I think your thoughts here are very insightful.
Thank you! I was very pleased reading through it myself - it's nice to re-discover meta and still like it! :)

I always found Riley boring (and in "As You Were" found him completely infuriating in every way), but at the same time I always found him necessary to Buffy's journey.
*nods* He's very... nice, but I find it very hard to care very much.

She believes that order=a normal life, and that's why she holds onto Riley for so long. It's her chaos thinking order is intrinsically better, and I think she needed to actually see up close that it isn't, necessarily, for her.
Very true.

And you really get that here.
*beams*

Also the contrast with Spike are very, very interesting. Especially with the Spike seeing what's underneath, which is so true.
It always comes back to Spike... *g* But, I do find the differences telling - partly because Buffy herself of course points them out ("If I wanted someone with superpowers I'd be dating Spike...").

Though I would disagree with you about Spike in "Normal Again." I usually understand his POV very clearly, but I think in that moment he wasn't really saying that for Buffy's benefit (like he does in, say, "Touched") but for his own since he's still hurt over her breaking up with him. But that's just me. ;)
Oh it's definitely for his own sake - much like Riley tries to talk Buffy in to dating him in 'Doomed'. The difference being that Riley's words do nothing much except annoy Buffy, whereas Spike's have [short-term at least] a deep effect on her.

Anyways, again, I really, really enjoyed this. I rarely see meta posts about Riley, and this one is great. Thanks for it!
Thank *you* for reading! I have a few more post about Riley... *goes off to look* Yup! Two more, both fairly short:

B/R - a key difference.

B/R and B/S... a comparison of speeches.

Just in case you feel like some more reading! ;)