Title: It’s a great story, don’t
Author: GPT-2, with some small input from Double Dutchess
Season: all over the place
Word count: 1271 words
Rating: general audiences
Warning: Buffy/Other and some suggested Spike/Other
Note: What do you get when you try to let a neural network write Spuffy fan fiction? Here you see one of many possible results. Some highlights: Spike losing his virginity while on LSD; an upsetting Buffy/Spike kiss leads to Spike’s arrest; some Riley bashing for those who like that sort of thing; and Angelus owning a comics shop.
So how was the story made? Everything except the words in bold was written by GPT-2, a state-of-the-art machine learning model for automatic text generation. I used this online demo: https://talktotransformer.com/
You only need to give it a starting line as a prompt and then it generates a paragraph of around 100 words. To create a longer story, I fed each ending line back into the model to generate the next part, adding some words of my own to finish incomplete sentences and to (try to) get the story back on the Spuffy track. Though weird, I’d say the result is pretty decent for an automatically generated story (certainly compared to earlier attempts I made around a year ago).
Anyway, let’s go!
Banner credits: screencaps hdbuffy.tumblr.com, font LCD Mono by Samuel Reynolds, background photo by mahdis mousavi on unsplash
Buffy and Spike stand facing each other. Buffy asks “Did you hear that?!” She then tosses a boy a cape and a matching dress. The boy hears Buffy tell Spike that the song is called, “Girl Crush”. “Girl Crush” is the other song in the Who’s Next compilation. Spike tells Buffy that he’s sorry he attacked her and she tells him to turn around. When he does, he shouts, “I lost my virginity!” He says he must have been on LSD, “I’ve never been on anything since.” Buffy goes down to ask where he got the cape, which he tries to hide. When she asks him where the dress is, he finally reveals it is The Mark of Cain, a book that tells all those vampires to seek out the Slayer.
Buffy desperately searches for The Mark of Cain but is unable to locate it before Joyce closes the door. Angel asks what her problem is but Buffy says she just needed some time to think. They then discuss their relationship. Buffy says he’s the only person she can talk to about this and that he is “one of her friends. That’s all there is.” Angel doesn’t respond and Buffy tells him “This isn’t going to end.” Angel says he understands and puts his hands on Buffy’s shoulders. He tells her not to make it worse than it is and to “move on” but Buffy says she has kissed Spike. Says he liked Spike when he was younger. The police of Sunnydale arrive and a Buffy/Spike kiss and kiss ends up so upsetting that the officers apprehend them and Spike is arrested. However, Buffy chooses not to file a complaint.
On a day off, Giles tells Buffy about how his mother said he was “so brilliant and brave” and that she told him that she didn’t want him to die because he was too good a friend for that. She thinks he’s lucky they didn’t have to tell each other that. At school, Buffy is experiencing her first physical feelings for Spike. It’s a struggle and he denies it, but eventually he offers to pay her tuition. Spike also orders Xander to meet with him to see if he can put an end to Buffy’s relationship with Riley. He actually gets Buffy to agree to go into the library to do some research on Riley.
And let’s talk about Riley. What is he? He’s a telekinetic cheerleader for jocks. He’s absolutely obsessed with Buffy. After Buffy is put on the rejected list, he’s practically next in line, but he’s always last. To be fair, he wants to get off the list and go to the jungle. Spike takes advantage of this and asks Buffy to go out with him. He needs someone to share his pain and ecstasy, and Buffy makes it happen. From there, his feelings increase rapidly until they reach a breaking point. He needs one more girl to share his loathing with, and he can only find the one he really hates.
When Jack tries to shoot Spike with a gun that suddenly appears in the room, Spike’s feelings and love are released. He reveals to Buffy that she has this Power, and that she must not give it to anyone else. She finds she can use it at will, but it’s time for Spike to give up her power for ever. Buffy Then they find a demon and learn that he’s been dying since he summoned Jack and Sam. Buffy We have to explain the whole thing, and we don’t know how to do that. Giles, Willow and Riley try to enlist Giles. The Scoobies realize that there’s a greater threat at work, and that it’s not just Jack. Xander stands up to the demon, and he gets badly burned. As Buffy attempts to douse the fire, the demon suddenly dies. Meanwhile, Angel and Gunn take down a cult that’s breeding new demons. Angel walks up to Angelus and reminds him that he’s himself, and evil. Buffy and Spike accept him.
Angel and a surprised Spike go to the Angelus-owned comics shop to ask for his help. As Angelus appears, Buffy struggles to deal with the information he’s given her about herself. Buffy tells Angel that she didn’t realize just how she’d wanted to marry him and she doesn’t know what he’s thinking. “Bad things are coming,” he says. She tells him that that’s okay, because she didn’t actually want him to stay. “I know what you’re up to now,” he says. “You’re up to the Angelus bad guys.” He tells her that he’s finally found an ally in her. Buffy tells him she wants to be with Spike. He points out that Spike has been “that” kind of guy. Buffy and Spike get in her car and drive away, intending to take him back with them. She tells him that he would get out at the next stoplight, but then realizes it’s dusk, so they’ll have to turn around. Xander points out that Buffy can’t use magic while in her car. Giles tells her that she can pick up her things at a hotel if she needs to, but she shouldn’t.
Later, at her hotel room, Buffy has gone through her things and is about to leave when Xander stops her. She apologizes to him for all he’s had to go through. Spike comes in and in a civil tone says he wants to cut his ties. They are able to cut them off. Spike calls it an abomination. Cameron says it’s a healthy break from being in touch with the past.
Well that is episode 8 of season 5. I don’t know how long this will be here, but there is enough here to keep the regular series going for a while. It’s a well written episode with tons of laughs. I have always liked Spike and Cameron and I hope these two start to date again and continue to be fun. I hope that Cameron is starting to learn to cook again and I hope they will be dating again but not really. Spike belongs with Buffy after all. Spike may need his apologies and Spike may need his forgiveness. In the end, it will be up to Willow to decide if Spike should stay or leave Sunnydale together with Buffy. Willow can’t decide and he isn’t willing to give in to their mother’s wishes. However, Will also can’t abandon his best friend, which is why Buffy wants Willow to decide for him. The two of them will work it out and find a way to help each other out.
What do you think? Do you want Willow to stay with Spike in his situation? Can Xander, Willow, and Buffy work it out? Can Spike and Buffy put aside their differences and be happy together? Willow could be left out of everything and I can’t imagine a way to finish this properly with a happy ending for Buffy and Spike. All I can think of is Xander and Angel and the summer just being so much worse without him. I’ve read that even as a small child he wanted to become a rock star and would swing into the front room of a neighbour’s house if it was empty. He would hang upside down from their front window with a ball, come out and run around while his mother and I were cheering him on. He would then do the same thing every time, no matter how hard we tried to stop him, until the day he was 27. It’s a great story, don’t
[I gave up at this point]
Originally posted at https://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/693815.html
