Cobalt Stargazer

Not to make it sound like I keep coming after you or anything, but I don't know what this even means. How is it possibly part of a 'hero's journey' for Spike to reclaim the coat of one of his murdered victims? Is it the equivalent of an animal pelt, something he skinned off of Nikki's corpse as a trophy? And then wore it proudly in front of the dead woman's son, *after* saying that if Wood ever so much looked at him cross-eyed again, he'd kill him? Talk about klassy.

I love Xander too. Sometimes Buffy needed someone who would unflinchingly question her judgement, which could be incredibly hit or miss. As for the Anya thing in Selfless, I think *Buffy's* hypocrisy is the bigger problem, since Lady Hacks Away ( D'Hoffryn) was so willing to kill Anya, and yet spare Spike once it's revealed that he killed people under the thrall of the First. Either there's one standard of justice or there isn't, IMO, and if there isn't then that's ting that Xander should have brought to Buffy's attention.

To quote Buffy herself re Spike's doing the right thing: "Let me get this straight. You want *credit* for not feeding off of bleeding disaster victims." Spike: "Well.....yeah." Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're only doing what's right so that you can score points with a girl you like, isn't that kind of being a Nice Guy? What makes an attempted rape so much worse than the however many hundreds of murders he must have committed before? Because it stops him from getting the girl? I don't see how it's heroic to be sorry for something you actually *didn't* do when all the things you *did* do don't even cross your mind.

I did like Sophia's sister Angela, who later became Angelo after Nancy Walker had to leave the role due to health reasons. But other than that, the Girls' relatives were awful.

Dianthus, I beg to differ in kind. Having a sexual relationship with a serial killer is not a part of (normal) growing up. It's one of the reasons Xander and Anya became problematic for me. I liked Anya, or at least I liked her more than I liked Spike, but it kind of did Xander no favors when she was sitting around joking about all the people she killed. And one of my other peeves is that Spike's sudden "love" for Buffy made a lie out of a hundred and however many years of him trying to win Dru's affections away from Angel/Angelus. Given his obsessive nature, his proud claims of being love's bitch, how does it make sense that he'd just turn on a dime and forget all of that? I'm aware that Dru isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Spike was very clearly utterly besotted with her when he first showed up. How is it believable that a dream changes the record that's been playing in his head for over a century? Also, I think 'special snowflake' is totally accurate, since Spike was the *only* vampire who ever willingly got a soul. What makes him so special/different/separate from other vamps that he'd voluntarily give up what he called 'happy meals on legs'? If he had that capacity all that time, the ability to change, doesn't it make him even worse that he didn't do it before? I know that the trope of the Bad Boy reforming for the love of a Good Woman has been around for ages, but IMO that just reduces Buffy to being the vessel of his redemption and nothing more, and I don't like that idea. I respect you or anyone else who disagrees, but as you can tell I feel strongly about this. :-)

Since I was one of those people, I'll try to field this. IMO, it *is* the cost of doing business that villains will try to end the world if they can. Angelus, Willow, Lex Luthor, most Bond villains, etc, for one reason or another, no matter how asinine, they're out to kill everybody, or at least utterly cow them into submission. Why? Because they're the bad guys, that's why. Further, Spike claimed that he was in love with Buffy. The fact that this supposed love didn't crop up until he had some ridiculous dream aside, if she had been in her right mind, she never would have gotten involved with him, even sexually. If a monster falls in love with a hero, that's one thing. If a hero returns those feelings, they're not really a hero anymore, IMO. BTVS was never supposed to be a show about gray morality, and it *wasn't* one until Joss decided that Spike was such a special snowflake that he was the only vampire in the history of ever who could decide to get a soul. If he can do it, why couldn't others? Buffy herself was never my favorite character on the show to begin with, but I don't appreciate her retroactively being made into a killer because there was the chance that some vamp somewhere could have opted to reform. YMMV.

Sophia: "I hate to leave, I've never seen a show like this."

Brought this over here from Alex's thread because I didn't know if discussing JJ there is verboten. I don't really know how these forums work yet, so I might make mistakes at first. I agree with you that JJ is pretty poorly written, but it's that she's poorly written and featured that's fueling my ambivalence towards/dislike of her. If she was less (IMO) ever-present, there might have been more room for a newer character to be developed, whether it was Blake or someone else.

The writers cannot make me hate Nicole, though that clearly seems to be their goal.

His kissing technique is worse. He seriously looked like he was trying to eat poor Maura's face during Crypt Sex. It's probably like being attacked by a facehugger.

Poor Alex, dead last. I got attached to her, and I like Tripplehorn, even if she was in Waterworld. I said this before the TWoP forums winked out of existence, but IMO one of the things that hamstrung Blake's character was Messer's decision to kill off Strauss as part of the Replicator storyline. Her backstory with Reid was important too, but there were things that could have been mined with Erin as well. With Strauss dead, another piece of Blake's history went unexplored, and while I'm aware they didn't really know what to do with her, I'm ambivalent about her not coming back. Maybe if JJ wasn't the golden girl, Alex could have gotten some more attention.

This is my first post ever in these forums. Rose: "I had never....seen a man before." Blanche: "A man?" Rose: "You know.....a *man*." The way Blanche cuts her eyes at Dorothy before she responds is what makes it gold, so to speak.