Didn't mean to co-opt the thread with my angst. Sorry.

And thanks, all.

Crap, Victor. Sorry to hear about the ferret. Was that the one with the debilitating condition?

Kallisti, #1, is the sickest of them, and his condition is ... well, it's better today than yesterday, but we think it's near his time.

And I agree that Riley 1.0 would have been an interesting character.

He was such an amiable goof! And Sunday ruled. They should have kept her around. We never got to see her deal with Spike. Or Harmony. Hmmm. I smell fanfic!

victor, so sorry about your ferrets!

And I really liked early Reilly. Honstly.

I've been going through S4, too, and agree with this. He was so goofy and sweet and charming.

To explore Buffy & Riley's relationship a bit, is there anyone else who thinks that Buffy didn't really love Riley? I know she said she did and I see bits of it in the way she behaves in S4. But by S5? I think she was in love with the idea of Riley, but not really him. She always seemed to keep him at arm's length and not really let him in emotionally.

Thoughts? Rebuffs? Am I insane?

ChiKat, I agree. I'm not sure she said she loved him though. Or at least...I don't remember her ever saying it to him. It's weird, because I think she loved him as a friend, and she was attracted to him, but there was still something missing.

I'm with Victor on season 4 Riley, by the way.

Welcome, Kern.

Oh I totally agree with you Chikat -- I think that she had a crush on him in Season 4 but really just liked the idea of him by Season 5.

I also liked early Reilly and seriously -- they should have kept Sunday around. (There could be Harmony-Sunday fic from that whole summer post-Graduation.)

I think she was in love with the idea of Riley, but not really him. She always seemed to keep him at arm's length and not really let him in emotionally.

She liked his relative normalcy. She also liked that he knew that she was The Slayer, and that he could hold his own in a fight.

and they totally should have kept Sunday. They sometimes waste villains, like Mr. Trick. I think that they should have let him skip town, to return another day. They still could have had the Faith/Mayor storyline if he had left town.

Having both ferrets sick at once is just uncalled for. Especially when one of them is the most beautiful. I'm sorry, Victor.

I'm sorry to hear about the ferrets, victor.

sumi and Vortex have summed up my position on Buffy and Riley. She wanted to love him, and may have convinced herself she did, but we omniscient viewers know better.

Tending to agree with much of the "did Buffy love Riley" ideas, but I think she also felt the need for A Boyfriend, and Riley loved her.

When she decided not to call Ben, it was like a light bulb went off in her head that it was ok to be unattached. Which suggests to me that she'd been in the mode of "gotta have someone" up until then.

Riley's shining moment was his resigned, "but she doesn't love me."

He should have really just left then, or he and Buffy should have had a slow, painless sizzle. The melodrama only weakened the real pain there. Understatement was called for.

I agree. I felt like Riley (as a character) got trashed. Now that's a weird thing for me to say, because I enjoyed his slide to the pathetic corner of the dark side. I did not enjoy his whinging, though. And I felt badly that he left the way he left. I think that's one of the non-Buffy reasons I liked As You Were. Riley's last note was less sour.