lirazel | Annoyance of the day:

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She looks at Riley and feels that he's someone she should love, so she tries.

No, she doesn't. At first, she didn't think anything. Then she spent most of Something Blue convincing herself that he's the type of guy she could like. Even then, she has reservations going in. She spends an entire other episode trying to talk herself - and him - out of it (Doomed).

She looks at Robin and thinks, "Yeah, that's the kind of guy I should be with. I guess I can try."

Again, she doesn't. They work together for most of the first half of the season with no romantic inclinations on her part. He asks her to dinner. She is visibly unsure on if it's a date or not, and she's not certain on her feelings if it is a date. Then the date fizzles and she doesn't think twice about him.

When she looks at Spike she hesitates.

Which is in line with how she handled Scott, Riley, Ben, and Robin. Her hesitation with Spike is more substantial because they have a not-so-friendly past which brings along some baggage that can be difficult to get past. But it's not uncharacteristic for Buffy to pause and reflect and reconsider and think twice (or three times or more) before entering into a new relationship.

I can't really help that it makes me feel that way.

I'm not trying to change how you feel. I'm simply disagreeing with your assessment of Buffy's character in canon. Yes, I understand you're dissatisfied with how canon played out. That's not something that can be argued with.

I'm not talking just about going in. I'm talking about her running after Riley in "Into the Woods" or climbing like a bean-pole in "As You Were." At some point or another she became quite convinced that he was someone she should feel for, someone she should run after, Someone she should want back. And she's downright eager to go on that first date. And Angel.. well, she turns fourteen whenever around.

All of that deals with her expectations. And Spike... He's the guy she talks to when she's depressed to quote Joss-dialog he's her "dark place" , buthe's also the guy she always denying having a romantic relationship with to her friends. It's her view of him and her view of what she thinks she wants and needs. And while I had hoped that there was a point in all of Spike's tribulations in Season 7 where she came to see as on the same playing field, and I base my Post-Chosen fiction on that thought, given what Joss has since written, the way he's portrayed his version of a follow up... no, I don't have great confidence about what he may have intended me to take away from "Chosen". I know what he said. And I know what I saw. And I know what he has written now. And all I can do is try to put it in some context, that I realize differs from yours (and from what I wish it would be). But I have my hopes of what could've happened and what I hoped it meant, and I have fanfic and fanfic preferences based on that. But I also have this whole world of doubt about how Joss intended it and how what he writes shades what I did see.

I don't expect you to agree. That's okay.

I'm not talking just about going in. I'm talking about her running after Riley in "Into the Woods" or climbing like a bean-pole in "As You Were."

But that's very much after she'd been in a relationship with him. Buffy and Spike never reached that point. If anything, their interaction in S7 is not unlike the mid-S4 Buffy/Riley lead-up (Just if Riley had died before consummation). Comparisons between already-relationshipped Buffy/Riley and not-really-relationshipped Buffy/Spike aren't equivalent.

And, as I pointed out, comparing not-really-relationshipped Buffy/Spike with Buffy's previous not-really-relationships shows a distinct similarity in pattern.

In your initial comment I replied to, you described Buffy in this way: "And I say it taking into account the way that Buffy has behaved in the past, leaping onto Riley the moment he arrives, eager to date Robin, giggling and smiling like a school-girl the moment that Angel arrives in town."

I read that as you characterizing her as someone who enthusiastically and without reservation jumps into romantic relationships or situations. Was I wrong in my understanding of what you were arguing?

But I also have this whole world of doubt about how Joss intended it and how what he writes shades what I did see.

I feel like we're talking at cross-purposes. I've emphasized previously: I'm not trying to persuade you to like what happened in canon. I'm disagreeing with some of your assertions about what happened.

But that's very much after she'd been in a relationship with him. Buffy and Spike never reached that point.

I honestly think we're talking at cross-purposes. And that's okay. We're basing it all on a lot of things and the way that we view things. I think, however, that there's enough differences in what we each feel that we saw that we're really not speaking quite the same language. I'm not sure how to overcome that other than wish we could see things the way that the other person sees. We probably aren't going to reach that point. We've had too much time to let our own views settle and become comfortable and, as close as anything in subjective fiction can be, our own personal version of fact. And our starting points are both distant and close enough that our language is just distant enough to cause confusion by dialect. It's a bit like how people say that the American's and the British are separated by their common language. We say one thing thinking one thing and the other person hears it just enough differently that we miscommunicate.

For example: I read that as you characterizing her as someone who enthusiastically and without reservation jumps into romantic relationships or situations

That isn't what I thought I said and it isn't what I meant. I meant that she viewed those men in a different light than Spike and that different light influences her expectations of how she thinks she should feel. And that that thought process isn't inconsequential.

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