u/FaveStore_Citadel

It got me thinking when she proposed to Nick because his accident reminded her of everyone she’s lost. She’s lost a lot of people, though some hit deeper than others. Here what I think it would probably be

1. Obviously Derek

2. Also obviously Lexie

3. Her mom

4. Deluca and then 5) George, though they’re closely ranked

5. I think Mark

6. Susan Grey, kind of, because Susan was kind to her and she was just reconnecting with Thatcher and his family

7. Doc the dog???

8. Thatcher a little bit

Am I forgetting anyone?

Joss and the writers had always made it clear that they prioritized emotional coherence over tight detail-oriented consistency, which usually worked in the show’s favor but there are instances where I think they overdid it at the cost of characterization or plot. My two least favorite examples were Helpless and the Turok Han downgrade in Chosen.

In Helpless, I think it’s more forgivable because their intent was to show Buffy at her most vulnerable and there’s not many ways they could’ve accomplished that if they remembered she’s actually a trained fighter who routinely punches far above her weight class even taking slayer powers into account and shouldn’t be scared of regular creeps on the streets even if depowered. I wish they would’ve gone a different way but I understand why they didn’t, since they’d be telling a completely different story otherwise.

The Chosen issue was more grating because I feel like they could’ve written around the ubervamps’ established power level and still pulled off what they were intending. They just had to show the slayers down in the Hellmouth taking more brutal hits and not have regular people like Anya and Robin Wood killing them so easily (in fact they could’ve replaced them with bringers for the above-ground portion of the fight easily). And how powerful the ubervamps were was in my view very integral to s7’s narrative. It explained why Buffy felt so isolated all season and convinced of her own exceptionalism as a leader, because she understandably felt (and Giles stated outright) that literally nobody other than her could stand a chance against what the First was throwing at them. It explained why the Potentials trusted Buffy for so long, because she took such a massive personal risk with total confidence to protect them. It explained why the stakes felt so much more dire after the reveal the First’s army contained thousands of the same creature that folded Buffy more than Glory ever did. In fact as early as two episodes earlier, the show was relying on the ubervamps to raise stakes, when the Potentials got trapped with Faith under the tunnels after the explosion and it looked like they were ubervamp lunch for sure till Buffy showed up to rescue them.

It was imo completely unnecessary to throw all that away in the last episode and go “sike they were actually made of confetti all along”.

(If she reached Dawn in time or if Spike managed to beat Doc and didn’t have to die)

She’d still have to deal with adulthood and Joyce being dead in s6, but without her depression keeping her off her game, I think she’d probably handle the Trio sooner before they became a bigger threat. And there’d be no First without the resurrection, so unless there were special threats post-2003, I imagine she’d probably just spend her years fighting regular vamps and occasional demons to keep Sunnydale safe until dying but I do think she’d try to live some semblance of a normal life (maybe go back to college in s6 like she wanted but couldn’t because dying made her miss the reapplication deadline).

Giles I think would’ve probably still left like he wanted to for the last two years, but it’s not completely beyond the realm of possibility that she’d ask the Council for another watcher to help make her job easier.

Willow I think might’ve kept her magic under better control if she didn’t have to overextend herself keeping Sunnydale safe or with the resurrection. Still s4 and s5 both hinted at control issues, so I think she’d still have to reckon with it eventually, though maybe not in the same way she canonically did.

Spike would’ve been in a really weird position in s6 if he still had strong feelings for Buffy but she wasn’t interested in sleeping with him. He’d probably get up to some mischief (Buffy didn’t stake him for the last two years so I don’t see why she’d do it now). Eventually though the chip would start malfunctioning like it did in s7, Buffy would choose to fix it instead of remove it and he’d be very displeased about letting her have that kind of control over his life. I think his story would end with him either crossing a major boundary and getting dusted or seeking a soul out of boredom or to impress Buffy.

I’d see Xander and Anya’s story play out mostly the same, but without Anya dying to the First, there’s a chance they’d get back together eventually.