Annoyance of the day:

[lirazel]

People who flat-out say that Buffy didn't love Spike despite the fact that she said she did.

She said she did. The only reason we have to believe that she didn't is one thing Spike said, and since when do people believe anything that comes out of Spike's mouth? Boy can speak the truth that no one else will, but he also says a ton of b.s., and everyone knows it.

I just hatehatehatehatehatehate all of these people sitting around telling a woman (and it would be a woman--if a man said, it I think a lot less people would disagree with her) who finds it nearly impossible to say the words "I love you" even to people she regards as family (remember "Intervention"? That's canon) that she doesn't love someone when she said she did.

I don't have a problem with people quibbling over the nature of her love. You can argue that she didn't love him romantically or as much as she did Angel or whatever (I would disagree with the first one and re: the second, I would remind you that, as the_royal_anna says, we don't love in amounts. We love in ways). That's legit. But to say, flat-out, that she didn't love him even though she says she did takes agency away from Buffy in a way that I am entirely uncomfortable with and that DRIVES ME CRAZY, OKAY. If she had said she loved Riley (she didn't, did she?), I would be pissed at people saying she didn't love him, either. Uuuugh why does this annoy me so much?

Comments

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Heh. "No, you don't." is my least favourite line in all of BtVS (and one and a half seasons of AtS, which is where I'm stranded due to over-business, woe). I've decided to retcon it utterly, I don't even care.

If Spike had just said "Thanks for saying so," that would have established his soulful self-loathing, the I'm-not-worthy reverence or whatever that he's developed for her. This, though? This is Spike telling Buffy that she doesn't love, doesn't feel, that she loves wrongly, misunderstands herself - which is what all the men around her keep doing. Xander, Giles, Riley. Parts of fandom keep doing it too. And it's the opposite of Spike's usual very important role - of telling Buffy to embrace her emotions honestly. You know, even the ones he only thinks she harbours (a death wish (arguable), an attraction to men who hurt her). He cherishes her emotions instead of denying them. It's kinda the point of him.

In conclusion, coherence is not among my many virtues today, and more people need to accept that Buffy loves people and that that's okay. Which is why I ship Buffy/Tara a little bit - "It's okay if you love him. And, Buffy, it's okay if you don't." It was important to say so, and nobody else ever did.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

UM YES.

♥

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Teehee, love that icon, where's it from?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Some comic somwhere? I don't know--you'd have to ask angearia.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Will do, thanks!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

If Spike had just said "Thanks for saying so," that would have established his soulful self-loathing, the I'm-not-worthy reverence or whatever that he's developed for her.

But wouldn't mean the same thing. And I think that Joss meant it to twist the knife just the way it did with the line as written. God know with Spike, it ain't love if it isn't laced with tragedy and pain.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt Joss had every intention of twisting the knife. (He seems to like bittersweet eternal guilt-trippings. It's basically "Captain Hammer will save us all" but more Cockney.) I just dislike the trend of Buffy being told such things by people who're completely wrong, in my opinion. If the Riley thing hadn't ended almost the same way, I probably wouldn't mind as much.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The problem is that Joss had no intention of actually showing anything truly concrete. He was intentionally, and deliberately tossing crumbs to both ships. It wasn't going to be allowed to end on an unambiguous note.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Yeah. When Angel reappeared in S7, I could hear Joss chuckling malevolently. I don't actually mind his open gleeful fan-manipulation too much (creators gotta get their kicks somewhere), but it's tiring and it takes some conscious effort to ignore it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I actually think that it really short-circuits the episode. Without Angel there, the whole series of events plays rather differently than they would have otherwise. The tragedy and the uplift would have worked better without his trying to split the difference between two ships.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

I didn't mind Angel's presence in the context of an apocalypse-backup (which makes sense! I mean, this was a srs bsnss apocalypse, it makes sense to form a Sunnydale-LA alliance against it) and it was good for magic jewelery ex machina. However, yes, the ~shipping tension~ was cheesy and deteriorated from the point of the finale.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I just always find myself wishing that they had employed Boreanaz's crossover time with the First impersonating Angelus. Having Buffy face Angelus would have worked in the sense of her facing down her own lingering demons (from beneath you it devours) vanquishing one of the aspects of her past that are trapping her in a certain emotional place.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

... I really like this idea.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I just always find myself wishing that they had employed Boreanaz's crossover time with the First impersonating Angelus

I always wished for that too :/ It was kind of lame how they used Drusilla to represent the big bad from season 2 (during Lessons), even though I understand that contract issues with DB were the reason for it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Re-reading I garbled my initial post which was to read "God knows with JOSS it ain't love if it isn't laced with tragedy and pain..." Oops! Changes the meaning a little. :)

And my beef with Riley was the ultimatum. Dude had a hell of a lot of nerve to put a time limit on things, especially in the wake of his being discovered doing the vamp suck jobs.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad you meant Joss! I'm not with the coherence today (too many differential equations), so I was trying to find a nice, non-point-and-grunty way to disagree with the idea of Spike equating love with tragedy and pain. (He... I mean, I suppose he does equate love with pain some of the time, but I figure that's more a vampire thing. He doesn't have Angel's apparent need to have epic doomed romances with tiny blondes who're fond of scenery.)

Also, so agreed on the ultimatum. Especially since I think Buffy really, really did love Riley and the whole debacle was because she was expected to behave a certain (gender-dependent) way that wouldn't have reflected her current mindset and personality. So, basically, that relationship was killed by societal expectations. (Also by Joss and his murky love affair with tragic love, obviously.)

[boot-the-grime.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that Briley was doomed from the start because Riley was such a traditional, conventional "John Wayne" guy and expected those gender-dependent things from Buffy.

[laeria.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, he was, but I think he had also initially been willing to change this. And then the Initiative fell apart and he was left kinda directionless, and maybe he started relying more heavily on external conventions from that point onwards.

[boot-the-grime.livejournal.com]

This is Spike telling Buffy that she doesn't love, doesn't feel, that she loves wrongly, misunderstands herself - which is what all the men around her keep doing. Xander, Giles, Riley.

This is really something that bothers me all the time and makes me feel particularly bad for Buffy. Just because she cannot show her feelings in the ways that some other people do, doesn't mean that she isn't giving everything she's got. When she tries to show her feelings, she's disbelieved and told that her feelings aren't real or aren't enough.

It's similar to what Buffy was doing to Spike in S5 and S6 when she was denying the validity of his feelings and telling him he was unable to love. Sometimes that "No, you don't" line reminds me of that incredibly hurtful moment in "Entropy" when Buffy tells Spike, after his speech about his feelings for her and how real they are: "I believe it's real. For you." IMO that was the worst thing she ever said to him in S6, he wasn't nearly that hurt when she was telling him she couldn't love him, but that clearly sent him over the edge. Denying someone's own feelings is just about the most condescending and hurtful thing one can say.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Which is why I ship Buffy/Tara a little bit - "It's okay if you love him. And, Buffy, it's okay if you don't." It was important to say so, and nobody else ever did.

Yes! In that moment, Tara become the best friend Buffy never had.

I mourn for Buffy/Tara friendship. They should've been BFFs. Tara understood Buffy in ways her so-called best friends never did.