#buffy's anger when it's about people fucking with/hurting spike is HOT

[andthesunwillalwaysshine]

''You sent away THE ONE person that's been watching my back AGAIN'' ''Funny, it's not really what it feels like'' TELL HIM THE FUCK OFF BUFFY (she is literally true, Spike is literally the only one treating her right, and she does the same to him in this season.) (this season is a fucking love letter shouted with all the air in the world) (this is also about how Buffy is THE ONE and only slayer) (imo 2nd best season)

[winifredsandersonsbitch]

“Wallow”

Spike x Summers!Reader, BTVS

Warnings: swearing, violence, mentions of sex, S6 SPOILERS!!!

Description: Out of the five stages of grief, anger is the one that appeals most to the reader. Spike gets the brunt of it during training.

writing fanfics doesn’t feel so appropriate atm, but I wanted to take a break from signing petitions/writing letters (which I encourage you to do as well) and do something creative for a minute. Posting in case anyone else is in a similar situation

Training started up again the day after Buffy’s funeral.

It was important to keep moving, now more than ever. Spike didn’t think it was a good idea, but you shut him down every time he tried to bring it up. What you needed was not time or space or love. You needed to be prepared. You were not going to lose another sister. No one else was going to die. The universe had taken more than its due.

“Again,” you panted, and Spike lunged at you. He couldn’t go in with the intent to hurt you or his head would fill with white hot pain, so you were always uncomfortably aware of how much he was holding back, how easily he could take you if he wasn’t. Most times, he still beat you, although he always offered to fix you up after. All in all, he was a patient teacher, better than you deserved. But even he had his limits.

Spike tackled you to the ground, knocking the breath from your lungs, but you recovered quickly and aimed a punch at his face before he could pin down your arms.

Wheeling backwards, he stretched a hand out to his aching jaw, running it over the bruising skin. “Listen, sweetheart, I know my stamina is legendary, but we’ve got to give it a rest.”

“Again.”

This was all there was for you now. Practice and duty and anger. You wondered if this was how it had been for Buffy, near the end.

You woke up every morning with your skin a mottling greenish purple, darkening with time. Everywhere ached. You covered it up with makeup as best as you could for your shifts at the diner, but your coworkers were starting to notice.

No doubt they blamed it on the blond who sometimes came in to sit at the corner booth during your shifts.

Today hurt more than most. Spike had hurt your back the last time he slammed you against the alley wall, complaining that you fought like a rabid animal instead of a person when you tried to bite him to get away.

“Use anything that you have at your disposal.” You spat blood into the gravel. “That was your first rule. Come at me again.”

That was when he threw you across the alley.

It wasn’t the first time you had been tossed around in a fight. But for some reason, this time you couldn’t get up. You hit a pile of crates and struck your abdomen before rolling over onto your back.

You had practiced being thrown before, falling, all of it, but this was different. Today your anger had gotten the best of you. You had only been focusing on hurting him, not on protecting yourself. And now you couldn’t move.

Spike appeared above you, a bone-white face in a field of black night. You wheezed, trying to take in air that wouldn’t come.

“Fuck, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to throw you so hard. Can you sit up?”

“Something cracked,” you said, and Spike reached out for you, then yanked his hand back like he was afraid he’d hurt you more by touching you. Then he covered the side of your waist with either hand, trying to relocate the pressure that would come with hauling you up to his body instead of yours.

“Here, I’m going to help you up, we’re going to take you to the hospital. I’ll call the others. We’ll— What the hell are you— Stay down, woman!”

You put your hand flat on the crate nearest to you and hauled yourself to your feet. Then you put your fists up, your knuckles bloody from where the scabs had split.

“We—don’t—stop,” you puffed, each word more difficult to get out than the last. “A real fight doesn’t— stop— for anything.”

“This isn’t a real fight,” he reminded you. He reached out and you ducked under his arm, a lightning strike of pain shooting up your side where the bone had fractured. But you came out on the other side, planting your feet.

“It’s real. You’re a vampire.” You needed him to be as worked up as you were, so you pushed this button deliberately. “I’m the new Slayer.”

“You’re not—”

“I am.” You were taking shallow breaths now, trying to stay steady. “She’s gone and I’m here. Someone has to take over.”

“There’s already a new Slayer out there, you don’t have to—”

“I promised my mom I would take care of her. And if I couldn’t do that, then I’ll make damn sure I take care of Sunnydale. Now fight me.”

With one swift move, he had your wrists pinned behind your back, making your ribs groan.

Jesus Christ.

“You can handle it,” Spike said, reading your mind. “Don’t think I’m going easy on you. Not when you seem to like the pain so well.”

You weren’t strong enough to shake him off. Months of this, of trying to train your body to do better, and you still didn’t possess a fraction of what Buffy had.

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about, love?”

He bent his neck over your shoulder like he was playing the part of the loving boyfriend getting ready to place a kiss on your cheek, maybe hold you from behind like he was helping you to line up a shot in golf.

“I need to get better.”

“You’re killing yourself.”

“No.” You almost broke your wrists pulling out of his grip and he had to steady you before you fell back. He placed a hand on middle of your ribcage where the skin was beginning to swell, wincing. “I wouldn’t do that to Dawn. To any of them. I’m only trying to make it right. Willow will look me over when we’re done.”

Spike shook his head. “I know this is how you deal with grief from your mum, but this is ridiculous.”

“This is nothing like that.”

“No?”

You picked your jacket up off the ground, shaking it out. You got hot during training, but you were freezing now.

“No.”

He followed you out of the alley doggedly, his thunderous footsteps right behind your own. Across the street, down the sidewalk, and into your car. He climbed in before you could lock the doors. Sitting down made the pain in your ribs flare, but you filed that away under Things to Deal with Later.

“Tell me.”

“It’s just different.” He continued to watch you steadily. Stealthily. Hungrily. You reached to start the car, but he stilled your hand. You slapped his away.

“Why do you care? Do you really have so few other friends that you have to follow me around like a lost puppy? Get out, Spike.”

“You know why.”

You did. He told you before, before Buffy took the high dive, but you had ignored him. Even when he offered to kill Drusilla for you, even when he almost got himself killed by Glory to save Dawn. You believed he felt something. Lust, a proximity to danger. Something to make his immortal life more interesting. But as you had told him before, that wasn’t the same as love.

“Get out.”

“I care about you,” he said through clenched teeth. “For the last year, I’ve only tried to do right by you. You say that you don’t want to play the part of the broken girl, but here you are. I should nominate you for a bloody Oscar.”

“Just because I don’t want to fuck you doesn’t mean that—”

Spike almost broke off the handle as he slammed open the car door, his jaw tight.

“Don’t come crying to me when no one else is willing to stomach your bullshit.”

You stewed in the car for all of two minutes, smacking the horn and screaming at the top of your lungs, before you calmed down enough to think things over.

You were miserable.

Mostly because of Buffy’s death, but also because you were tired of trying to fill her shoes. You couldn’t come up with that many puns in combat or put slaying ahead of everything else. You couldn’t lock down your feelings in order to get the job done. You couldn’t even be honest with the people you loved about how you felt.

You fully considered letting Spike walk out of your life and never come back. You probably would have, too. If he hadn’t been right. If he hadn’t found a way to get you the money you needed after your mother’s death. If he hadn’t volunteered to watch Dawn, to do extra research, even to make dinner one night when you were feeling especially out of it. He almost burned the house down, but he had tried.

You had lashed out at him more times than you could count, and he always took it with a steadiness that kept you grounded when it counted. And now, when he finally bit back, it was because you had suggested that all he wanted from you was sex.

You rolled out of your seat, locked up the car, and tucked the keys in your pocket, swiveling blindly. Where had he gone? Back to the crypt? To the alley? You saw a flicker of black disappear around the corner and followed.

You caught a glimpse of Spike ducking into a decrepit all-night bar. Tugged your jacket tighter around yourself. Prayed that no one would recognize you. Stepped inside.

It was the seedy kind of monster venue that only he could like. Demons leered at you from behind tables marked with blood and vampires ordered drinks at the scuffed bar top. Spike was ordering a Bloody Mary when you sat down next to him. The stool creaked beneath your weight, but he didn’t so much as look at you. The bartender glared at you disapprovingly but let you be. To soften him up, you ordered your own drink, although you didn’t know if you’d be able to take a single sip. The place didn’t look very sanitary.

“I know when I’m wrong,” you said to the glasses behind the bar. “I’m not trying to put up walls. But I don’t want anyone taking care of me. I don’t like to be treated like I’m fragile.”

That wasn’t true. You remembered that one night after your shift when all you had wanted was to be babied. To have someone else take the load for you. But that was before and this was now.

Spike stayed silent. You cleared your throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dangle anything in front of you. When I suggested we train together, I wasn’t leading you on. Or I didn’t mean to be leading you on. It’s just different being around you than the others.”

You could practically hear crickets chirp in here. The bartender dropped off your drinks and Spike took a long sip. Like you didn’t even exist.

“I didn’t want to ruin what we have.”

You were conscious of sounding like every annoying movie protagonist ever.

“Not that we have anything, only—we’re friends, aren’t we? I don’t want the only reason for you hanging out with me to be that you’re waiting for the day you can get in my pants. So I ignore it, like it’ll make it go away,” you babbled. Demons were giving you disgusted glances now, but you rushed on. “And I meant what I said, about how this isn’t like when my mom died. I always knew that any one of us could meet something we couldn’t come back from. I had a plan then. I saved and I learned how to do taxes and I made sure Dawn got to school. But now when the money’s almost run out and we’ve been through two funerals, I can’t—I can’t do this. Any of it. And if you’re only in this for the chase and I give in, that means I have one less person on my side, and I used to have friends, people I trusted, but then life started revolving around Buffy like she was the sun and now— Now she’s gone. And I don’t want anyone to love me ever again, I only want to know that I can take care of myself in the absence of love. I only want to know that I can take care of who’s left.”

He still wasn’t looking at you. And whose fault was that? You had burned your last bridge to the one person left in your life who had known you and cared about you more than Buffy. Who was more concerned with your life than her death. Wasn’t that awful of you? To have ever wanted that?

“I’m sorry,” you said again. You left the money for your drink and stood up. “I thought you should know.”

God, your ribs fucking hurt. You applied pressure to the swelling like you were holding in your internal organs as you dragged your feet to the front door. Then you heard one of the barstools squeal as Spike spun in a full rotation, casual as the devil.

He finished his drink and stood, meeting your eyes for the first time and prying the keys from your hand.

“Come on then. I’ll drive you home.”

[phantomchick]

Can I ask what are your fav ships pretty, pretty please?

!!! Okay sure. 

I’m uh a multi shipper so I’m gonna put a read more after the first 3 if that’s okay?-

Wonderbat - Diana and Bruce are the one’s in control of the justice league’s shared braincells and I love their harmony and their commitment to helping people as much as they can whenever they can. I watched the Justice League Animated series as a child and I’ve never stopped loving their dynamic since. That show is the lens through which I look at this ship. It’s the Yearning. It’s the attraction. It’s the wonder. It’s the way they smirk at each other. It’s everything.-

Superbat - It’s the trust. Clark gave Bruce kryptonite because he was the only one he could trust to be Superman’s watchman. He gave him the ultimate power to destroy him and trusted that he wouldn’t unless it was necessary, he trusted him to be selfless and think of everyone even if it meant hurting a friend, and he trusted him to be the one to end him if he ever went bad because he didn’t want to die to someone who didn’t love him. On the other hand, Bruce trusts Clark with his secrets and also is the one he turns to for advice as an equal. He trusts Clark to be a good person and to remind him that he’s one too when he doesn’t feel like one at all. Also the way they troll each other is fantastic.

-

SuperHood - Because Kara and Jason both have anger issues and daddy issues and abandonment issues and trust issues and ptsd and yet they’re both fundamentally good people. Also the fic writers and fan artists really brought their A game even if canon didn’t so now I’m infected, it’s too late for me, I will go down with this ship. 

RedRed - Red Devil x Red Hood - Eddie was Jason’s penpal as robin and they’ve had zero interaction since Jason came back from the dead. But seeing as Eddie remains the only canon character who actually maintains that Jason was a good robin I am fucking sold on the potential of this dynamic. Also they can be old movie nerds together.

BruTalia - Because Talia isn’t what morrison and recent canon made her. She’s the morally complex daughter of an assassin overlord and Bruce is her father’s most dangerous enemy and her greatest love. In a black and white world full of Villains and Heroes, Talia and Bruce connect in the grey. Talia believes in The Batman and the good he’s capable of more than almost anyone on Earth and I will die on that hill. Bruce believes that Talia’s more than where she comes from and how she was raised, and also has a soft spot for intelligent/beautiful women who can handle his world both as a Wayne and as a Bat. She makes Bruce remember what’s most heroic and noble about himself when he’s at his lowest most self loathing points, and he makes her remember that there’s always a choice. I love this ship because it’s Romantic, in the relationship sense of the word and in the ‘stories of romance and daring do’ sense.

Ren/Kyoko - diving out of the dc fandom here, Tsuruga Ren and Mogami Kyoko’s love story has been making me swoon since I was in secondary/high school. It’s the good stuff.

Merthur - Merlin/Arthur - because it’s hilarious and dramatically romantic all at once. And the fic writers reeeeally bring their game.

Spirk - Kirk/Spock - It’s the premise and we approve. *Salutes the fandom elders who grew this ship from the seeds* Let’s boldly go motherfuckers!

Spike/Buffy - because angel’s condescending and can’t match the sheer witty banter of this dynamic even on his best day. Also Spike is hot.

Germany/Italy - hetalia was an adorable junk food for the brain kind of show that should really have been more blatantly anti nazi even still. But… the fandom as a whole really brought their passion for this ship? Like the pure Creativity and taking silver and turning it into gold with nothing but personal investment in the characters’ dynamic to do it with, kind of passion. There are a lot of fancomics set in the modern era where these anthropomorphic personifications of countries are not currently under the sway fascist governments … and it’s adorable. A guilty pleasure kind of ship.

Joker/Harley - I’m gonna get a lot of flack for this one, but as a dc fan I just find comics with them together more entertaining. Also batman: the animated series made it impossible for me not to love seeing this twisted mess of a ship!Yes it’s an unhealthy relationship, do I still find them fun and enjoy seeing and exploring said fucked up relationship? Uh Yeah! This ship makes me remember the good old days when Harley’s character wasn’t all over the place depending on whether the writer woke up feeling like she’s a hero, an anti hero, a villain or something inbetween - with no discernible transition or actual redemption arc to justify any of it. Also back when The Joker wasn’t the most annoying character alive but actually a highlight in Batman’s arsenal of rogues and a fun antagonist to read about. This ship is mostly sunk by canon and also poison ivy, but I still have fun when I see the fan art.

Kataang - because Aang is always there for Katara and is the first person to believe in her and really listen to her about her dreams and desires for the future. And because Katara grounds Aang and actually cares about his wellbeing more than his abilities as an avatar. Also they’re just cute.

Toph/Zuko - because I like it and for no deeper reason than that.

Clark/Lex - because the identity porn of Lex loving Clark but hating Superman is fantastic and also canon.

Bruce x good writing - the ultimate rarepair when will canon let them be together? WHEN. 

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 6x16 Hell’s Bells

aka the cycle of abuse

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And in today’s episode my hot take is that I feel for Xander. Well, it’s not as much of a hot take, as it is taking a stance on a topic of contention, I guess, but there, you have it. I’m sympathetic.

Okay, so maybe “me feel bad” really isn’t a hot take, but I find that Xander’s choice at the end of Hell’s Bells can still be a bit of a hot topic for many fans on multiple levels. Not only do people criticize Xander as a character for it, but the storyline and writing itself.

Which I do get. While we were told throughout the season that Xander has his fears and doubts about this wedding, those weren’t nearly as prominent or well-established as Buffy’s depression or Willow’s issues with power and addiction. By which I mean that they didn’t seem so severe that would naturally lead to this outcome – mostly because we haven’t really explored what’s at the heart of those fears.

But that’s also my next point. While there may not have been as much focus on the source of most of Xander’s trauma this season, it’s been all over the series from the get go.

Xander had a horrible home life. Sometimes the references to this might not seem quite as obvious, since Xander’s learned to cope with it through humor; but other times, it’s painful in its rawness.

For me the best episode to pair with Hell’s Bells for that matter is Restless. I mentioned before that the dream sequences there are particularly illuminating when it comes to Willow and Xander’s characters for me. And in the latter’s case, this is the episode where that truly pays off.

Remember, in Restless by the end of his dream, Xander’s fears manifested in a looming shadowy figure breaking down his basement’s door to rip his heart out. A threat that was revealed to be his own father.

Think about that act itself. It’s not just that in a world full of demons and monsters Xander’s most afraid of his own father. That’s already pretty fucked up. It’s also that in that vision of his fears manifesting, what his father does is to rip his heart out. The symbol of his ability to love and care for his friends and the family he made for himself.

And make no mistake, that is what defines Xander the most. That’s the person who he wants to be. I criticize Xander from time to time for being emotional, for acting on his feelings without thought – something that he admittedly does here as well. But that’s just as much his strength as it is his weakness.

With all his flaws and insecurities, at his core, Xander’s just all heart.

So, is it any wonder that what he’s afraid of the most is losing that? And the pain he’d cause to his loved ones as a result?

The vision of the future Xander’s shown is fake, but it’s one that’s clearly concocted of his own worst nightmares. And the last moment of that paints a terrifying picture of the cycle of abuse as Vision!Xander is just about to hit Vision!Anya.

This episode, more than any that came before makes it crystal clear that Xander’s father is a piece of garbage of a human being, with the rest of his family being different levels of awful. And the psychological scars that were left from growing up in that environment run deep. They were also left unexamined in regards to Xander’s impending marriage, so it’s no wonder that exposing them so violently shook Xander up this much.

Was it right for him to leave Anya at the altar? Of course not. It was bad, hurtful and irrational. This idea that marriage is something you can’t undo and could be a mistake that lasts forever is very Catholic of the show – but I mostly chalk it up to Xander’s tendency to act on his emotions that he couldn’t think past that, and remember that divorce exists.

Truly a miraculous invention in our society.

So, yeah. My two cents on Xander in Hell’s Bells is that he was obviously wrong, but I feel strongly and deeply for him just as well. We all face moments in our lives where we’re paralyzed by our fears, unable to make the right choice even when we know what that would be.

(I am much less forgiving on how he handles himself in the aftermath of that, but that’ll be a discussion for another day.)

It sucks nevertheless, and my heart breaks for Anya. In a way, this is her own past mistakes coming back to haunt her; except that the demon-guy doesn’t really what matters. Rather it’s what he exposed in Xander, and the pain Xander’s actions caused Anya.

It’s also worth noting that D’Hoffryn only now offered back Anya’s old job after he refused her back when she lost her powers. Vengeance demons can only be created through pain. Channeling and directing that pain onto others is what fuels them, but Anya’s spent a millennium already detached from the original source of her anger at that point. D’Hoffryn waited for her to go back to that place of darkness before taking her back, for Anya to feel desperate to escape her pain once again.

On a lighter note, we get some nice comedy out of the wedding party, like Dawn bonding with a demon kid about embarrassing relatives, or Buffy still being the worst liar in history. Buffy and Spike also share another nice moment of honesty, and while Xander and Anya’s relationship is breaking down, Tara and Willow are starting to reconnect.

Working relationships in the Buffyverse basically follow the laws of thermodynamics. Everything tends towards entropy, and when one relationship is going well, it inevitably means that another one is falling apart concurrently. That’s just basic conservation theory.

Entropy is coming for us all, guys. Sooner than you might think even…

[babygirl06301]

Spike Analysis - Season 4

Alrighty, here we go with season 4 of Buffy. I know I said that I was going to do one post per significant episode for Spike, but his character development in season 4 is so damn choppy. His parts in any given episode are small, but put them together and you’ve got a lot to work with. So, that’s what we’re gonna do. From the top!

We see Spike initially in “The Harsh Light of Day.” This is the episode that ends up crossing over with Angel (one of the episodes this season, anyway). Basically, Dru has dumped Spike again and he’s back in Sunnydale with Harmony. He’s looking for the Gem of Amara which will make him invincible. Why does he want to be invincible? Well, I’ve got a theory (that it’s a demon. A dancing demon… Sorry). Spike for sure wanted to be invincible so that Buffy wouldn’t kick his ass the next time he tried to kill her—that worked well, huh?—but I think he also wanted it for personal reasons. You know how Angel always talks about how he wishes he could go out into the sun and be “a real boy” or whatever? I think, subconsciously, Spike wanted that, too. Also, one of the main things with Spike this episode is his new relationship with Harmony. The whole thing is super abusive on his part, and all that is, is Spike wanting to take out his anger for women on someone. It’s a horrible thing to do, but how much can you really blame the poor sod? The dude had to turn into a blood-sucking creature of the night to escape the shame of rejection from Cecily. The only other thing with this episode is that Spike totally gets his ass kicked by Buffy when he tries to kill her on the UC Sunnydale campus. He loses the Gem, which gets taken to Angel, which he then goes after. I’m not going to go over that episode of Angel because all it is, is normal Spike stuff. No development.

Okay, next up to discuss is “The Initiative.” This is where The Initiative kidnaps Spike and sticks that behavior chip in his head. There’s not a whole lot to talk about by way of character development until the scene with Willow in her dorm room. Spike went there to kill Buffy, right, but he settled for Willow instead. Willow and Spike are always great together because, even if he’s trying to kill her, they’re always really sweet to each other. I don’t if that’s because Spike identifies with her or what. That would make sense in this scene because Spike has just been dumped by Dru, and Oz has just left Willow. It could also be because, at Willow and Spike’s cores, they’re just big ‘ol softies. Anyway, back to the scene. So, Spike figures out here that he can’t kill, bite, or hurt Willow. Which is super embarrassing for him. It’s not hard to miss the metaphor pointing to impotence here. The show plays up the sensual/sexual aspect of being a vampire quite a bit. I mean, it makes sense considering the drinking of blood most likely provides the same euphoric effect that sex does, not to mention, they’re both primal acts. Willow comforts him until she realizes she’s insane and hits him over the head with a lamp.

Follow me to “Pangs” for some more Spike-chip developments. So, I’m gonna paraphrase here what James Marsters said in the DVD featurette about Spike on the Season 4 DVDs. Basically, the fun part about being a vampire (unless you’ve got a soul) is getting to kill and terrorize people. You can steal anything you want, kill anyone you want, and you’ve got no repercussions to deal with. However, now Spike can’t do that. Not only won’t he get a job, but he really can’t because he doesn’t exist to the world as a real person. He can’t kill people to eat them or to rob them, so there’s no way for him to get blood. Harmony’s given up on him and the only people he knows in town are the damn Scoobies. So… he’s fucked. This is the first of a few episodes of Spike living with Giles. Season 4 is kind of rubik's cube of confusion for Spike as a character because… where does he fit? You can see the various different scenarios the writers try to put Spike in to make him work within the Scoobies. This episode, for example, is the bit where they try and make Spike into Cordelia. He gets ties up and has to listen to the Scoobies discuss what to do about this Native American spirit that is trying to kill all of them (because they don’t want to hurt him since… well, since America has hurt enough Native Americans for several lifetimes). For Spike, the solution is very simple: all that shit happened a long time ago, and you need to kill him before he kills you. Don’t be dumb. Which sort of establishes Spike as an intelligent and observant character, and that’s something that gets used and abused for the rest of the show. It also tells us that, if they have to, the Scoobies and Spike can stand to be around each other.

Moving right along to “Something Blue.” I’ve not got a lot to say here. This episode is pretty much Buffy and Spike making disgusting smooching noises and Giles not being okay with it. The only thing I would say towards Spike’s development is that it’s the first of two seeds planted this season that end up growing toward Spike falling in love with Buffy in the following season.

The next significant episode this season is “Doomed.” Spike finally figures out that he can hurt/kill demons. This is, of course, after he tries to kill himself in Xander’s basement. When he, Willow, and Xander are walking out of the museum, Spike attempts to make Willow and Xander feel like inferior pieces of shit on the grounds that they’re just weighing Buffy down. You can see in that scene that Spike is happy to be able to cause someone some pain somehow, which seems to be fine for him in that moment. But the real kicker is when he realizes he can still kill—it just has to be demons. And, shockingly enough, that’s good enough for him. This sort of backs up something that he and Angel talk about in Angel’s 5th season: that Spike just wanted kill while Angel was in it for the evil. All of this leads to him, in the next season, believing that he doesn’t want to kill people anymore (that was his reasoning when he was trying to tell Buffy he loved her) and then to him actually not wanting to kill people anymore when he gets his soul. So, this episode is huge for Spike, and we see the results from it carry all the way to the end of the chip’s storyline.

“A New Man” and “The I in Team” I’m going to sort of glom together because basically what these two episodes do is begin the mutually beneficial relationship between Spike and the Scoobies (I do a thing for you, you pay me money. You do a thing for me, I may do another thing for you later… but only for money). Of course, we know this relationship keeps going in one form or another at least through season 5. I’m not so sure about season 6 because I don’t remember hearing him ask for money in that season. However, that’s the only way he could afford to buy blood unless, for some reason, the Scoobies decided to give him money to buy blood regardless because of his help after Buffy died. Maybe he got paid for babysitting Dawn. I dunno.

Okay, moving on. “Who Are You” is the second episode this season with Faith. Faith is already in Buffy’s body by this episode. The scene with Faith and Spike in the Bronze is the second seed that blossoms into Spike falling for Buffy. Yes, it is Faith in Buffy’s body teasing Spike and getting him all hot and heavy… but Spike doesn’t know this. He legit thinks Buffy is fucking with him right now. And you can totally tell that Spike would be down. I feel like this is an epiphany for him, like “Holy shit… she’s fucking hot.” You know? And then he says, “You and me are gonna have a confrontation.” Like, that’s such a formal way to tell her that he’s going to kick her ass? It’s like Spike was rehearsing what to say in his head, trying to make it sound menacing but cool and collected at the same time, and it just came out strange because he was so flustered. It’s one of my favorite moments from this season, for real.

I haven’t got a lot left to say about season 4. I mean, “The Yoko Factor” is a pretty good example of Spike being a very observant character. And it also tells us that Spike doesn’t give two shits about the lives of the Scoobies unless it benefits him. Like, he doesn’t give a fuck if Willow is gay or if Xander feels inferior or if Giles feels unwanted. He’s just uses it to further his own desires, which is classic Spike. I guess, with his deal with Adam, you get to see a different side of Spike in that Spike has never really been below someone before, at least not in the sense of working for them. So, that’s quite strange. And by the end of the season, the Scoobies have gotten used to Spike being around, even though they know he’ll still do shitty things if he can. Overall, other than the chip, Spike doesn’t have a lot going on in season 4. But, next up we’re working on season 5, and oh, boy. I’m pretty pumped. It’s gonna be a good time.

Hope you enjoyed the rambles!