All Chapters Deserves Comments

Hades - Buffy (The most compassionate ruler of the dead)

Persephone - Spike (okay probably William)

Demeter - Drusilla

A quick Dru because I was going through Dru withdrawals

buffy & spike + of human bondage book

what’s so interesting about that is that on the surface, it looks like porn. something that’s just sex. but it’s not even about sex, and to eddie it comforts him by just existing next to his bed, something he reads over and over. this is what spuffy is. buffys trying to ignore past the cover page, she’s trying to claim that their relationship is just what it appears to be. a sexual relationship. but it’s not. it’s her security blanket. it’s spike’s too.

i need everyone to stop projecting their ideas of normal/traditional healthy human relationship/dynamics onto spike and buffy because there is literally no way in hell anybody in this show is redeemable or worthy of forgiveness by any standard if you do that, including buffy herself. and it's a complete waste of nuance that was very deliberately crafted into the story too. spike is a villain and buffy is a hero and both want to kill each other for different reasons and they both actively try to do exactly that multiple times. both feel deep deep hatred for one another for most of the time they spend in the other's presence. spike should by all accounts try to kill her constantly because he is the villainnnnn. it's almost his job. same way buffy should want to kill him any chance she gets. that's the standard that's set and that the characters should meet. it's only when they get caught off guard by their own self reflected back to them through this other being that their preconceived ideas of how they should behave take a step back and they engage with each other almost softly, very gently. like in the scene that's referenced in the op.

i guess my problem with it is that it comes across as if fans only like spuffy because james marsters is hot and people are too dumb to think critically about the media they're consuming. which sure, seeing these dynamics could be harmful if you're a teenager watching, but not more harmful than, say, bangel. not by any standards. bangel might be worse by the simple fact that angel is not supposed to be perceived as a villain so anything he does gets idealized and romanticized, while spike is perceived as a villain and punished for it all the way to the end of the show.