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.

Someone said in an LJ that Buffy's last line of dialogue was "I love you, Spike."

Make of that what you will.

It wasn't, Teppy, but it was damn near. Her last line of dialogue was (I think) just, "Spike," in answer to Giles, when he asked what caused the sucked-into-the-earthness.

Make of that what you will.

The 'shipper wars will never end.