I feel some rants coming on.

Rant the first: The forum. I feel like I can't state an opinion there without somebody thinking I'm dictacting board policy. I blame TWoP, because, well, that's how they are. In the Buffy forums, anyway. Not always, but often enough. But that's not how I am, and that's not how any of my mods are. Frankly, I resent that if somebody leaves of their own volition because they feel they're getting too obsessive over the show, people just assume that they've been run out because they disagreed with me. And I think discussion there is faltering because people there are afraid to disagree with me. But I've done nothing to make people see me in that light, and in fact have bent over backwards to make it clear that that's not how these boards are run. I don't know what else to do, beyond setting up a new account under a different username to post under when I'm discussing the show, and only use the cj moniker when I am in fact establishing board policy, so people will be sure to know the difference.

Gah!

Rant the second: A Buffy rant. Or a Spuffy rant. Or possibly even a B/A rant. You decide. I was going to post this over in the forum, but like I said, somebody there is bound to take this as me saying they're not allowed to think this way, so I'll leave it over here.

Anyway. After Spike got hit with his soul, people went on and on about how they hope he's nothing like Angel and that his storyline won't become a retread of Angel's. Then we got to the new season, and saw that he wasn't, and that it wasn't, and it was all good. But now it seems to me that a lot of these same people are pissed off at Buffy because she's not reacting to Spike the same way she reacted to Angel, and that they're really hoping for B/A to be re-enacted with James Marsters in the role of Angel. People? I'm here to tell ya, you can't have it both ways.

Spike is not Angel. Buffy's prior relationship with Spike was nothing like her relationship with Angel. Buffy is not even the same Buffy now that she was when she was dealing with Angel. So why would she relate to Spike now the same way she related to Angel several years ago? This makes no sense to me, and I'm sorry, but I think pointing to Buffy's attitude towards Angel as evidence that she must not care a whit for Spike because she's being different with him is, well, a crap argument.

We were given blatant evidence as recently as "Beneath You" that Buffy does indeed care about Spike. Even in the last two episodes she showed tenderness to him in her limited interaction to him. I've already posted here and there about how I think Buffy is working overtime to keep her feelings regarding Spike -- be they anger, love, fear, compassion, or all of the above -- reined in because they're too overwhelming right now, not just for her but for him as well. Hell, she told us as much in Same Time, Same Place. "You scared me a little. I didn't know what to think." And she still doesn't know what to think. With Angel, he got his soul back, and he was her boyfriend again. With Spike, it was the demon she admitted to wanting, to having feelings for. Now he has a soul and is crazy and keeps calling himself William. Is he even the same guy anymore? Or is he somebody completely new? And is that a good or a bad thing? I don't know, and I sure as hell don't expect Buffy to know.

I warned you that this was a rant. Anyway. I don't resent people who disagree with me on this front. But I do resent implications that just because I'm not too blinded by anger at ME and at Buffy that I can see the admittedly very subtle signs that she does still care about Spike, that I must be somehow deficient or, at best, delusional. And I'm irritated that those whom I know agree with aren't backing me up. Even though I know they have more important things to worry about, like getting DL ready to post tomorrow night. Like I said, this is a rant. Sense really has no place in it.

But I'm happy with this season so far. I want to see a Spike & Buffy story that Angel will stay the hell out of, thank you very much, and that's what I'm getting. And I see evidence that she at the very least cares about Spike, and has the potential to fall in love with him, if she's not already there on some level. The way she approached him to check out his wounds in "Lessons;" the way she followed after him to find out what was wrong with him in "Beneath You;" the tears she shed for him in that same episode; her admission of fear in "Same Time, Same Place" and the way she softened when she delivered it; the tender way she took his hand when he started hitting himself in "Help," and the way she looked pleased to see him when he showed up to fight beside her later in that episode. These all show me a Buffy who cares about Spike, and is concerned about him, but who hasn't the faintest clue what to do about it. And I can wait for her to figure it out. Honestly, if she'd fallen into his arms by now, or let him fall into hers as the case may be, I'd have gotten a cheap thrill, but then I'd have been scared that it wouldn't last. The fact that ME is handling this so carefully, is building it up slowly and building as much sympathy for Spike as they can possibly muster, tells me that they're building something that will last.

Here endeth the ranting.