(no subject)
Because I feel like it and it follows pretty naturally from the Lady essay for me.
Buffy and Young Justice
Because, insecurities aside, Robin's the easiest.
Buffy thinks that, were it not for her connections to Kon and, to a lesser extent, Bart, Robin would have nothing to do with her. She's aware of this because she'd want to have something to do with him, even if Kon and Bart weren't her friends. I, uh. Actually decided on a whim, before this Robin got in and before Kon/Buffy, back when we had Adam West TV Robin, that Buffy had a crush on him when she was little. It's true, I think it's in the camp archives somewhere. Anyway. It's not like any of the crush remains at all (she was probably, like, six), but she still likes Robin in theory for a lot of the same reasons she likes Kon and Bart--he's a superhero, he fights for justice, they should be on the same side, etc. And with Robin there is more of an element of...not exactly hero worship, but she's heard of him. Granted, she hasn't realized he isn't actually the Robin she knows about (Dick Grayson), but still, he is, well. Famous. And Buffy's generally friendly.
She'd been rooting for Kon and Bart's Robin to come to camp since before she and Kon started dating, because, well, he was their friend. And she didn't assume he'd be her friend, but she wanted him to be, because she didn't ever--and still doesn't ever--want to be in a scenario where Kon and Bart had to, in any way, choose between her and Robin. Partly because it would suck, but mostly because of the very real fear that she'd lose. This also factors into why Buffy doesn't push her Lady issues--she doesn't think it could in any way end well.
Anyway. That's all before Robin came to camp. Once Robin came to camp, Buffy could tell he wasn't wildly fond of the situation he found at camp. Which seemed basically fair to her, because it takes time to adjust and it is a crappy situation. And she figured he wasn't wildly fond of her either, which was fair because she was a girl he didn't know to whom one of his friends was attached and the other was attached at the pelvis. And she felt like she was doing sort of okay with that.
And then she killed Faith. I like how these essays always have this special point.
(Because I was just rewatching the part of "The Gift" where Giles gives his awesome amazing mini-speech about how Buffy could never kill a person I'm covering how Buffy justifies that to herself, and why she thinks, sometimes, other people should forgive her. It's in parentheses because it doesn't really relate to Robin.
Giles's mini-speech of SEXY is three minutes in here and you should watch it cuz unf. Anyway. He talks about Buffy being a hero and that meaning she isn't willing to directly take a human life and I forgot about this speech (having not seen the episode in, what, four years, when I did not realize the extent to which Giles was sex on legs), so this is retcon reasoning, but I'm okay with it because it is representative of Buffy's thought processes. Anyway. Faith and Buffy are Not People to Buffy. They're Slayers. And to Buffy this means that while other people are not expected to die for the world, they are. It's what Slayers do. And Buffy's allowed to kill Faith not because she's Faith so much as Faith is going to die to save the world. Because she's a Slayer. And Buffy wasn't willing to manipulate this event--say, but sniping her or something--because that's not fair. In Buffy's eyes, Faith needed to die. Buffy had, at this point, already died once in camp, but when Xander arrived, he brought no news of a new Slayer, so Buffy assumed since she'd already died for the world, doing it again didn't help. So it had to be Faith. And she talked to Faith about it--if Faith had said "no, I won't," then Buffy wouldn't have done it. But Faith agreed, Faith had the chance to protect herself, Faith lost. As far as Buffy sees it, it was as fair as it could be, and it was necessary. And Faith's duty. And she's sort of divided between going "but but but world Faith destiny" and going "...yeah I killed someone I should never be forgiven *emo*"
End tangent.)
Anyway. Buffy didn't really think about just how many consequences secretly fighting Faith to the death was going to have. Because, well, it's Faith. She's not a real person. She, like Buffy, is expected to die. But, well, Kon and Bart don't get it and Buffy doesn't really consciously realize a lot of her reasoning, other than "...but it's Faith." And since she hates Faith it's not a great argument.
But Kon and Bart loved her, and she got to the point where she back to normal with Kon. It's never gotten to that point (in her perception) with Bart--it redefined normal with Bart. We'll get to that.
Robin was the one it most profoundly affected in Buffy's perception, because Robin didn't like her. She didn't think he disliked her, but she knew they weren't friends or even particularly close. They had mutual friends, and thus talked in a friendly way, but without any kind of deep connection. So when Buffy killed Faith, she basically thought of that entire connection being severed. Because she knows Robin Doesn't Like killing. And neither do Kon and Bart, but Kon and Bart loved her. And she knows love can survive a lot of things.
Part of Buffy doesn't ever want Robin to forgive her. As long as she can think "Robin still remembers and Robin still doesn't like me because of this," there are consequences. Buffy's pretty sure most of camp a. doesn't know she's a murderer, b. doesn't care she's a murderer, c. forgot she's a murderer. And she's mainly okay with that, but Buffy doesn't ever want to feel like she got away with it.
The other part of Buffy is resentful. This part mainly exists because of Lady. Robin's relationship with Lady troubles Buffy less than Bart's with Lady does, partly because she's not as close to Robin and partly because Kon's mentioned to her several times that there's some kind of semi-romantic relationship between Robin and Lady, even if they're not dating. And that gives bias. But it still bothers her that she's 99% confident that Lady would kill a human for a good enough reason. And Robin still likes her more and accepts her more and all that stuff. And Buffy doesn't like that. If Robin didn't like Lady? Buffy wouldn't really mind that he didn't like her. As it is, she's mainly torn between wanting (unconsciously) for Robin to not forgive her and being bitter (consciously) that he doesn't.
In terms of her actual interactions with Robin, one problem is that there aren't a lot. Buffy thinks if people like her, they'll talk to her. Robin primarily talks to her when there's business, and he's always polite and friendly, but Buffy knows very well how to be polite and friendly to people it's beneficial to be polite to. She figures Robin's smart and realizes that it would make things in all ways worse for both of them if they publically fought, so he won't press it. And since Buffy likes Robin, she won't either. But she figures if Robin thought he could manipulate things in such a way that he knew he'd win a bid of "guys it's me or her," he would.
(Buffy does not assume Lady is carefully polite to her, and doesn't actually think Lady has anything against her. She doesn't know why Lady would, since by her estimation Lady is winning, and is possibly not even competing. She thinks Robin dislikes her much more than Lady does, though she likes him much more than she likes Lady.)
In terms of Robin touching her, it weirds her out. She sees it as him not actually trying to be nice, but trying to be a good friend to Kon, basically. Kon's not around to make Buffy feel better, Buffy figures Robin sees it as his duty to make her feel better. Depending on her mood she finds this either bemusing or annoying--if she thinks he's doing it because of some perceived weakness, it pisses her off, because she doesn't need comforting. She lets Kon do it because it makes both of them feel better and it's something easy he can do, not something he needs. And sometimes it stops her from having to explain.
Anyway. Basically: Buffy thinks Robin doesn't like her because:
1. She killed Faith.
2. She complicates things with Kon and camp and stuff.
3. She hasn't done anything to make him like her, really.
She thinks he doesn't act like he does because:
1. He knows it would be awkward.
2. He doesn't have anything to gain.
3. Kon would make D< faces.
And a big problem is that Buffy is sort of glad deep down that he's still punishing her. So she unconsciously interprets Robin things for the worst.
Yeah.
Bart's probably the hardest, but Kon is Kon. And I haven't figured out what to say about him yet.
Buffy loves Bart. He's sweet and adorable and fun and full of spunk and stuff. And he's also good and responsible and a superhero and, well, yeah. He was one of her first good friends at camp, and she still talks about the DC world as "Kon and Bart's world" because they go together like that.
Buffy felt like she was, basically, Bart's family. Not his entire family, just part of it. She doesn't really care about being called family, just being important in the way she used to be--basically teammate, source of comfort, friend, big sister, all the stuff she thought of as herself as being to Bart. She knew as she and Kon got closer Bart felt less comfortable visiting, which she hates. And no matter how many times she tells him "Bart goddamnit we love seeing you I love seeing you don't worry about it" he never really listens and always seems to think they'll be pissed, which they wouldn't be. And Buffy has no idea how to fix that other than spending less time with Kon and, well. >: That hasn't really seriously occurred to her, because Kon and Bart are friends and she and Kon would go without making out for extended periods of time really. Anyway. That's been a problem for a long time.
The Faith thing was also huge here, because in Buffy's perception it basically killed Bart's trust for her, if not his love. Buffy knows it changed Bart's perception of her wildly, but she hoped they'd get better and he'd still love her and stuff. And they talked and were sort of fine but Buffy still felt like they'd lost a lot of their closeness but it would come back.
Enter Buffy's fear of replacement. With Bart there was a double hit--Lady and Boys' Cabin 10. As I mentioned in my Lady essay, Buffy sees Lady as having taken her place on the YJ team. And then Bart got a new family, and he just...accepted them. Totally. And they didn't have to work for it or anything and fuck Yzak's killed people and Ikkaku's killed people and Shinn's killed people and none of them are being punished for it and Bart still loves them. And. Yeah. The "why are you treating me differently it's not FAIR" is big for Buffy. Especially with Boys' 10 because they really didn't have to do anything other than get assigned to the same cabin for him to care about them more than her. And this makes her deeply emo. And at the same time she recognizes he's happy with them. And then she emos about not being good enough.
It's also important to note here that the Cabin 10 dynamic pisses her off for Kon, because she sees Kon as Bart's mom. It made her so happy that deaged Bart still called Kon mom. Because that means Kon, at least, isn't totally replaced. She feels pretty guilty about Bart partly because she thinks she's dragging Kon down with her, and that Kon sort of got dumped by proxy.
Buffy in no way thinks Bart doesn't like her. And she thinks if asked, he'd even say he loved her. But she thinks Bart doesn't really consciously know he doesn't care about her anymore. She thinks he knows he doesn't care about her like he did before she killed Faith, but that he wouldn't say "yeah, I stopped caring." Because Bart doesn't say stuff like that. But she feels that whatever place she had in his life has been filled by Lady and Boys' 10 and he just isn't aware of it. Because it's not the sort of thing he would think.
Having just beaten myself about the head about Buffy's being a *complete tool* for the last five minutes, I realized that Buffy will, at this point, not believe it if Bart, when asked, responds that Buffy is on his list of important people. I mean, she'll believe he thinks she is. She'll just think he hasn't realized she shouldn't be on there. She'd semi-believe it if he was unprompted, but she does think that, well, a lot of it would be "who do I usually say, Kon, Robin, Lady, Oscar, the rest of the cabin, Buffy..." And of course if she was in trouble he'd help because he's a superhero and...yeah. Retarded.
Bart does also, periodically and completely accidentally, say things that make Buffy feel useless and unwanted, like when there's a problem and he wishes Cassie was there to make it better and Buffy goes ">: why can't I make it better" because she's dumb, or when he says he'll get her because he promised. And then she goes "DDD:" and stuff. God Buffy why are you an idiot.
In conclusion, Buffy thinks Bart doesn't love her anymore because:
1. She killed Faith.
2. He thinks she and Kon don't want him around.
3. Because of 2, he's replaced her.
She thinks he doesn't act like this because:
1. He's Bart.
2. He isn't aware he doesn't love her.
3. Even if he did notice he's too nice.
wryyyyyyyyyy.
Kon is relatively non-depressing I hope god I hope please don't tell me I jinxed myself. Buffy does worry about her relationship with Kon, but the most important thing to remember here is that Buffy genuinely and completely believes Kon loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her.
Of course, this isn't really as reassuring for Buffy as it should be, because Angel wanted that too and he still dumped her. So she knows that there can be things to end relationships even while both parties love each other and want to be together.
She's also very aware that Kon likes girls a lot. And it's not that she thinks he's going to get tired of her or leave her, exactly, she just knows Kon's pretty attractive, a great guy, and a superhero, which is theoretically appealing even if his pickup technique leaves a lot to be desired. Buffy doesn't really notice other people are attractive when she's in a relationship. I'm pretty sure when Buffy first notices in season three that Scot (a guy she dates briefly while Angel's dead) is interested in her, Willow says something to the effect of "dude, he totally wanted you all of last year" and Buffy just goes "...seriously?" It's not that she thinks she's unattractive or that guys don't like her--she knows she's sexy and appealing. She just doesn't consider the option of other guys when she's in a relationship. And she knows Kon wouldn't cheat on her, but it's still there. And while Buffy doesn't generally mind Kon's "don't love you for your brain" comments because she knows he loves her for more than that, some part of her thinks about the fact that Kon does care a lot about looks, and she knows that while she's pretty, she's not the hottest girl in the known universe--and Kon does always call her not, not beautiful or pretty or attractive, and hot is tied, in Buffy's mind, much more to superficiality than the others. So it's there.
And it's mainly there for out of camp. It's part of why Buffy wanted, if she could, to leave with Kon. One of the things that worries Buffy most about the leaving camp isn't actually not finding Kon, but time. She trusts Kon, but she also realizes she and Kon are both people who have already been able to move on from one person they thought they'd spend the rest of their lives with. She's not sure about her own ability to do it again--canonically speaking, after Buffy and Riley's breakup Buffy does have a lot of emo and talk about how she believes herself to be not someone people can be with, and it'd be something like that. And the thing here is, she knows that if Kon leaves camp before her or vice versa, their universes move slower than camp, and possibly at different rates relative to each other. If Buffy gets out of camp first, she will be paranoid. She won't actually know what to do relationshipwise. Because if Kon's still at camp, a day of hers will be a month of his. So if, say, Kon didn't show up for a week or two? She'd think he probably had a new girlfriend because, well, people move on. And she's not sure she could, but she thinks he could.
She also does worry about his desire to do things before she's ready. Because, well, she can tell he really wants kids. And she wants to make him happy. But at the same time, she's terrified of getting more attached than she is. And bringing a kid into it brings in someone she's going to love into the picture and she has no doubt a hypothetical kid would go with Kon at the end of camp. Also, she's just not ready. And she's sometimes scared Kon will get tired of waiting for her.
Speaking of hypothetical kids going to Kon's world, Buffy has always assumed at the end of camp she will mainly move in with Kon. Which is something I might as well explain. The biggest thing for Buffy is actually that she thinks Kon being Superman is much more important for his happiness than being the Slayer is for her.
That's her conscious reason. Theoretically Buffy would be going back to Sunnydale to do the Slayer thing, so Kon could do the same and they could live in Sunnydale. But Buffy doesn't exactly want Kon in her universe because Kon makes her useless. Kon's stronger than she is, and could do her job better, and she doesn't want that. It's important to Buffy that she still be useful, and if Kon was in her universe she'd become obsolete.
Plus, Sunnydale is a really crappy place to raise kids.
And, um. Yeah. Buffy's actually mainly good about Kon, because she knows he loves her, and he learns. He usually doesn't make the same mistake with her twice. And he listens and mainly understands. And he's totally retarded. But that's okay.
To finish off, something that kept trying to get into the Lady essay, because it came up in relation to the possibility of Kon cheating on Buffy and what she'd do. But it didn't fit there very well.
If Kon non-maliciously cheated on Buffy (the example I have for this would be something Kon mentioned in passing, something of a worst case scenario emo-wise--Kon kissing Lady to get back at Robin. It came up in the context of Buffy and Robin getting mistletoed), Buffy would take him back. If it was the hypothetical revenge on Robin with Lady scenario it would be terrible and she wouldn't trust him at all and thinking about this makes me want to bash my head on things, but she'd still take him back. And there are a lot of reasons she'd give herself, that he didn't mean it and wasn't thinking and he loves her and she loves him, but honestly, there are two really big subconscious reasons Buffy wouldn't give him up without one hell of a fight even if he did something like that.
The first is Buffy's difficulty believing she'd get another chance. She thinks she was pretty lucky to get two guys she really genuinely loves, and she'll probably never get another. Plus the whole 'lolz something wrong with me no one will ever stay' thing. So if she could keep him, she probably would. She would with Riley and the vampire hookers--she just was too late to keep him.
The second is that Kon is Buffy's best shot at a life. Not even a normal life, just, like. Old age. Hell, middle age. Kon's stronger than her, Kon loves her, Kon will help her save the world and not die while doing it. And Buffy's opened herself up to the possibility of marriage and kids and her thirties. And losing Kon means losing all those things to. And she wouldn't actually think about it in those terms--if she did, she might not take him back specifically to prove she didn't care about having that stuff. But she does. One of the things that consciously scares Buffy most about her relationship with Kon is that she's got this awesome future with guy who adores her and lots of sex and kids and saving the world and danger but also helping people and...she wants it a lot. But she knows there are so many places it could go wrong, and she hates that. And she keeps trying to draw lines so that she's not going to lose any more than she has to, but this is always fighting against the wanting.
Yeah. Buffy's kind of an emo kid.
And she tries not to be as much of an emo kid as she really is right now for Kon because--true fact--Scot whom she dated briefly in season three dumped her for being too emo.
Thank you. I hate life.
Buffy and Young Justice
Because, insecurities aside, Robin's the easiest.
Buffy thinks that, were it not for her connections to Kon and, to a lesser extent, Bart, Robin would have nothing to do with her. She's aware of this because she'd want to have something to do with him, even if Kon and Bart weren't her friends. I, uh. Actually decided on a whim, before this Robin got in and before Kon/Buffy, back when we had Adam West TV Robin, that Buffy had a crush on him when she was little. It's true, I think it's in the camp archives somewhere. Anyway. It's not like any of the crush remains at all (she was probably, like, six), but she still likes Robin in theory for a lot of the same reasons she likes Kon and Bart--he's a superhero, he fights for justice, they should be on the same side, etc. And with Robin there is more of an element of...not exactly hero worship, but she's heard of him. Granted, she hasn't realized he isn't actually the Robin she knows about (Dick Grayson), but still, he is, well. Famous. And Buffy's generally friendly.
She'd been rooting for Kon and Bart's Robin to come to camp since before she and Kon started dating, because, well, he was their friend. And she didn't assume he'd be her friend, but she wanted him to be, because she didn't ever--and still doesn't ever--want to be in a scenario where Kon and Bart had to, in any way, choose between her and Robin. Partly because it would suck, but mostly because of the very real fear that she'd lose. This also factors into why Buffy doesn't push her Lady issues--she doesn't think it could in any way end well.
Anyway. That's all before Robin came to camp. Once Robin came to camp, Buffy could tell he wasn't wildly fond of the situation he found at camp. Which seemed basically fair to her, because it takes time to adjust and it is a crappy situation. And she figured he wasn't wildly fond of her either, which was fair because she was a girl he didn't know to whom one of his friends was attached and the other was attached at the pelvis. And she felt like she was doing sort of okay with that.
And then she killed Faith. I like how these essays always have this special point.
(Because I was just rewatching the part of "The Gift" where Giles gives his awesome amazing mini-speech about how Buffy could never kill a person I'm covering how Buffy justifies that to herself, and why she thinks, sometimes, other people should forgive her. It's in parentheses because it doesn't really relate to Robin.
Giles's mini-speech of SEXY is three minutes in here and you should watch it cuz unf. Anyway. He talks about Buffy being a hero and that meaning she isn't willing to directly take a human life and I forgot about this speech (having not seen the episode in, what, four years, when I did not realize the extent to which Giles was sex on legs), so this is retcon reasoning, but I'm okay with it because it is representative of Buffy's thought processes. Anyway. Faith and Buffy are Not People to Buffy. They're Slayers. And to Buffy this means that while other people are not expected to die for the world, they are. It's what Slayers do. And Buffy's allowed to kill Faith not because she's Faith so much as Faith is going to die to save the world. Because she's a Slayer. And Buffy wasn't willing to manipulate this event--say, but sniping her or something--because that's not fair. In Buffy's eyes, Faith needed to die. Buffy had, at this point, already died once in camp, but when Xander arrived, he brought no news of a new Slayer, so Buffy assumed since she'd already died for the world, doing it again didn't help. So it had to be Faith. And she talked to Faith about it--if Faith had said "no, I won't," then Buffy wouldn't have done it. But Faith agreed, Faith had the chance to protect herself, Faith lost. As far as Buffy sees it, it was as fair as it could be, and it was necessary. And Faith's duty. And she's sort of divided between going "but but but world Faith destiny" and going "...yeah I killed someone I should never be forgiven *emo*"
End tangent.)
Anyway. Buffy didn't really think about just how many consequences secretly fighting Faith to the death was going to have. Because, well, it's Faith. She's not a real person. She, like Buffy, is expected to die. But, well, Kon and Bart don't get it and Buffy doesn't really consciously realize a lot of her reasoning, other than "...but it's Faith." And since she hates Faith it's not a great argument.
But Kon and Bart loved her, and she got to the point where she back to normal with Kon. It's never gotten to that point (in her perception) with Bart--it redefined normal with Bart. We'll get to that.
Robin was the one it most profoundly affected in Buffy's perception, because Robin didn't like her. She didn't think he disliked her, but she knew they weren't friends or even particularly close. They had mutual friends, and thus talked in a friendly way, but without any kind of deep connection. So when Buffy killed Faith, she basically thought of that entire connection being severed. Because she knows Robin Doesn't Like killing. And neither do Kon and Bart, but Kon and Bart loved her. And she knows love can survive a lot of things.
Part of Buffy doesn't ever want Robin to forgive her. As long as she can think "Robin still remembers and Robin still doesn't like me because of this," there are consequences. Buffy's pretty sure most of camp a. doesn't know she's a murderer, b. doesn't care she's a murderer, c. forgot she's a murderer. And she's mainly okay with that, but Buffy doesn't ever want to feel like she got away with it.
The other part of Buffy is resentful. This part mainly exists because of Lady. Robin's relationship with Lady troubles Buffy less than Bart's with Lady does, partly because she's not as close to Robin and partly because Kon's mentioned to her several times that there's some kind of semi-romantic relationship between Robin and Lady, even if they're not dating. And that gives bias. But it still bothers her that she's 99% confident that Lady would kill a human for a good enough reason. And Robin still likes her more and accepts her more and all that stuff. And Buffy doesn't like that. If Robin didn't like Lady? Buffy wouldn't really mind that he didn't like her. As it is, she's mainly torn between wanting (unconsciously) for Robin to not forgive her and being bitter (consciously) that he doesn't.
In terms of her actual interactions with Robin, one problem is that there aren't a lot. Buffy thinks if people like her, they'll talk to her. Robin primarily talks to her when there's business, and he's always polite and friendly, but Buffy knows very well how to be polite and friendly to people it's beneficial to be polite to. She figures Robin's smart and realizes that it would make things in all ways worse for both of them if they publically fought, so he won't press it. And since Buffy likes Robin, she won't either. But she figures if Robin thought he could manipulate things in such a way that he knew he'd win a bid of "guys it's me or her," he would.
(Buffy does not assume Lady is carefully polite to her, and doesn't actually think Lady has anything against her. She doesn't know why Lady would, since by her estimation Lady is winning, and is possibly not even competing. She thinks Robin dislikes her much more than Lady does, though she likes him much more than she likes Lady.)
In terms of Robin touching her, it weirds her out. She sees it as him not actually trying to be nice, but trying to be a good friend to Kon, basically. Kon's not around to make Buffy feel better, Buffy figures Robin sees it as his duty to make her feel better. Depending on her mood she finds this either bemusing or annoying--if she thinks he's doing it because of some perceived weakness, it pisses her off, because she doesn't need comforting. She lets Kon do it because it makes both of them feel better and it's something easy he can do, not something he needs. And sometimes it stops her from having to explain.
Anyway. Basically: Buffy thinks Robin doesn't like her because:
1. She killed Faith.
2. She complicates things with Kon and camp and stuff.
3. She hasn't done anything to make him like her, really.
She thinks he doesn't act like he does because:
1. He knows it would be awkward.
2. He doesn't have anything to gain.
3. Kon would make D< faces.
And a big problem is that Buffy is sort of glad deep down that he's still punishing her. So she unconsciously interprets Robin things for the worst.
Yeah.
Bart's probably the hardest, but Kon is Kon. And I haven't figured out what to say about him yet.
Buffy loves Bart. He's sweet and adorable and fun and full of spunk and stuff. And he's also good and responsible and a superhero and, well, yeah. He was one of her first good friends at camp, and she still talks about the DC world as "Kon and Bart's world" because they go together like that.
Buffy felt like she was, basically, Bart's family. Not his entire family, just part of it. She doesn't really care about being called family, just being important in the way she used to be--basically teammate, source of comfort, friend, big sister, all the stuff she thought of as herself as being to Bart. She knew as she and Kon got closer Bart felt less comfortable visiting, which she hates. And no matter how many times she tells him "Bart goddamnit we love seeing you I love seeing you don't worry about it" he never really listens and always seems to think they'll be pissed, which they wouldn't be. And Buffy has no idea how to fix that other than spending less time with Kon and, well. >: That hasn't really seriously occurred to her, because Kon and Bart are friends and she and Kon would go without making out for extended periods of time really. Anyway. That's been a problem for a long time.
The Faith thing was also huge here, because in Buffy's perception it basically killed Bart's trust for her, if not his love. Buffy knows it changed Bart's perception of her wildly, but she hoped they'd get better and he'd still love her and stuff. And they talked and were sort of fine but Buffy still felt like they'd lost a lot of their closeness but it would come back.
Enter Buffy's fear of replacement. With Bart there was a double hit--Lady and Boys' Cabin 10. As I mentioned in my Lady essay, Buffy sees Lady as having taken her place on the YJ team. And then Bart got a new family, and he just...accepted them. Totally. And they didn't have to work for it or anything and fuck Yzak's killed people and Ikkaku's killed people and Shinn's killed people and none of them are being punished for it and Bart still loves them. And. Yeah. The "why are you treating me differently it's not FAIR" is big for Buffy. Especially with Boys' 10 because they really didn't have to do anything other than get assigned to the same cabin for him to care about them more than her. And this makes her deeply emo. And at the same time she recognizes he's happy with them. And then she emos about not being good enough.
It's also important to note here that the Cabin 10 dynamic pisses her off for Kon, because she sees Kon as Bart's mom. It made her so happy that deaged Bart still called Kon mom. Because that means Kon, at least, isn't totally replaced. She feels pretty guilty about Bart partly because she thinks she's dragging Kon down with her, and that Kon sort of got dumped by proxy.
Buffy in no way thinks Bart doesn't like her. And she thinks if asked, he'd even say he loved her. But she thinks Bart doesn't really consciously know he doesn't care about her anymore. She thinks he knows he doesn't care about her like he did before she killed Faith, but that he wouldn't say "yeah, I stopped caring." Because Bart doesn't say stuff like that. But she feels that whatever place she had in his life has been filled by Lady and Boys' 10 and he just isn't aware of it. Because it's not the sort of thing he would think.
Having just beaten myself about the head about Buffy's being a *complete tool* for the last five minutes, I realized that Buffy will, at this point, not believe it if Bart, when asked, responds that Buffy is on his list of important people. I mean, she'll believe he thinks she is. She'll just think he hasn't realized she shouldn't be on there. She'd semi-believe it if he was unprompted, but she does think that, well, a lot of it would be "who do I usually say, Kon, Robin, Lady, Oscar, the rest of the cabin, Buffy..." And of course if she was in trouble he'd help because he's a superhero and...yeah. Retarded.
Bart does also, periodically and completely accidentally, say things that make Buffy feel useless and unwanted, like when there's a problem and he wishes Cassie was there to make it better and Buffy goes ">: why can't I make it better" because she's dumb, or when he says he'll get her because he promised. And then she goes "DDD:" and stuff. God Buffy why are you an idiot.
In conclusion, Buffy thinks Bart doesn't love her anymore because:
1. She killed Faith.
2. He thinks she and Kon don't want him around.
3. Because of 2, he's replaced her.
She thinks he doesn't act like this because:
1. He's Bart.
2. He isn't aware he doesn't love her.
3. Even if he did notice he's too nice.
wryyyyyyyyyy.
Kon is relatively non-depressing I hope god I hope please don't tell me I jinxed myself. Buffy does worry about her relationship with Kon, but the most important thing to remember here is that Buffy genuinely and completely believes Kon loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her.
Of course, this isn't really as reassuring for Buffy as it should be, because Angel wanted that too and he still dumped her. So she knows that there can be things to end relationships even while both parties love each other and want to be together.
She's also very aware that Kon likes girls a lot. And it's not that she thinks he's going to get tired of her or leave her, exactly, she just knows Kon's pretty attractive, a great guy, and a superhero, which is theoretically appealing even if his pickup technique leaves a lot to be desired. Buffy doesn't really notice other people are attractive when she's in a relationship. I'm pretty sure when Buffy first notices in season three that Scot (a guy she dates briefly while Angel's dead) is interested in her, Willow says something to the effect of "dude, he totally wanted you all of last year" and Buffy just goes "...seriously?" It's not that she thinks she's unattractive or that guys don't like her--she knows she's sexy and appealing. She just doesn't consider the option of other guys when she's in a relationship. And she knows Kon wouldn't cheat on her, but it's still there. And while Buffy doesn't generally mind Kon's "don't love you for your brain" comments because she knows he loves her for more than that, some part of her thinks about the fact that Kon does care a lot about looks, and she knows that while she's pretty, she's not the hottest girl in the known universe--and Kon does always call her not, not beautiful or pretty or attractive, and hot is tied, in Buffy's mind, much more to superficiality than the others. So it's there.
And it's mainly there for out of camp. It's part of why Buffy wanted, if she could, to leave with Kon. One of the things that worries Buffy most about the leaving camp isn't actually not finding Kon, but time. She trusts Kon, but she also realizes she and Kon are both people who have already been able to move on from one person they thought they'd spend the rest of their lives with. She's not sure about her own ability to do it again--canonically speaking, after Buffy and Riley's breakup Buffy does have a lot of emo and talk about how she believes herself to be not someone people can be with, and it'd be something like that. And the thing here is, she knows that if Kon leaves camp before her or vice versa, their universes move slower than camp, and possibly at different rates relative to each other. If Buffy gets out of camp first, she will be paranoid. She won't actually know what to do relationshipwise. Because if Kon's still at camp, a day of hers will be a month of his. So if, say, Kon didn't show up for a week or two? She'd think he probably had a new girlfriend because, well, people move on. And she's not sure she could, but she thinks he could.
She also does worry about his desire to do things before she's ready. Because, well, she can tell he really wants kids. And she wants to make him happy. But at the same time, she's terrified of getting more attached than she is. And bringing a kid into it brings in someone she's going to love into the picture and she has no doubt a hypothetical kid would go with Kon at the end of camp. Also, she's just not ready. And she's sometimes scared Kon will get tired of waiting for her.
Speaking of hypothetical kids going to Kon's world, Buffy has always assumed at the end of camp she will mainly move in with Kon. Which is something I might as well explain. The biggest thing for Buffy is actually that she thinks Kon being Superman is much more important for his happiness than being the Slayer is for her.
That's her conscious reason. Theoretically Buffy would be going back to Sunnydale to do the Slayer thing, so Kon could do the same and they could live in Sunnydale. But Buffy doesn't exactly want Kon in her universe because Kon makes her useless. Kon's stronger than she is, and could do her job better, and she doesn't want that. It's important to Buffy that she still be useful, and if Kon was in her universe she'd become obsolete.
Plus, Sunnydale is a really crappy place to raise kids.
And, um. Yeah. Buffy's actually mainly good about Kon, because she knows he loves her, and he learns. He usually doesn't make the same mistake with her twice. And he listens and mainly understands. And he's totally retarded. But that's okay.
To finish off, something that kept trying to get into the Lady essay, because it came up in relation to the possibility of Kon cheating on Buffy and what she'd do. But it didn't fit there very well.
If Kon non-maliciously cheated on Buffy (the example I have for this would be something Kon mentioned in passing, something of a worst case scenario emo-wise--Kon kissing Lady to get back at Robin. It came up in the context of Buffy and Robin getting mistletoed), Buffy would take him back. If it was the hypothetical revenge on Robin with Lady scenario it would be terrible and she wouldn't trust him at all and thinking about this makes me want to bash my head on things, but she'd still take him back. And there are a lot of reasons she'd give herself, that he didn't mean it and wasn't thinking and he loves her and she loves him, but honestly, there are two really big subconscious reasons Buffy wouldn't give him up without one hell of a fight even if he did something like that.
The first is Buffy's difficulty believing she'd get another chance. She thinks she was pretty lucky to get two guys she really genuinely loves, and she'll probably never get another. Plus the whole 'lolz something wrong with me no one will ever stay' thing. So if she could keep him, she probably would. She would with Riley and the vampire hookers--she just was too late to keep him.
The second is that Kon is Buffy's best shot at a life. Not even a normal life, just, like. Old age. Hell, middle age. Kon's stronger than her, Kon loves her, Kon will help her save the world and not die while doing it. And Buffy's opened herself up to the possibility of marriage and kids and her thirties. And losing Kon means losing all those things to. And she wouldn't actually think about it in those terms--if she did, she might not take him back specifically to prove she didn't care about having that stuff. But she does. One of the things that consciously scares Buffy most about her relationship with Kon is that she's got this awesome future with guy who adores her and lots of sex and kids and saving the world and danger but also helping people and...she wants it a lot. But she knows there are so many places it could go wrong, and she hates that. And she keeps trying to draw lines so that she's not going to lose any more than she has to, but this is always fighting against the wanting.
Yeah. Buffy's kind of an emo kid.
And she tries not to be as much of an emo kid as she really is right now for Kon because--true fact--Scot whom she dated briefly in season three dumped her for being too emo.
Thank you. I hate life.