no but guys,,, on the subject of ,,, 'youre just a little bit in love with [death]" when he's literally a dead man talking to her,,,,
he's looking into her eyes and saying, i know what you want and i see it, and she knows it too,, and it's the death wish but it's also the vampire fetish,, and how buffy being into vampires, being into other slayers, has always been queercoded, has ALWAYS been about her non-normative desires
when he says, "that final gasp, that look of peace. part of you is desperate to know. what's it like? where does it lead you?"
and the way queerness is a kind of death. the way it's leaving behind one vision of what you thought life was going to be and intaking another, the way it's death as transformation. not to be a doctor who girl on main, but the way it's death as Just More Life Than You Were Expecting.
and the way buffy wants to know. the way that in the Text, buffy does have a death wish, it is implicitly acknowledged across this season and the next two. the way that, in the Subtext, that means buffy also wants the other thing. she wants the dead man. she wants the body she's not supposed to want. she wants queerly, and she wants that look of peace. that final gasp. she wants to know what it could be, to be happy and content, in a life of accepting and reveling and Living in wanting what she should not want....
And he sees her. sees even the parts she doesnt want to be seen. and He Knows, and most importantly, She Knows That He Knows,
and THAT'S why the back porch shoulder pat cry can happen. THAT'S WHY the "i can be alone with you here" can happen.
because spoike and buffy are the SAME PERSON, the text is SHOUTING IT AT US across the last three seasons, and in his origin story episode it's "i know im a bad poet, but i'm a good man. all i ask is that you try to See Me."
And he sees her. sees even the parts she doesnt want to be seen. and neither of them can help it. they are magnets. they are that thing queerness is when it is recognition of the self through the other, an encounter with the Self,,,,