You don't snuggle with a person who's in love with you if you are not open to the possibility of exploring and returning those feelings the same way. If you do that, then you are a user, using someone's feelings for you to make yourself feel better.

And I'm once again going to state that as someone who has been on both sides of the issue, Nuh and Uh.

That's just silly, and a very black and white view on interpersonal relationships.

And I will repost why I don't think she was using him, right now:

Basic things I try to keep in mind when thinking about Buffy and Spike and Season Seven:

• No matter how much he's changed because of the soul, there is still a complicated history between them that includes house-busting sex, an affair that was closer to war than love, attempted rape, a few years as mortal enemies, and demonstrations of love that included chaining the loved one up and threatening her.
• As usual, there's a apocalypse to thwart
• Buffy's only 22, and her romantic life has been a "turgid supernatural soap opera."

Re: Buffy is using Spike. The evidence for this seems to be in things like Buffy being willing to accept a certain amount of comfort and support from him while realizing that she's not in a state to be in a romantic relationship with him at this juncture.

Spike is aware of how she feels. So, following the bouncing user argument ball, this means that he's allowing himself to be used? Not sure how that follows. He's aware of what she can and cannot give him at this point. He's not pressing her for more, and in 7x22, she's not pressuring him into letting her stay there. She's just asking.

Why do I not see this as using post cookie-dough?

She doesn't see it as a something with a future, but she also doesn't see it as something that isn't anything, if that makes sense. In End of Days, she was pretty firm with the maybe, if we get through this, we'll see what might happen. She's was honest with him in admitting that she doesn't know what it means, or if it means anything. See: Buffy is 22, and her romantic life has been a turgid supernatural soap opera.

Re: Buffy takes and gives him nothing.

If she gives him nothing, what then, is Buffy getting him out of the basement and taking him to Xander's for his safety? What is Buffy refusing to kill him, or to give up on him, after he's been used as a sleeper agent? What is Buffy making rescuing him from the Bringers a top priority? What is Buffy, knowing that Riley doesn't like him or approve of him, pulling in one last favour from the Initiative to save Spike?

Buffy may not have been able to love him as he would have wished for her to love him, but she didn't simply take without giving. Buffy gave him her belief, her faith, and her strength. Buffy gave him her trust, if not her heart.

I cannot see that as nothing.

I cannot see that as using.

I can see why Spike got the amulet. But it felt too much like the climax to 6 seasons of "The Redemption of Spike, the Vampire" instead of BtVS.

Yup.

Buffy wasn't using Spike this time (unlike last year) -she was giving him all she could. And he recognized that wasn't all he wished for-but it was, in the end, enough. IMO.

I can see why Spike got the amulet. But it felt too much like the climax to 6 seasons of "The Redemption of Spike, the Vampire" instead of BtVS...Yup.

And for me-an emphatic nope. The redemption of Spike WAS a MAJOR theme of the last three years (and one of my favorites) but Spike's Tale of Two Cities ending didn't take away from the other themes, all of which were represented in Chosen. The ending wasn't them talking about Spike. And the final shot wasn't a reference to Spike.

Buffy's not using Spike if Spike has made peace with where they are.

I'm like Plei in that. I've done that. With some people it would have been selfish torture, so I didn't go there. With others -- it was ... okay. Better than not doing it, for both of us.

edit: okay, that made it sound like scores of men were pining for me -- it's not that large a number, but the non-usey scenario is very plausible to me because I've seen/done it.

And somewhere, probably also in Cleveland, there is a two-year-old Slayer. Horrors.

Oh deena... what is Raptor Girl up to this morning?

My heart actually clutched and I thought, 'oh my god' when I read that.

It's fiction. It's only fiction. It's. just. fiction.

She's being very nice today. Maybe the tension of the whole first evil thing was getting to her yesterday.

Also, I, too, think they had the sex, and it was about comfort, and love, and she does love Spike, it's just not the OTP kind of love.

Wenda - I'm sure this comes as no surprise, because I see it very much the way Plei, does. As long as everyone is being honest about what they want (which includes (for me) saying, "I don't know what I want; I don't think it has to mean anything,") I don't see it as using. So in that sense, you and I just have to agree to disagree.

But above and beyond that, I also think her statment to Angel, [paraphrase] He's not my boyfriend, but he is in my heart shows her mindset. She's not denied feelings for him. She's not at a place where she needs to/wants to define them and or plan her life around them, and she's being honest about that, as well.

If Spike had been written as easily duped, and seeming to be led by her actions/words, to think she was in love with him, and if she knew that, and if she still continued and didn't disabuse him of the notion, then I'd be standing with you in the "u" corner.

But I didn't see any using going on in that story.

I did see her relying on him. But that's part of the whole sharing the power/empowering others theme, as far as I am concerned. And I'm someone who loves Buffy for her faults, not just in spite of them. I think she has faults aplenty. I just don't think using is one of them.

I like Anne's fanwank about Not!Giles. It makes sense and makes me happy.

Buffy may not have been able to love him as he would have wished for her to love him, but she didn't simply take without giving. Buffy gave him her belief, her faith, and her strength. Buffy gave him her trust, if not her heart.

Okay, sniff. Plei, that was kind of beautiful. t /Andrew

Buffy/Spike has had a weird and rocky path, but it felt like it ended the way it should have ended. "No you don't, but thanks for saying it." to Buffy's declaration was the perfect thing for Spike to have said. Then Spike going out in blazes laughing his fool head off--it felt *right*.

Plei and ita are right. And not just cos they're scary. I've been spike (I even had the hair!), and there's no black and white answer.

I'm very satisfied, and I know I'll be sad later, when the finality of it all seeps in. I loved the pretty bowknots on the ends of things, and I love the things left undone, to supply imaginative ramblings. I don't care if there was basement sex or not, the fact that both Buffy and Spike seemed easy together was enough. I loved the way Bufi&Angle4evah!!1! was dealt with, and even the cookie dough metaphor was their-era appropriate.

It was a worthy finale to a show that's broken ground in many ways during its run.

I'd say more, but Jim already spoke for me.