#she's a hard-bitten cowboy widower with a teenager to care for who's got no use for frippery or new people in her life

[july-19th-club]

alright absolute favorite spikebuffy image of all time is from the scene where they’re under the carpet in dead things, having a normal conversation instead of the old punch-and-leave routine, and there’s this one shot where she’s sort of leaning up on her elbows half-smiling incredulously and her incredibly early-oughts new haircut is impeccable of course and he’s sort of ducking down and hiding this huge smile against her shoulder. first of all i think that should be in the louvre with all the other images of Couples In Bed (or On Floor) but what really sells it for me is the slight inversion of gender throughout. he’s demure, she’s dripping with sexual prowess, he wants her to stay and he’ll make an honest woman out of her, he’s domesticity incarnate for five minutes here, he actually offers to neaten up her home and redecorate it; she’s calm down, toots, it was just sex. don’t get attached. she’s a rude CEO in a trashy romance novel whose dismissiveness only makes the blushing (yet surprisingly experienced) new secretary want to cling on closer and try to understand her more

#any fic i would ever write would just be 'gender-inverted classic romance novel tropes' #cause they deserve it! he deserves to be a baker on the run from a misunderstanding with the law and she is a demanding US marshal #she's a hard-bitten cowboy widower with a teenager to care for who's got no use for frippery or new people in her life #he's new in town and lonely and just inherited an old farm he has no idea how to take care of and is nearly menaced by a rattlesnake #she's an extraordinarily impolite duke with a rumored past that would take dictionaries to fill. he's a sweet but spunky country heiress #buffy the vampire slayer #i never got 'gendered imbalance of power' before this. nor enemies to lovers. didnt work for me but hoo boy . now i get it. now i do