'Til the end of the world

Their relationship is openly violent and destructive because the power struggle is text rather than subtext, as it was in her relationship with Angel, Riley, and even Parker.

The violent power struggle that exists openly in their relationship existed unspoken and unconscious in all of her past relationships. The undercurrent was always there, but was suppressed.

Angel and Riley enjoyed the fruits of Buffy’s power, strength, and her relationship to violence when it suited them and resented it or avoided it when it did not.

When Spike tells Buffy in Dead Things to “lay it all on me” and allows her to beat him in a bloody pulp without resisting, he is absorbing years of suppressed violence and pain that Buffy was not allowed to express freely in any of her other relationships. This same dynamic applies to her sexuality, and it is not a coincidence that these two things are interwoven in her relationship with Spike.

spike + glowing/gleaming

bonus: