thedeadlyhook: (zerograpic_AnyaHeroine)
thedeadlyhook ([personal profile] thedeadlyhook) wrote2004-04-06 11:01 am

The Pain That I Feel...

This grew out of a response I began writing to [livejournal.com profile] azdak on the previous post, as a continuation of the discussion there, but it got long. We'd begun talking about that final Spike/Buffy moment in "Chosen," the "I love you" moment, and the validity of how it was presented, and I had a number of emotional things to say there.

This was the original quotation that got me writing:

(azdak says)
There are a lot of things about Chosen that I dislike, but the Spike/Buffy moment isn't one of them. I'm sure it helps that I didn't feel jerked about by the relationship prior to that point (and I didn't feel that it was inconsistent in S6 either), so I didn't get that 'So now I'm supposed to believe she loves him?' reaction. It seems to me that prior to S7 Buffy's feelings for Spike were always stronger than she was prepared to admit (even to herself), that the AR obviously throws a huge wrench in the works, and that in S7 she does, indeed, care about him more than anyone else, without this necessarily implying that he's the one she wants to be with for the rest of her life. She loves him, but not in the way he wants, or not enough. She's incredibly proud of him, and she trusts him (beyond the point where she's entirely rational about it - see the whole unchaining him while he's still triggered argument), she believes he can truly become a good man, and all of that is love, plus there's sexual attraction in there as well; but if it came down to a straightforward choice between spending her life with Spike or with Angel, I don't think she'd choose Spike. Doesn't mean he isn't in her heart; it's perfectly possible to love two men, even if you love one more than the other. I do agree, though, that that goodbye is far more about Spike than it is about Buffy.


There's a large part of me, the soft, Spuffy part, that agrees with this. To be absolutely honest, I'd thought she was in love with him in S6. And I saw her do a lot of things in S7 that consistently supported that. But...

Given that reading, Buffy-in-love, even figuring in their horrible history and "Seeing Red" et al, I couldn't explain why she never said as much to him in the lead-up to the end. In "Touched," in "End of Days," she listens to a couple of the most heartbreaking speeches ever from him and just lets them go with the barest of comments. Then we have that confusing scene with Angel, then she's back with Spike, acting like she cares.

So while I can do the work myself to wrench this into a shape I can live with (she loves him but doesn't necessarily want to settle down with him, etc., as per above), I resent that I have to, that it wasn't explicitly spelled out for me, what she feels. Buffy's reactions in those last three episodes seemed to be more about setting up the plot arc for Spike, to establish that he's willing to die for this woman whether she loves him or not.

...and from his perspective, it really does look like not. She passes up moment after moment when she could have come clean and told him her feelings, whatever they were, and lets it go, all during a point in time where any of them could die the next day, the next moment. Spike lives through those days without holding back - he says what he feels and he stays on the track he set himself on in getting the soul and coming back to Buffy to make his amends.

Buffy, on the other hand, holds back. On the edge of the end, she doesn't say anything, doesn't share this feeling with him, even though it was him telling her such things in "Touched" that gave her the strength to go on. She doesn't share that strength - she asks him to go forward with nothing, alone, to be strong in ways that she herself can't be. She wants to be "just a girl"; she asks him to be superhuman.

So that moment of goodbye that they share, in "Chosen"... it's heartbreaking to me because even if they seem together, as one, for that instant, with the flaring of fire and two souls meeting... they're really still so far apart. Buffy in that moment saying "I love you" and meaning it and thinking this is the perfect time and thing to say for their final goodbye... and him with that sad smile that says everything to me about what she doesn't understand.

Because in that moment we are seeing Spike, dying, for love... and for him love has been all about living, something that you do every day, with and for the one you love - it is life. But for Buffy, apparently, love is something you put off until some future time when you are ready for it, when you're fully baked and feel like accepting or giving it - it's a present. When she's "done" someone will "enjoy" her. So we have this man that's been in her life for years, who actually had it right in "Wrecked" when he told her he was already in her life - although somehow that was pitched to be a bad thing - and who she's kept at arm's length until the very moment of his death to say so, and we're told that she, Buffy, never had it backwards about what love is or isn't. It breaks my heart, and I can't be happy with Buffy in that moment, because when she finally says it, it's like she's giving him a present, a going-away gift. He's been telling her he loves her for years, and showing her with actions that have literally on occasion turned him inside out, and what she gives him in return is this - a statement that he has to struggle against all logic to believe. I would have much rather heard her say something in that moment that felt real to them both, that had no doubts attached to it, that would have felt right - "you were my best friend" or "I forgive you."

And I'm actually fucking tearing up writing this. God, I really am in a melancholy mood.

What got me, ulitmately, about the Buffy/Spike story, is that it ended up being one about despair. It wasn't about life-affirming nature of love - how could it be, when Buffy rejects love constantly with the idea that somehow this makes her a stronger fighter? It wasn't even about how how love can make you a better person - although that message is indeed in there, with Spike's remaking of himself, although he was required to turn into Jesus Christ before this was even faintly acknowledged. We see Buffy deny Spike's definition of real love as something "wild and passionate and dangerous," and yet the only times she sees fit to reward him for his love for her are in the aftermath of these sorts of moments, when he does something huge and painful and passionate for her, when he's broken and falling apart and dying. Then she can say it. Then we can see it in her eyes.

But for the guy who was willing to babysit her sister, fight alongside her every day, put up with her friends that he doesn't like, abide by her rules if she ever bothered to set them? She hasn't got a word for that man. That's the one she leaves waiting in her basement for when such time she deigns to visit, that she can forget about when she chooses to flirt around with others (whilst giving him the steely-eyed glare at the faintest suggestion him doing the same). She doesn't want to hear about how he could change for her, even while she insists that he does, that he go against his very nature constantly. She manages to be disappointed in him no matter what he does - act like a demon, act like a man, be good to her, be bad to her. She never figures out for herself what she does want from him, only punishes him for not being it, whatever it was.

I objected to that. I objected to the story of Buffy/Spike being one of hopeless surrender - that the only way he could prove his love for her was real was to give up every last thing about himself, do exactly as she told him, become a tame animal that jumped at her command. To Buffy, perhaps, this looked like love because it fit her life perfectly - he was there when she needed him, and didn't bother her when she didn't - but I think to every other human being in the world, it looked like what Buffy essentially wanted was a subservient wife, a First Lady, a "mission's boyfriend" that had no demands of his own. This is ultimately what broke up her relationship with Riley, her unwillingness to share the burdens and let him be part of her whole life (sue me, I'm one of those people who actually liked the Riley arc). In "As You Were," we saw Riley's "perfect" relationship as a team of equals. Buffy, we never saw reach for anything like that, although she surely could have. Because Spike was, or could have been, her equal - her adversary and opposite who'd changed from wanting to kill her to wanting to love her. There could have been a story there of how love transforms you and lifts you up, helps you see into places that used to be dark, but it ended up being being how-to manual on crushing spirits. Hers, because she couldn't quite figure out how to treat this one unusual vampire like a human being, his because that was his path, to be her sacrificial animal.

So even if she loved him the whole time, and there is a part of me that sort of believes that she did, I still can't take much comfort. She refused to share it, refused to give as well as receive. We saw him give to her, give everything, give the whole world for her, and whether she loved him or not had by that point become really irrelevant. We were given an ending in which Spike understood love and what it meant - giving to others - and Buffy sure as hell didn't.

God, I'm sad now. Pardon me while I go cry.

[identity profile] nazlan.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
*sniffle*

Oh, Hook, I'm there with ya, sister. The more I think about Spike and Buffy, the sadder I am at the lost chances, the moments that slipped by, when a word or two different, said by either one of them, could changed everything. I was attracted to them first as a seeming study in opposites, who turn out to be far more alike than either of them is truly comfortable with.

As for the now-infamous "I love you" - for me, it read as Buffy *finally* taking her chance and saying *something*, even if it wasn't necessarily the truth. In three words, she had to get out, I'm sorry, I forgive you, I appreciate you, I wish things had been different, I wish I could change everything - all things more needed than just "I love you". So I suppose that ultimately, the love story of Buffy and Spike is a tragedy, full of misunderstanding, missed opportunities, things felt unsaid, and issues left unaddressed.

*sniffle*

[identity profile] zerographic.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
oh my god, i'm sitting at work right now trying not to sob.

i sometimes wish there was no such thing as fanfiction. 'cause then i wouldn't be presented with all these perfectly plausible reasons that buffy could have shaken the ice from her soul and allowed herself to love.

if this is the last season of angel :( i hope she does not appear (as it seems likely she will not). i do not want to hate her for whatever cold, calculating thing she says. i do not want to have to watch her break another person. at this point, i want angel and spike to turn to each other, gaze into each other's eyes, lean in for a kiss, and then a nice fade to black.

she needs to be cut from the picture completely. >:(

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 11:47 am (UTC)(link)
So while I can do the work myself to wrench this into a shape I can live with (she loves him but doesn't necessarily want to settle down with him, etc., as per above), I resent that I have to, that it wasn't explicitly spelled out for me, what she feels. Buffy's reactions in those last three episodes seemed to be more about setting up the plot arc for Spike, to establish that he's willing to die for this woman whether she loves him or not.


I'm having a hard time sorting out my responses to this particular post, because while I found the Spike/Buffy relationship enthralling, I've never been any kind of shipper. I loved Spuffy because I loved where it took the characters, but I've never been invested in any particular ending for them (except that, since I have a sneaking fondness for angst, I'd sooner it didn't end up that they lived Happily Ever After). If I'm brutally honest, BtVS for me has always been Spike's story. I only got interested in it after he appeared, and I find his journey infinitely more nuanced and compelling than Buffy's (or indeed anyone else's). So it doesn't make me sad that Buffy couldn't open up to him at the end - it makes me feel for him, but I don't feel indignant on his behalf, or wish that it had ended differently. It's a bit like how I feel about Harmony - it's painfully obvious that she adores Spike, and always has done, but the story wouldn't feel right if Spike suddenly realised he's loved her all along. The Spike/Harmony story is about the agony of unrequited love, and for me at least, the Buffy/Spike story has always been about the pain of loving someone who can't love you the way you want. I think in S7 Buffy got as far as she could along the path of loving Spike, but she simply couldn't go all the way. I don't think she really knows herself what she feels - it makes her feel bad about herself that she doesn't love Spike as much as she 'ought to' (she says as much to Tara and to Holden Webster), and just as she could never really admit to herself that she didn't love Riley as much as she 'ought to', so she has a hard time articulating her feelings about Spike, especially once he's got his soul, and is on the way to becoming a good man, and is being so fantastically supportive. And I do think the problem is ultimately Angel, not because I have any kind of investment in that relationship (au contraire, I disliked Angel on Buffy) but I have no trouble believing that she measures all her subsequent relationships against what she experienced Angel, and finds them lacking. Riley she loved, but he didn't have that dangerous edge, he could never be her equal the way Angel was, and Spike - well, Spike is Spike, aggravating and immature and sexy and devoted but never her equal either. Even in S7 I do think she sees him, to put it in the nastiest possible way, as something of a pet project. He's done something amazing for her, and she wants to give him every chance to realise the potential he's shown, but she's always above him, always the one showing the way, reaching out the helping hand, until that final moment in the Hellmouth, when he catches up with her as he burns into nothing.

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 11:50 am (UTC)(link)
So, so agree. Let her go off to "bake." Let her figure out for herself that love isn't something you can pencil into your schedule, that you can put off until you have the perfect outfit or outlook. Sometimes it's just there in front of you and you have to deal with it right now or realize that you're letting go of something precious, something that will be lost forever... something that you never even bothered honor or appreciate at the time. I'd like to think Buffy's learned something from all this, but her showing up on AtS surely won't show me that. I hope to god they just let her go.

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 12:05 pm (UTC)(link)
while I found the Spike/Buffy relationship enthralling, I've never been any kind of shipper

Actually, neither was I, technically. I only define myself as one because I came to believe, through watching the show, that what was going on between them was a sort of love, and I've always come down on the side of wanting to see people happy. It struck me that they could have made each other happy. But from that POV, I could also say I was a Buffy/Angel shipper when they were together, or a Buffy/Riley shipper when it was them. I wanted to see Buffy figure out what she wanted, work it through, find her way to being happy. And I wanted to see the parade when she did. That's not what I got.

But I agree that, intentionally or not, BtVS ended up being, to a large degree, Spike's story. S7 was clearly about him, not her. Count the number of long solioquies in which he tells us exactly what he feels, compare them to hers. He's the main character of that season - he's the one who makes real progress.

Buffy is an unfinished person at the end of BtVS, and that disappointed me. She wasn't, in my eyes, a heroine. That everything was reduced to these abstract concepts of sin and punishment and what people deserve instead of what they need - that took her away from any real emotion I could understand. Giles has this line in S2, about forgivess being not about what people deserve but what they need, and she could have given him that, at any moment, without pledging her devoted love. I didn't demand that as a viewer, and neither did Spike, as a character, in S7.

I just wanted to see something heartfelt and real. Friendship would have been enough. That she strung him along - and she did, c'mon - was her being unsure, wanting him to be available even if she didn't ultimately want him. That was simply selfish, and sad, and not something I could respect. Of all the things he told her he loved about her, we didn't see her show them to him, not even as a friend. (But to be fair, she didn't show much to her friends either in S7.)

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I was attracted to them first as a seeming study in opposites, who turn out to be far more alike than either of them is truly comfortable with.

Oh, yes. God I loved that. They were actually painfully alike. The way Buffy behaves over Angel in early seasons, for example, has a lot in common with truly, madly, deeply in love Spike. But she had this other side, the weight of responsibility of being the Slayer, that he didn't understand, although there were glimmers that he was starting to get it, and in S7 he certainly did. So I didn't find them all that implausible as a couple, or even just as partners in her "mission," but the conversations that needed to happen just never did. She was so determined to see herself as all "alone," that no one could understand.

So much lost there. This still kills me. It hurts in my heart.

[identity profile] toysdream.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Giles has this line in S2, about forgivess being not about what people deserve but what they need, and she could have given him that, at any moment, without pledging her devoted love.

You know, that's one of the things that struck me as really weird about Season Seven. I figured that "Seeing Red" had pretty much killed off any prospect of Buffy ever being able to love Spike, but when he reappeared next season, all crazy and hurty and suffering and begging for her help, I thought that we'd see her come to forgive him, and maybe even grow to trust and respect him (which, as per "The Gift", seemed to be what he really wanted from her). So my 'shippy heart - there, I admitted it! - got more out of her eventually telling Spike "I believe in you" than from any subsequent professation of Twue Twue Wuv, which in Buffy's case doesn't seem to amount to much anyway.

But for some reason, the writers kept playing the Buffy-Spike relationship as romantic, with all that sexual tension and Obviously Telegraphed Denial. Or maybe it was the actors - "Damn us and our natural chemistry!" I'd rather have seen Buffy get to the point where she could offer her unreserved respect and friendship, rather than spend the season toiling grimly in her emotion kitchen and then emerging at the last minute to produce a grudging little cookie of romantic love.

Huh... come to think of it, maybe the turning point was in "Bring On The Night/Showtime," where - obligatory IMHO disclaimer here - every other aspect of the plot went off the rails too. Just before the minions break into Buffy's house and abduct Spike, Buffy's finally told him she believes in him (swoon). But when she gets him back, it's played as this big fairytale romance, and the following episode they're cooing and fussing over each other in a really obvious way. From that point on, everything she does for him - like the chip-removal thing - plays as sublimated romance, rather than a gesture of respect and trust. Seems like it to me, anyway.

Gah! Comment too long! Time to stop!

[identity profile] tesla321.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Jesus. You've convinced me. (see my tears?)

So, Hooky, I suppose that's why we write fanfic. We want to give Spike what he couldn't have. And Buffy presented us as such a life-draining egomaniac is why I don't want her to have my beloved Angel, either. I guess I want Spike to have Buffy because he wants her, but I'd prefer for him to have someone who loves him.

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 01:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I came to believe, through watching the show, that what was going on between them was a sort of love, and I've always come down on the side of wanting to see people happy.

I agree with you about the love, but I fear you're on a hiding to nothing wanting to see people in happy relationships in the Jossverse ;-)

Giles has this line in S2, about forgivess being not about what people deserve but what they need, and she could have given him that, at any moment

See, I always felt she gave him that in Sleeper/NLM> those two episodes are a crucial turning point in their relationship she's so worried about him in Sleeper, chasing him all over town (and the bouncer is convinced she's looking for her boyfriend, who's a 'player', only what he's done is so much worse than that and she's there for him when he realises it fully). And she really does give him a huge chance when she doesn't stake him in the basement, on what is really very slender evidence indeed. And then in NLM she's so gentle with him (after kicking him in the head, admittedly), and she tells him she believes in him (which right then I think he needed to hear much more than he needed to hear that she loved him). And she says this after he's listed all the things he can to convince her that he isn't worth saving. For me, that was forgiveness, and not just abstract, theoretical forgiveness, because he needed it, but because she really had forgiven him.

I just wanted to see something heartfelt and real.
This reminds me of Harmony talking to Wes: 'The girl of your dreams loved you. That's more than most people get.'

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 02:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree with you about the love, but I fear you're on a hiding to nothing wanting to see people in happy relationships in the Jossverse ;-)

Yes, I know. Sigh. But it didn't used to be that way, not in the early seasons. There was at least this concept that pain wasn't just there for its own sake, and people at least strived for happiness. Now, it's like they've given up - the creators have given up. It's just all the-world-is-pain and how-can-we-go-on? In their universe, I really dunno why anyone would, if that's all that's on offer. That's what I object to - a worldview that's become so negative that life itself seems pointless, where helping or loving others is this giant burden, and there is no pleasure in friendships, day to day simple camraderie, small achievements.

So I'm having a hard time enjoying myself in the Jossverse lately, as I'm sure you can understand. It's become this place where any pleasure is rewarded with punishment. Sometimes I can't believe that Joss isn't fundamentalist religious, because sometimes it sure seems that way.

For me, that was forgiveness, and not just abstract, theoretical forgiveness, because he needed it, but because she really had forgiven him.

I think that's what the creators thought we were meant to think, but I didn't make that leap all the way, and it seemed like Spike the character didn't either - why should he assume she's forgiven him completely if she hasn't said so? The AR was, let's not forget, the last time he assumed something about what she felt, so I think for the sake of story clarity that needed to be spelled out much more clearly before any of us either inside or outside the show could consider that chapter fully closed. (I also felt the same way about Willow - all we got was that one scene in "Same Time, Same Place," and now everything's peachy again? Huh? I think the staff underestimated the public need for explicit statements on these issues, which - attempted rape and murder - were not small beans.)

The girl of your dreams loved you. That's more than most people get.

Yes, it is. Which is why, I think, seeing love treated as something destructive, that people should be punished for, bothers me. I'm funny in feeling that it's something of value, not just a setup for tears. I hated that last bit of Wes/Fred, how it was somehow okay to fast-forward through the happy part as the unimportant buildup to the tragedy. That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why anyone would bother with love at all, if we're shown only the pain and none of the appeal. Gah...

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 02:50 pm (UTC)(link)
God, am I bad for making people cry? Is it okay if I'm crying too? (trying to think of all this as cathartic)

I really don't want to see Buffy with either of them anymore, and I'd actually like to think that they'd both have the sense to not want to be with her either. She's an icon now, to both of them, a sort of Helen of Troy that launched a lot of pain and longing and searches for redemption, and after that, there's really not much hope of return back to a place where she could just be a woman. The best fanfics I've seen on sticking-with-canon reunion scenes always seem to hint at this, that Buffy is now too large a force, too powerful... that her men feel dwarfed by her, overwhelmed. I loved [livejournal.com profile] glassslipper's Valentine fic, as one example of a reunion scene, because it really used that image, of Spike seeing Buffy as this shining figure that's beyond him, that he can barely relate to anymore, that he can't even imagine feeling worthy of. Stories like this are fascinating because they make me feel sorry for Buffy as someone who's miscalculated the whole relationship thing into making men prove they're worthy of her, but that in doing so, she's placed herself on a pedastal and it's lonely up there.

[identity profile] zerographic.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I guess I want Spike to have Buffy because he wants her, but I'd prefer for him to have someone who loves him.

This absolutely, positively sums up my feeling on Spuffy right now. At the time, in the moment, I was so happy to hear her actually say it that I about melted.

But then I realized how fucked up it was that she got to wuss out and say it as he was dying for her. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

So yeah, I'd rather see Spike be happy with anyone else. ANYONE. But if it's Buffy he wants, then I think he's earned the "right."

[identity profile] tesla321.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I love a good cry. And it's pollen season, anyway, and I'm not wearing eyeliner. (Can ya tell I live in the South?) I do think that Angel has more sense, especially after the friggin' cookie speech, and Buffy & Co. thinking that he's ee-vil and refusing to help him. And Spike, he also seems like he knows he can't go to her, that being with her and her impossible expectations would kill something in him.
I think that's why my favorite fanfiction, my favorite Spuffy, starts in Season 6 and goes AU. MustangSally and RivkaT's Bowiebharata, Nan Dibble's Bloodverse, Rahirah's universe, and certainly Herself's Bittersweets. "Prayers to Broken Stone" is the
only one with a shanshu'd Spike, and he's properly bitter to Buffy.
Looking at my saved fic, I have not one single Buffy/Angel. I was
so disappointed. And that's from someone who watched "The Gift"
as her first show, saw all of seasons 6 and 7 before buying the DVDs. When I watched the first 5 seasons, I thought, the hell? what happened to this show?
(and why I'm writing about second season Buffy, I know not)

[identity profile] glassslipper.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you on so many of them -- especially, as you sum it up:

So even if she loved him the whole time, and there is a part of me that sort of believes that she did, I still can't take much comfort. She refused to share it, refused to give as well as receive. We saw him give to her, give everything, give the whole world for her, and whether she loved him or not had by that point become really irrelevant. We were given an ending in which Spike understood love and what it meant - giving to others - and Buffy sure as hell didn't.

It felt to me that the end (and many moments leading up to it) illustrated Buffy's immaturity relative to Spike. His love for her was intertwined, perhaps, with his age and experience, and she just hadn't reached that point yet. Not that I mean she wasn't "baked" enough, or that anything about the whole cookie speech was satisfying to me, but that she just hadn't figured it out yet, wasn't capable or willing to love more maturely.

Re: I'm eating Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream right now

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm howling in my living room "Oh man any minute they're going to take a Cosmo quiz together...."

Ha ha ha ha ha (snorts)... I sorta wrote that fic (http://www.livejournal.com/users/thedeadlyhook/20653.html). (hides)

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)
It felt to me that the end (and many moments leading up to it) illustrated Buffy's immaturity relative to Spike. His love for her was intertwined, perhaps, with his age and experience, and she just hadn't reached that point yet.

Yes! Wonderfully put.

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, some of these I haven't read. Who did "Prayers to a Broken Stone"? It sounds familiar, but I don't think I've read it.

Second season has awesome potential. It's that anything-can-happen time. Seems logical to me that you'd want to write in it. After all, one of my own personal favorites has to be [livejournal.com profile] harmonyfb's "Glimpses" series, which is sort of an alt-Season 2. (here page here (http://www.harmonyfb.com/)). Great characterization, hot stuff, complicated and messy. Fabulous. I love DutchBuffy's (http://home.planet.nl/~dutchbuffy2305/) stuff too, and she likes to do the time-travel thing. Her current series, "Crossing Over into Unchipped Territory" is a good example, although "Actions Past" is maybe the best one. Love that fic. Sigh. Good fiction helps so much.

[identity profile] tesla321.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, I read "Glimpses". The divine, the wonderful Devil Piglet wrote "Prayers", and she introduced me to Nan, Fallowdoe, et al. I asked her for recs.

Valerie X is a favorite of mine, too, because who
could resist a title like "Spike, Shirtless and Bleeding"?

I'm currently reading DutchBuffy's WIP, along with
Herself's, Nan Dibble's, Jwaneeta's (I loved her
Wodehousian Post-Chosen romp), Nwhepcat's, your WIP, and "Monsters Ball". Or anything Glossalia chooses to write, actually. And if I didn't have to take a break and practice a little law now and then, I'd get my own fic written.

[identity profile] queenofattolia.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
In "As You Were," we saw Riley's "perfect" relationship as a team of equals. Buffy, we never saw reach for anything like that, although she surely could have. Because Spike was, or could have been, her equal - her adversary and opposite who'd changed from wanting to kill her to wanting to love her. There could have been a story there of how love transforms you and lifts you up, helps you see into places that used to be dark, but it ended up being being how-to manual on crushing spirits. Hers, because she couldn't quite figure out how to treat this one unusual vampire like a human being, his because that was his path, to be her sacrificial animal.

Thank you for writing this particular passage, because it sums up why the ultimate story made no sense and was so bone-rattlingly disappointing. I'm over it; I started resolutely on that path after the last frame of "As You Were," and fortunately, I was a concurrent fan of Crichton and Aeryn on "Farscape." Their story perfectly exemplifies the kind of transformative love you describe. I hope you watched that show -- their relationship was the perfect balm and antidote to B/S.

Lovely, Lovely Farscape

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-06 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
As a matter of fact, I loved Farscape. I never managed to catch it regularly for some reason, so there's huge chunks of plot I haven't seen, but I've been starting to get caught up recently and just love it to bits. It was such a funny, witty, intense show that probably wouldn't have been half of what it was without the sparkle of Ben Browder, but yeah - Crichton/Aeyrn. That was teh hot. I remember thinking at the time they had a lot in common with Buffy/Spike, and at times the show would bog into these ridiculous cycles of no-I-don't-love-you and breast-beating and her being frosty and him being all wounded and snarky, but it always came back to the truth of the fact that they really cared about each other. Just goes to show that it's possible to do angst and yet not have it be an exercise in soul-crushing misery. Sigh...

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2004-04-07 12:05 am (UTC)(link)
Now, it's like they've given up - the creators have given up. It's just all the-world-is-pain and how-can-we-go-on?

There's definitely an element of truth in that, although I see it more as a function of the overwehlming situation they were faced with in S7 rather than an inherent negativity about life itself. Part of the problem with S7 is that the First is talked up to be a much more powerful evil than it is actually is (both because the storytelling is definitely - how shall I put this? - uneven when it comes to the First, and because that seems to be the ultimate point of the First, not to be half as terrible as everyone thought once they stood up to it. I don't need to complain about all the opportunities for psycho-terror that the First missed out on, because plenty of other people have already done that, and Joss himself has admitted that the Turok-Han were all big build-up but no real substance). Now, if the First had been more convincing as the worst enemy Buffy's ever faced, all the emotional freezing over, all the constant nagging of everyone else, would have seemed much more like a response to a temporary situation than a form of character development. It's not just the fact that the First becomes increasingly ineffectual that undermines the atmosphere of terror that should pervade Buffy's war effort, it's also that the heroes really don't seem equipped to fight this thing, if it's really as powerful as everyone says. When characters are talking about all-out war and how serious this all is, and then we cut to the 'army' and it consists of about 15 people, then it doesn't make me think 'Gosh, they're brave', but 'Can't be as bad as all that.' Or when Giles says how they need more people on their side (yup, like ideally several hundred) and Buffy pipes up 'That's why we've got to find Spike.' Um, yes. Because one vampire is going to make such a difference, right? Similarly Buffy's 'everybody sucks but me speech' comes over so badly because at that point it's unjustified - we needed to have seen Willow fail to help out when she could have done, to have seen Spike wimping out of fights. Get It Done could have been a genuinely powerful episode like LMPTM, where the audience is confronted with a tough dilemma in which they sympathise with all the characters, but as it is it takes a lot of thought to understand where Buffy's coming from and why she's actually right. I honestly do think that the negativity in S7 is a product of Buffy's situation, but because it's precisely the areas of the scripts that deal with plot that are worst handled, the situation simply doesn't seem threatening enough, and so the negativity seems to be a response to the universal human condition rather a specific but temporary threat.

I think that's what the creators thought we were meant to think, but I didn't make that leap all the way, it seemed like Spike the character didn't either - why should he assume she's forgiven him completely if she hasn't said so?

We'll just have to chalk this up to different tastes. I was entirely happy with Buffy's statement that she believed in him, and I would have been wary of an explicit statment on a subject that
both found difficult to talk about ('Can't say I'm sorry, can't say forgive me'). I don't think Spike ever forgave himself for the AR, butI do think that in NLM Buffy told him that she understood he'd become a different person, one she trusted and had faith in. If she had added an explicit 'I forgive you,' it would have made me cringe with embarrassment (that's Brits for you, though - that sort of thing makes a lot of us uncomfortable;-))

To be continued in next comment...

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2004-04-07 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
seeing love treated as something destructive, that people should be punished for, bothers me

But love does make you vulnerable. If you live in a dangerous world of monsters and demons, or just the emotional minefield of daily life, it's losing the people you love that hurts most. I don't think that love in the Buffyverse is generically destructive. It wasn't loving Tara that pushed Willow over the edge, it was losing her, and she wasn't being punished for loving her, she was the victim of a random act of violence. S6 Spuffy was destructive, in a fascinatingly awful way, but it wasn't purely destructive. It provided Buffy with something she desperately needed at that point in her life, and it gave Spike something too. The AR didn't feel like a punishment imposed by some deus ex machina, but (for me, at least) arose organically out of the relationship we'd seen. Wes/Fred I can't really argue with, though, because I did think it was cheap to bring them together solely for the purpose of heightening Wes's angst. And I guess Oz would support yout thesis as well, since in the end it was loving Willow that made it impossible for him to defeat his 'beast'.

That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why anyone would bother with love at all

Hormones! We don't have much choice in the matter, I guess.

[identity profile] toysdream.livejournal.com 2004-04-07 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
See, I always felt she gave him that in Sleeper/NLM> those two episodes are a crucial turning point in their relationship

Okay, I can buy that - looking again at her speech in Never Leave Me, I can see how it's meant to play as Buffy's official forgiveness of Spike, even though it didn't convince this viewer at the time. But what's your take on their relationship after that? Even a year later, I'm not sure what I was supposed to be taking away from their weird interactions in the second half of the season. Any insights would be much appreciated...

[identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com 2004-04-07 02:07 am (UTC)(link)
But what's your take on their relationship after that?

I'm afraid you've got me there - because answering that would entail rewatching the last five episodes, and they're the ones that are both tedious and come close to scuppering all the good stuff the season had managed to build up. Before those episodes - well, they share that moment when she rescues him from the First, and thereafter it's pretty much closeness and trust all the way up to LMPTM, bar Buffy's date with Principal Wood and the 'everybody sucks but me' speech. I guess the date with Wood makes sense if Buffy is at this stage not keen that her changed relationship with Spike should include reverting to a sexual relationship (the fact that other people, like the potentials and Andrew, comment on the erotic attraction between them, seems fair enough, given that it clearly is there, whatever their history, but it takes Buffy a long time to come to terms with it - and depending on how you read the 'fade to black' scene, maybe she never does). Thinking about it, I guess the word that best describes how Buffy feels about Spike from NLM through LMPTM is 'protective'(she's concerned about his cracked ribs, she looks after him when the chip goes wonky, she defies Giles to unchain him). She desperately wants him to get where he's going, to become the man she believes he can be (the 'everybody sucks but me speech' is the glaring exception, but she clearly had other priorities right then). In Touched he finally gets an opportunity to repay her faith in him by telling her about his faith in her, and that belief restores her own self-belief and leads to her first concrete victory. At this point their relationship is finally starting to get a bit more equal, with Spike at last able to give something back. As for why Buffy does that thing about saying 'Does it have to mean anything?' after their night together, I would chalk it up to fear of commitment. She never has loved Spike as much as he loves her, and it's always given her the upper hand, but now they suddenly seem to have reached a place where she's teetering on the brink of really loving him back. I think she pulls back because she doesn't know if she wants to make that step.

[identity profile] thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com 2004-04-07 07:25 am (UTC)(link)
I think we're actually in agreement on a lot of points. Buffy did consistently protect Spike and behave in a generally affectionate manner post-rescue. So you could say that she'd resolved her own feelings to that extent, that she wasn't "ready for him to not be there" in her life. My problem just came down to the way the later episodes played the constant card of Is She Over Him or Is There Hope For These Two Crazy Kids, especially once varibles like Wood and Faith were added in. She goes out on her date because she thinks Wood would be "good fo her" - look, she's trying to move on - but when Faith shows up, it's all steely glares and How Dare You Flirt With My Man? I can tell myself that Buffy really cared for him, but I can't remove the bad taste Buffy's back-and-forth behaviour left in my mouth. It's clear that he didn't feel he could make any demands on her, and made his offer to leave in "First Date," but Buffy still wants him around. She avoids saying why to protect her own feelings, which is nice for her - hey, they're both worried about Buffy's feelings.

I dunno... haven't got much else. I'm glad you managed to get more out of S7 than I did on the relationship front, maybe from watching it all at once without the intermiable waiting between episodes we got here, but I couldn't be comfortable with Buffy's character after a certain point. I tried hard, but I really couldn't. Not when we're given Spike's own example as a counterpoint, of love being about forgetting your own damn feelings and being there for someone who needs you.

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