Butting in because I feel like fighting I guess. This is what bothers me about this discourse and its that the Spuffy stance is always wildly strawmanned to hell and back and we're meant to.... what? Defend the stance of some rando elsewhere? "Spuffies use that to say Spike deserves Buffy--" hold on, are the Spuffies who say that in the room with us? Cause it's not me, that's not OP's take either, and I fail to see why we should need to answer at all for some shit someone else says in some other corner of the internet.
I am deep in this fandom, I live on Elysian Fields, Spuffy central. I have never seen anyone say that Buffy must, against her own will, be with Spike to reward him for his soul. They likely exist somewhere, but acting like it's the default stance is beyond bad faith, and expecting me to answer for ANYTHING other than the things I have said is ridiculous.
For the record, Spike doesn't express this take either. Spike, in fact, HIDES his soul. He brushes off Buffy's concern for him, accusing her of coddling him. When she starts to separate him from his soulless self (you know, the way Angel taught her to), Spike very firmly pushes back against it and argues there was "no one else" but him who committed his sins.
Spike only ever argues that he's different and safe for Buffy to have as an ally. He doesn't expect love or even friendship, he frequently chafes against Buffy being too kind to him. If it were up to him, he probably would have let her believe he was still soulless and would take whatever judgment accompanies that assumption. It was only because he lost his mind and babbled out something that tipped Buffy off that she even found out.
If you think that Spike should shut down entirely from Buffy reaching out to him and aiming to reconcile of her own volition because its "wrong" and he should be viewed as "irredeemable", then that is, to be blunt, stupid. Why should Spike get to dictate their relationship? Sorry that you don't like it, anon, but Buffy canonically chooses to forgive him. Not because Spike plays some weird 4-d chess to manipulate her into it, but because she wants to. Spike is the one frequently pushing back, but he ultimately respects her feelings and that it gives her peace to reconcile. Why shouldn't he? Because you, the invisible audience member, don't like it?
The argument against s7 spuffy is always the same dishonest framing; claiming, with little evidence, that Spike pesters her (he does not). Disregarding Buffy's own agency. Half-remembered plot points twisted out of their original context. Moving goal posts. Blah blah blah. I'm tired of always being talked around and having none of my real takes engaged with, it's pointless.