Angel perceives them is very different. While Cordelia gets migraines with her visions to reflect how her strength lies in her mind, Drusilla gets pains in her stomach because her strength lies in her hunger as a vampire. 

Thanks so much for the question! ❤ 

xox

hcconn:

I think Drusilla hates herself. She was so good, a tool of the powers and a pure young woman and then to become what she is, evil and vampiric, finding pleasure in torture and killing of the worst kind, I think deep down under all of that insanity she hates herself. And I think that’s why she prefers Angelus to Spike. Spike loves her, loves who she is, the thing she has become, is utterly devoted to her, Angelus could care less about her, just uses her. So she goes to Angelus because she hates who she is and can’t stand the fact that Spike loves what she has become.

drusillathekiller:

“Buffy was so whiny in season 6! Like, okay, we get it, your life sucks, but the rest of the Scoobies had it hard too and she pushed all her friends away! No wonder she got thrown out of her house, she was being such a pissy, cold, distant bitch! She should have pulled it together, watching her moan so much for so long was so annoying! Things weren’t that bad and her wangst dragged on and on and on!”

Okay, but wasn’t it strongly suggested that the reason Buffy was so “whiny” was because she had clinical depression, and quite possibly was experiencing suicidal thoughts or even tendencies? 

“Dawn is so whiny and ungrateful! Like, oh my God, so annoying. All she ever did was complain and piss and moan! Other characters suffered way more than her but all she did was cry all the time and mope about her sister dying, when she came back anyway! Christ, I wish Buffy just left her on that tower!”

Well, couldn’t a lot of Dawn’s alleged “moaning” be attributed to the fact that she displayed many of (if not all) the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? 

“I can’t believe Drusilla cheated on Spike, the slutty, selfish cow! What a whore! Spike loved her more than anyone else in the world and she just couldn’t keep her legs closed for ten seconds once Angelus came back. Pathetic. Spike deserves so much better than that bitch.”

Sexist terminology aside, surely at least part of the reason Drusilla was so receptive towards her sire’s advances was because she was implied to suffer from Stockholme Syndrome after decades of his abuses?

tinierpurplefishes:

buffyconfessions:

Why is it Willow is told off for violating Tara’s mind with magic but Xander never gets demonized for subjecting the whole of the female population to control by magic? Yeah that part was an accident – but he meant to violate Cordelia’s right to her own mind, body and soul.

Xander gets away with all kinds of shit. He’s pretty commonly saying or doing sexist/misogynistic stuff, and the only reason he didn’t have more racist bits is because the show was so heavily whitewashed. He gets called on basically none of it

You mentioned the Fang Gang and the Scooby Gang being inversions of each other. Can you explain how?

drusillathekiller:

buffyboleyn:

[takes a shot of non-alcoholic whiskey] this is gonna be fun, so kinda informal.

Darla/Giles – So obviously they’re the oldest of the clan right? In effect, the’re also the most aloof, the most distant from the “core” relations, having secondary loyalties elsewhere with the Order of Aurelius and Watcher’s Council, respectively. Both also likely to go “pshhh, drama queens” at their pubescent charges. Like Giles, Darla went absentee on the group for a period of time but whereas Giles left to pursue his own interests and self-reflection in that affluent gentleman of leisure kind of way, Darla regressed from finding any sense of self when she left, going back to the Order (imagine if Giles re-joined the Watcher’s Council in season 6)

Buffy/Angelus – Both are the “core” around which all other relationships in the group kinda revolve? They’re the ones associated with great prophecy, the strategic planners, the generals, the true matriarch/patriarch of their respective families. Deliberate parallels between their origin story are set up in Becoming: both getting approached by older people on the street like alley cats. And to quote the First Slayer, “Death” is Buffy’s art; Angelus likewise insists that a “true kill takes artistry; without that, we’re just animals”. Both work towards transcending that label of “just a killer”, as Buffy laments in The Gift. However, whereas Angelus is full of shit, and is really just a killer and monster with better branding, Buffy understands that to invert this structure you have to turn your art into a gift for others. Angelus’ kills are a gift to no one but himself.

Willow/Drusilla – Vamp!Willow affects very similar, but contemporary aesthetics to Drusilla. She likes “puppies” and lace and bodices, but she’s bound in leather to connote a more put together version of Drusilla. At the same time, human!Drusilla gave off a very timid and sheltered vibe. At their core, they’re curious, intuitive types and the most connected of their groups to the ephemeral world; Willow with her magic, Dru with her Sight. This would make them the most powerful of their groups, if they weren’t so personally fragile; Drusilla’s emotional whims mirror Willow’s fallback on magic. It’s interesting that Angelus singled Willow and her pets out in s2, just like he singled Drusilla and her family; Willow and Dru speak very similar things to him.  However, Willow has a support network to get her out of that hole, while Drusilla did not. In effect,  Willow eventually rises about to be a wicca, goddess-power, while Drusilla has to eternally bear the scars of misogynistic assault upon her body and mind.

Xander/Spike – Of these pairings, I would say Xander and Spike have the MOST in common, and their directions diverge THE LEAST of these 4, which is why this is so LONG….Warning: we’re gonna go into some gross, negative territory here…On a neutral note, the close, co-dependent Xander/Willow thing is mirrored a bit in Dru and Spike (who are in themselves mirrors of season 2 Angel and Buffy, but that’s another meta…) to the extent that Vamp!Willow and Vamp!Xander are basically Dru and Spike with their shit together (FUCK XANDER IS EVEN WEARING SPIKE’S JACKET AND S6 DOUCHE BOYFRIEND NECKLACE). Also, as the fine snowdropsandtigers​ said, William is the Victorian Xander. I mean, the scene where he gets shot down by Cecily is cinematically paralleled in the scene where Xander asks Buffy out in Prophecy Girl. Throughout the series, both Xander and Spike are vulnerable to really entitled Nice Guy ™ behaviors, especially towards Buffy. While most do not blame Xander for his sexual assault on Buffy during his possession (wow, have your protagonist sexual assaulted by TWO of her close male friends, such feminism, such grace Joss!), he pretends to not remember and thereby denies Buffy the chance to organize her own emotions; Spike gets a soul insisting “it’s what you [Buffy] wanted right?” and then spends a season claiming to have been “used” by Buffy, essentially doing the same. There’s a bunch of other misogynistic micro-aggression that can’t all be listed; Xander pretty much calling Cordy unintelligent or a trashy dresser even when they are dating  (dude, Cordy is an A-student and look at your clothes) and Spike tossing “bints” and “bitches” around like it’s Black Friday. However, there’s kind of a point to this male aggression; this is an externalized reaction to these guys feeling like “the spare” of their group, the “disposable” one, the “clown”. While Xander is not necessarily jealous of Buffy and Willow romantically( as Spike is with Angelus and Dru) they’re nonetheless both alienated from a core dynamic and that bites in a particularly male ego place. 

Hitchcock said that if you ever meet your double, you should kill them. And I would get why, seeing as the Fang Gang is kind of the world’s most depressing Choose Your Own Adventure book about the Scooby Gang. 

This is amazing. 

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.