I was so fucking shocked, I didn't really process (I remember being at meara's). I didn't really mourn after that because I knew that she would be back. Had it been any other major character,I would have mourned, because I would have known that they weren't coming back. I was sad when Jenny Calendar died, and when Tara was shot, but I didn't really mourn them.

I didn't mourn when Buffy died - I didn't watch it in real time, and had to wait until some kind of channel will broadcast it. By the time Star World, which censored Oh So Much from season 6 (including every indication that Willow and Tara were, dear lord, lesbians), started to air season 5, I knew Buffy had another season in front of it. So the impact wasn't as strong.

I did, however, mourn when the last episode of Buffy aired in the U.S., even though it took me a couple of weeks to catch it and watch it myself (I was then in my last year of boarding school, with very limited internet access - no more than two hours per week). I remember my restlessness that day in details, and also that it fell on some class activity (some barbecue - or was it Lag BaOmer?).

When I finally watched it, at a friend's place (a friend I found on the internet, of course, in an Israeli Buffy forum), in order not to sink to despair I almost immediately started watching the unaired pilot of Buffy after watching the finale.

After Buffy died in The Gift, did you (any of you) mourn? And if so, did you do something specific to mark your mourning? If you mourned, did the fact that she was obviously going to return (show called "Buffy") affect how you mourned

Yes- I bought a lot of Buffy related books and scripts and stuff to have during the summer hiatus. I knew she was coming back, but I knew that it wouldn't be the same. Also the way that she approached her death was so fucking heartbreaking. Like, with relief. And tired sadness.

Steph,

when Buffy died in "The Gift" my feelings were complicated by Dawn (who I really really didn't like) and that I was pretty sure Buffy would be back. My main area of concern at the time (as I recall) and early in the next season was whether Buffy would come back wrong.

I didn't morn Buffy, but if that had been the end of the show I might have. I most definitely was in shock after Jenny's death, and missed her almost as much as Giles did. I also morned for Joyce and Terra, but I morned more for the loss of Oz.

I committed fic. That summer was the only time I wrote fic for any fandom ever, and it was all prompted by the idea of Buffy being dead and everyone mourning her. I knew she would be back, but the utter looks of grief (especially on the faces of Giles and Spike) gutted me.

I mourned with the characters who were mourning, but not for Buffy. Of course I knew she would be back, but I would have been content to end the series there. It was a fitting and perfect end, for both the show and her. I'm not sad it *didn't* end, mind you, but if it had, that would have been okay with me.

I'm not normally okay with ending a show I love with the death of a/the main character. But she's the Slayer. She was never gonna die in bed surrounded by fat grandchildren. Better she go out saving the world than getting offed by a vampire on a bad night.

I didn't mourn at all because I knew she was coming back, and thought it was kind of cheesy to kill her and bring her back.

But that was before I experienced S6 and Joss really made Buffy's death consequential.

Still, I thought it was a cheezy comic book death. If she had died-stayed-dead-end-of-show I would've mourned.

I totally thought she was really dead. And I was very sad, but not as wiped out as I was after Joyce died. I thought it would be possible that either SMG would return, but not Buffy, or Buffy would return but not SMG.

I knew Buffy was coming back, so I didn't mourn. But Jenny and Tara got me to mourn, and Joyce's death hit me harder than any fictional death since before I was in kindergarten. It's rare that entertainment can make me well up (usually only when it's a story about tragedies that befell real life people), but you'd have thought one of my own relatives had died the way I was crying during "The Body."