S7 Spuffy pondering

[next_to_normal]

Yesterday, snickfic made a post on the things she doesn't like about Spike in S7. I'll just copy the relevant point here:

The non-discussion of the AR. It is the huge purple elephant in the room in S7, rarely referred to but entirely overshadowing Spike and Buffy's relationship. I wish they'd actually talked it out sometime, even if we didn't see much of the discussion on screen. Just a hint that this was something that they were working through and moving on from would have been helpful.

In the comments, angearia asked a very good question, which is: "What discussion of the AR would be satisfying? What needs to be said to make it work?"

And so I'm curious. I've seen plenty of people express displeasure with the way the AR (or even the entire S6 Spuffy relationship in general) was brushed aside in S7, but I don't know that I've ever seen anyone answer Emmie's question of what would make it better. (This may or may not be relevant to a fic idea I'm working on, but I ask more out of curiosity than anything else, as one who doesn't have a problem with what we were given.)

It seems like a difficult question to answer, since there's no real life equivalent to going and getting a soul, but are there expectations that Spike - or Buffy, for that matter - need to meet to make it "okay" for them to pursue a relationship again? Are verbal apologies and forgiveness necessary, or do actions speak louder than words? What is it that people find lacking about the way it was addressed on the show?

Comments

[snickfic]

That said, I've dealt with the question of the AR in several Spuffy fics. Can't really write one that doesn't deal with it in some way and can't read fics that ignore it or go au before it.

I totally understand your feelings about not reading fics that ignore the AR. But when you say don't read fics that go AU before it, do you mean that you never read anything AU before "Seeing Red"? Like, cracky S4 Spuffy or alt s6 Spuffy or whatever? Or do you just mean fics that go AU in SR but before the AR?

Now that I say that, the latter interpretation seems by far the likeliest. Duh.

[shapinglight]

It's tricky. I'll happily read one-off stories set pre-season 6 that don't tackle the question. No need, after all. The AR hasn't happened.

However, I lose patience with long-running AU series that go off at a tangent before the AR and avoid dealing with it at all, simply because it's the elephant in the room for me where Spuffy's concerned. It affects the dynamic between the characters so profoundly that I have a hard time dealing with the relationship in fic if the characters don't 'own up to it', as it were.

[next_to_normal]

Hmmm, I'm not sure I understand the difference between a one-shot or an AU series, as long as they both start prior to "Seeing Red." I don't think the AR is the inevitable outcome of any Spuffy relationship, so there's no reason an AU would need to deal with it. There's nothing to "own up to" - the relationship dynamic would be completely different (which is often the purpose of writing an AU).

The closer your branching-off point is to "Seeing Red," of course, the more inevitable it becomes, and I agree with snickfic that it's a cheat to try to go AU just before the AR, yet keeping everything that led up to it intact.