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

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

...but Buffy saying she has feelings for Spike in S6 is text. As is Buffy telling Spike she loved him in Chosen. Like, literally-it-was-said-explicitly-on-screen text.

And I'd call Buffy/Spike in S7 ambiguous, but I definitely wouldn't call it subtext.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

But they were also quite careful to always leave their options open. There was always plausible deniability involved.

I came away disappointed because what I had wanted was just one unambiguous moment, and we never actually got that IMHO. I know others are far more certain of what I saw, but I never had that degree of certainty.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. As I said, S7 left things ambiguous. But you specifically denounced it all as "subtext", which is incorrect.

Also, I wouldn't call Buffy's confession that she has feelings for Spike in S6 ambiguous, and I initially responded to your comment about Buffy's feelings towards Spike in S6 (which set up a false dichotomy between "Buffy using him" and "Buffy having feelings for him").