A Message From the Webmistress
Have You Said Your Good-bye's to the Light?
Because I know I have
Why I'm never going to watch BtVS again and why I don't care.
I remember the good ol' days. Back around three years ago, when there was this really great TV show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and the show only got better when they introduced two of the most bad-ass villains the screen has ever seen. Ah. Those were the days.
As a major fan of the vampire genre, I don't think I need to explain about how cool I thought Spike and Dru were. As far as villains go, they were up there in my book. I looked forward to seeing new things from Spike and Dru as frequently as possible. I was a little upset when the second season ended and Spike and Dru were no longer regulars. I perked up a bit when "Lover's Walk" aired in Season 3. I continued to watch the show because the writing was really sharp and witty; I didn't share an affinity for any characters on the show except Spike and Dru, but I watched even when they weren't there because there was other stuff to appreciate.
When I learned that Spike was to become a regular in Season 4, I nearly freaked. Wow, weekly appearences of one of my favorite vampires of all time. I was a little peeved that Dru wouldn't be joining him, but when I remembered I'd be treated to weekly doses of Spike's quick wit and over-the-top evil antics.
Then a plague settled upon the land of Buffy, and that plague was called the chip. The chip pretty much de-vamped Spike, taking away any ability for him to physically kick ass. So much for the great fight scenes (a la atop the car in "Lover's Walk"). Still, I got over that when I realized that in order for Spike to be integrated into the show on a weekly basis, he couldn't be running around uber-evil all the time. We'd still be party to his verbal barbs, after all, and seeing those can be almost as enjoyable as watching him get all rough and tumble. Being the big Spike and Dru fan I was, I wasn't even that upset when I saw Spike had become involved with Harmony, because it was completely obvious that she was just a fling, something to occupy his time until he could properly reunite with his one true Love Drusilla. Then when we saw that Spike could still physically kick a demon's ass, things seemed pretty okay...
And just when you settle into that mode of seeming security, you're hit full in the face with a sledgehammer called Season 5. And with Season 5 came...a romance between Buffy and Spike.
I was as surprised as most S/D shippers in discovering that Spike seemingly had a thing for the Slayer, because he's the last person on the show I'd peg for going ga-ga over Robo-Barbie. There was simply nothing that had occurred in previous seasons to even remotely suggest that Spike loved anyone but Drusilla. That's why the scene between Spike and Drusilla in Mexico (in "Fool For Love") came as a particularly crushing blow; it suggested that Spike actually had felt something more than the obsession a predator feels for his prey as far as Buffy's concerned. That scene smacks of revisionist history, something thrown in to make current storylines seem a little more plausible, because any true Buffy devotee would realize that Spike's Buffy love came completely out of nowhere.
That was effectively the beginning of the end for me. I've endured for a few more weeks, watching Spike degrade himself by sniffing Buffy's underthings and hide in her basement. I've read spoilers concerning the future of the characters on the show, and I think it's just too much for me to bear. E!Online's Wanda has said that in the coming weeks, Spike and Buffy will share a reciprocal kiss. That means that this love thing is no longer one-sided. And that totally sucks. I've also read that in an upcoming issue of Cinescape magazine, Joss Whedon says that he's taking back the statement he had made concerning "no more vampires" in Buffy's love life, based on the great chemistry between Sarah and James. Maybe I'm blind, but I'm just not sensing the heat between Buffy and Spike. I could feel it when Spike and Dru were around each other, but never with Buffy and Spike. I probably never will, and that's why I feel like I have to get out now, before I go completely insane.
As a devoted Spike/Dru shipper, I'm in the minority in hating Spike/Buffy as much as it's possible to hate a fictional thing. I realize that characters progress and change on a TV show (look at Willow), but I don't see what Spike's doing as progressing....rather it's more like he's rotting from the inside out. His character is just degenerating, and this whole Buffy thing is destroying everything (to me, anyway) that was enjoyable about Spike in the first place. If Spike does become romantically involved with Buffy, he'll never be the "Big Bad" we all saw and loved in Season 2 ever again. No matter how great a writer is, they'll never be able to place an evil and fully capable Spike in a romantic relationship with a Slayer. He's killed two for God's sake, and now he's in love with one??? That just doesn't make sense to me, it does not mesh with anything pertinent to Spike's character. Therefore I'll never be able to believe it, and if I did continue to watch it, it would just seem forced and unnatural. One of the things I'd always appreciated about BtVS was the way it just seemed to flow...it was seemless and the writing was great. Putting Spike and Buffy together would just make that all go to hell.
That's why I'm not watching the show anymore. I simply cannot support the rape of what was a great character by continuing to watch him be revised and destroyed. I'm protecting the memory of all the good times I had watching Spike and Drusilla together, and watching Spike while he was still something of a rebel, by refusing to update my site any further. Updating it now seems to much like condoning what's going on to me, and as a true fan I just can't do that. Should Joss be throwing us for a loop here, as in this whole storyline is just a red-herring for something else, well, I might consider coming back, but I don't know if I can do that.
I've tried watching the show still, I've tried posting my feelings on message boards hoping to find someone who agrees, but if I do they're few and far between. The comraderie that came with watching BtVS just isn't there anymore. Watching the show is no longer fun, and working on this site is no longer fun because it just reminds me too much of how great Spike, and the show, used to be.
I'm not too upset because I still have Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles to keep myself occupied. Lestat has always been my one true love (as far as being a fan of vampires goes), and so I'm going to busy myself with the site I have devoted to him. The movie adaptation of "The Queen of the Damned" will be released within the next year, and Anne will continue to release new books, so I'll have plenty to busy myself. For me Lestat has always been a more fulfilling, and infinitely more interesting, character; Spike was purely escapist, but Lestat helps me find myself, and whenever I read about him it's hard to be upset. I'm reassured in the fact that Anne loves Lestat so strongly that she'd never do to him what Joss Whedon has done to Spike. Lestat, no matter what he does (and he does a lot, believe me), will always keep his integrity. He's the first and foremost of the vampire rebels, and he's twenty times the bad-ass Spike is (or was). He always will be, that won't change.
It is with a heavy heart that I leave The Slayground. It was the first website I've ever built, and I'll always be proud of how it's progressed and grown over the years. I know it doesn't hold a candle to some of the other sites out there, but I was always proud of it. I'm even prouder of my Lestat site, The Lestathenaeum, because the subject matter meant more to me, and I find working on it a lot more fulfilling than staying with a site devoted to a show that really holds nothing for me anymore.
I hope I've explained my motives well enough. If you take issue with anything I've said, or you completely agree, feel free to email me. I'm sorry I'm doing this, but I feel I have to take a stand here. In the words of Toad the Wet Sprocket , And so, for now, farewell. Viva La Spike and Dru!
Yours,
Danielle
Owner,
The Vampire Slayground
Return to The Vampire Slayground
Email: spikendru@aol.com
