#the spike/buffy relationship is so compelling precisely because you get like five pretty distinct flavours. at least one is VERY romantic

[batsplat]

this came on my dash and ehhhh i'm not the type to reblog and criticise but apparently i AM the type who will snidely link to it instead

the thing is i don't even disagree that buffy has feelings for spike even by s6 but like. this is missing a pretty significant plot point. buffy died! she died and was brought back to life and felt like she was leaving heaven to return to hell. she's lying to her friends who tore her out of a peaceful, happy afterlife and she feels like she came back wrong. buffy sleeping with spike is like... it's supposed to be out of character, that's a big part of the storytelling of s6. spike gets to her when she's vulnerable and becomes the one person who won't condemn her 'wrongness', who she can confide into - and in return, she uses him. this is buffy in crisis, feeling like she's lost herself. from the dead things conversation with tara:

'using' someone isn't the same thing as 'casual sex' but it is like. in the same conceptual ballpark. and it is something that buffy is actively struggling with, because her emotions towards spike don't match up with what her principles tell her her actions should be. and spike's feelings for her still can't be characterised as straightforwardly romantic either because within the show's mythology, it does matter that he doesn't have a soul. with a lot of the good he does - even when he thinks buffy is dead - it's tough to know what his motivations are and whether they're truly 'pure'. and in turn, buffy is capable of acting the way she does towards spike by objectifying and dehumanising him, by treating him as someone not fully capable of pain in the way living humans are. the casual sex is... kinda part of that

i'm not even saying this post is completely wrong... again i do think buffy had real emotions for spike at that point, including for the reasons the reblog mentioned. and obviously the delight of that relationship is you can read it in a lot of different ways. but i feel like 'well if she didn't have feelings for him this would be super out of character behaviour' is a pretty poor argument given... the whole point is that she's acting out of character. it's explicitly out of character! maybe you can say this lapse from her is only possible if some prior emotions already existed, which, fine. but, man. you've got to acknowledge she just died. can we please acknowledge she just died