this might be a hot take or unpopular opinion based on btvs meta i've read before but i actually kinda agree with buffy's self-loathing for fucking and having feelings for spike in s6. not in the sense of "she's right she should hate herself" but more along the lines of "i would feel that too" because you guysss. regardless of the subtext and the themes and symbolism of spike being her shadow and her arc being about integrating it etc etc. and spike representing that perfectly without his soul.. in-universe as in from buffy summers the person's perspective, spike is not just the vague idea of a soulless vampire that's just risen from the grave and she should want to kill him because that's just what she does.. she actually KNOWS the things he's done throughout the centuries. which is torture, rape, murder, massacres, etc. the whole scooby gang knows. which is why it also doesn't bother me so much when xander shits on spike for being a monster or whatever or treats him like crap. because he's right. no matter how much i love spike or how much i love and appreciate his arc and how special he is as a soulless vampire, it is canonically established that he has massacred and raped innocent people before, including children. even spike himself once he has his soul talks about how he would torture young girls to provoke buffy into killing him. souled spike would not treat soulless spike very nicely either. so tbh i would feel kinda disgusted with myself if i had feelings for someone like that, and i would feel kinda disgusted with a friend of mine if they were having feelings for someone like that, im gonna be honest here. i still ADORE spike as a character but in universe? i don't mind him getting slapped around and insulted every once in a while. it actually surprises me when fans get furious with the other characters when they treat him badly. maybe it's because i always have it on my mind the things he's probably done in the past and they don't but i think it's perfectly normal and natural of the scooby gang to want to shit on him as much as they can. i DON'T feel this way once spike regains his soul though and they continue treating him like this, sometimes even worse. but i don't mind it when he's soulless idk
also it drives me insane when fans in general use the seeing red scene to say he's irredeemable. i get it if that scene was too much psychologically for some people but aside from that, again it's canonically established that he's done this before. i don't understand why it's okay when you know it happened just because you didn't see it, but when you do see it on your screen all of a sudden it's not okay? are the people that suffered the sexual assault at the hands of spike and angelus off-screen less worthy of rage? i don't get that
