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we are interrupting our regular brainrot to inform everyone that I miss ACGAS in general and Siegfried x Audrey in particular

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not done with s4 rewatch notes, cause as much as I'm neutral about Riley at this point, episodes that have a heavy focus on him wasn't really worth an attentive view on first go. however on a second round Goodbye Iowa turns out to be so juice for spuffy brainrot. like first and foremost, if we not supposed to root for Spike as a potential love interest, maybe you shouldn't repeatedly draw parallels between him and Buffy's boyfriends?

we open with him going at her like "you have a tragic taste in man". and a) obv gonna backfire hilariously, give it less than a year; b) is this where your mind turns immediately, my pathetic little wet cat of a loser? crazy scientist just attempted to steal your the Slayer of Slayers thunder, but you wanna talk about how once again Buffy's love life is about to fail. and that's cause he's thinking about all of her soft spots on a daily basis. if he would have a Slayer's boyfriend under his command, he won't hesitate to use him as a destabilizing factor. nobody in the room thinks like him, so he's the one to warn Buffy about another sweetheart's potential backstabbing.

so Riley arrives at the scene and 30 seconds in he conflicts Buffy about Spike being here. my dude, you met him before. not her fault you can't recognize a vampire without an outfit from a Hot Topic showcase. but also Buffy's awkward "it's a long story" and a visible straggle to identify who they're to each other at this point. even Spike intrigued what an explanation she will come up with. "he won't bite". he actually would. with loud empty promises of his badness. his petty little tumbs up to thoughts of her death. her almost affectionate eye roll. freaks. "I have my stories on telly for this". babygirl, you all are in a love triangle already, Dawson Creek has nothing on next three years of your life.

and for the rest of the episode it's just Spike and Riley having the worst day ever. except one of them has Buffy at his side. The Initiative is having a raid at Spike's crypt trashing the place he just began to make nicer, Riley starts to have a withdrawal without Initiative's drugs and questions everything he knew. Spike is denied access to Willy's and a comfort zone of a demon crowd, Riley's health is taken care of by the Initiative, but he's no longer comfortable to share their values. Riley ends the episode with Buffy's love and support to hold on to. Spike ends the episode alone at the alley, beaten and lonely, unable to belong anywhere now and nobody to hold on to.

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spuffy in s4 are actually so special to me. the petty jealousy in The Harsh Light Of The Day, borderlinling with weird familiarity of knowing about each other's previous lovers, the raw playful necessity to poke fingers in open wounds. and then reluctant compromising in Pangs, bruised egos have been shoved aside, cause okay it's the truce and we done it like one and half time before. what the worst can happen? and then it's the beginning of Something Blue and they've been in a close proximity and at each other's throats longer than ever before. but the spell hits and oh, we gonna keep arguing actually. we gonna keep bringing up our exes and making fun at each other's names. no pink glasses here, actually. but also what if we suck faces a little and that will successfully end any conflict we face during that night? what if all that cravings of a good fight is in our tongues now? wouldn't that be a good alternative to punches and kickings? what if nothing changes except hate is love and violence is sex? wait, the spell is over? yeah it wasn't nice at all. not like we both ever thought it could possibly be nice. oh, a cookie.

and then they're trying so hard not show that things changed for the rest of the season, just to fail miserably. he's always in the corner of the room with the rest of the group, rarely talks to her personally as if cautious, but is marginally pulling her hair with words as much as he can. my nemesis wants to stake himself? idk go ahead, babe. not so much keen to do the job myself, I guess. so my nemesis won't come to see me move into a new cool crypt? rude. Giles needs help in New Man , Spike will help, but never crosses paths with Buffy who's actively seeking Giles at the same time. Anya brings Spike to a party, Buffy is trapped in an endless sex dream upstairs. oh well, he wants to help her? oh wait, he doesn't care. really, he doesn't. he's just being a little shit, look at him not caring like a pro, laughing off a nobility nobody believes in a first place. he meets Buffy at the club and she acts horny and provocative. weird I guess, but actually that what she always does, isn't she just a sodding tease? someday, we gonna have a confrontation. the Jonathan's spell covered the town, but those two worsties will be totally normal about each other. his hands in her hair, on her cheek, her chest. she will allow it. maybe lean to it a little. something is deeply wrong with the world tonight, so glad to let you know that we still gonna have a confrontation one day. a comfronting thought. a sensual grounding touch of an enemy. he can't fucking wait. will make an alliance with a psychotic Frankenstein monster build by a military organization that castrated him. the world (that he actually quite likes) can burn, but he will get the chip out of his head and kick Buffy's ass. maybe she will ride him till she breaks him at first. it's negotiable. meanwhile Buffy looks at his traitorous face and once again chooses not to stake him. cause whatever. it's just Spike. his plans never works. not on her. not like he caused a lot of damage, more like provoked a friend group therapy session. not like he put his heart into this scheme. he can annoy her a little longer. she got used to it anyways.

they start season with The Harsh Light Of The Day and by the end of it, in a harsh light of the day, in front of other people, they're kids at the playground. but whenever they're in shadows, more or less alone, they're two tigers circling around each other, knowing now that they both too unpredictable for the fight not take some truly wild turns.

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Fully believe his brain still does this sometimes.

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keep thinking about how young some of unlocked potentials that were shown in Chosen are and about post series scenarios where Spike is helping Slayers org and accidentally would adopt a bunch of five year olds with superpowers who follow him around the school like a group of duckies. Scoobies tease him mercilessly, Giles is terrified of what he can teach them. Dawn is irrationally jealous cause she's no longer his one and only Nibblet.

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Buffy loosing her virginity in Surprise > Spike revealed to be paralyzed from the waist down this very episode

Spike being physically invincible in The Harsh Light of A Day > Buffy's bad luck with consequences of physical pleasure and her emotional distress

Buffy finally being able to have long term sexual partner in Riley and fucking him at some point for hours > Spike's chip being a metaphor for an impotency, Dru and Harm leaving him for a while

Dru turning Spike is a deeply sexual act that gives him confidence in his body > Buffy being stabed with her own stake, betrayed by her body the very same episode

Spike being desperate for connection both physical and emotional, creating Buffybot, getting only physical satisfaction from this and then his body is brutally tortured > Buffy being afraid she can't love anymore and taking spiritual journey in solitude

Spike being so beaten up he can't tell bot from a real human right away > Buffy kissing him as a recognition of his worth and capability for humanity

Buffy being comatose after losing Dawn to Glory > Spike being the one who has a clear mind in Ben/Glory situation and is an active forse while Buffy is out of the game

Resurrected Buffy is physically and emotionally can't cope > Spike being capable to tone down his obsession with her, being gentle and suppress lust

Buffy kissing Spike to feel something > Spike after that kiss is slowly starting to lose his new found restrain that made him feel like a man over a monster and overwhelmed with feelings once again

Spike finding out that chip is not working on Buffy and immediately initiating date/the fight, accepting that violent physical touch is the only way they ever freely connected before > Buffy releasing her desire for him and getting physical satisfaction of her life but simultaneously killing all genuine emotional connection they started to develop before

Buffy believing that she killed Katrina because of her supernaturally strength, having a breakdown because of it, hopeless and sure that smth is wrong with her > Spike starting episode with a hope to rebuild their ability to have a normal conversation and ending it being an object for Buffy to fuck or hurt cause he the only one who can bare her strength

Spike's dream sequences always being about then fighting as equals > Buffy's dream spliting into two opposite scenarios: her killing Spike while he defenseless and her being comforted and held gently by him in a intimacy of her own bed

Buffy being physically incapable to fight full forse in the bathroom > Spike being at the lowest emotionally

Buffy in finale getting some relief by laughing her troubles off with Giles and having a catharsis by reconnecting with Dawn > Spike getting his soul back not by an act of moral sacrifice and nobility but by physically intense trials and then suffering for months

Buffy in Lessons allowing Spike to touch her senselessly > Spike being out of his mind

Spike in Beneath You performing sanity > Buffy not being able to bare his touch without a trauma flashbacks cause he seems his old self again

Buffy having a crazy lust outburst under the spell in Him > Spike being so mentally troubled by soul his body tense and he is repressing his natural physicality patterns

Spike's plot in CWDP being framed as a hook up but ending up as a mind control slaughter > Buffy's plot being a therapy about her affair with Spike among other things but ending up with a revelation that kills all progress she made in coping with her feelings

Buffy not having sexual intimacy throughout season 7, her date with Robin is crushed by Spike > Spike not having sexual intimacy throughout season 7, his flirtatious-ish conversation with Faith is crushed by Buffy

Spike getting his coat back and finally allowing his demon side to show up through the way he carries himself and fights > Buffy losing people, until she accepted her inner darkness and became a tough leader who no longer need guidance

Buffy just wanting to be held in Touched and ending up getting much needed inspiration > Spike just wanting to cheer up the hero inside her and getting affection he was dreaming about since the start of their affair

Both of them admitting that that night meant so much more > The hungry loudness of the space between them at the kitchen and later at the basement before the final battle

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the thing about spuffy that makes them so unique is that one minute they're in a screwball comedy where one is a wonder woman and the other is a muppet. and the next minute they're the most tragically beautiful erotica full of sadness only seen in a french arthouse cinema.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer – 7.06: Him

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"How can Spike be there in the reboot when the actor has aged up -?"

Here's what they should do: Get James for a scene or two as he is. No de-aging through CGI. No explanation as to whether Spike's human or vampire or how he became human or any of that. He's just there. Buffy and him are together and he's her trophy husband who writes fanfic in his free time.

That's it.

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the way all Spike's emotions are always on his face and you can read them really well. the way Buffy almost always looks at him with this puzzled but mostly unreadable expression. and he can't understand what she's thinking at the moment, and we as audience can't pinpoint it either to the point that lots of her moments of sincerity towards him can come as a surprise. the way his heart is always on his sleeve, but she still looks at him as if at all times she is deciding is he mad or endearing or full of shit. the way she just let him talk or look and there's clearly the whole internal debate inside her head that we never got a scoop on it except that one dream in dead thing and then in s7 she finally starts to verbally articulate her feelings and it feels wild.

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if Spike showed up in Sunnydail just a couple of weeks earlier and saw Buffy in her When She Was Bad era, he would fall on his knees immediately in a middle of Bronze alley. like the whole "kick my ass" situation is a straight up unintentional Smashed foreshadowing. that was an manic eyes of a woman who one day will fuck down a building. even if at this point she was still a virgin, who can't drive.

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Spike "Do you trust me?" Buffy "Never"

also Buffy "My sister means more to me than the entire world and I'm worried about her safety so I'm going to have Spike protect her"

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BTVS in its core is such a bisexual show. In a sense that every woman there is beautiful, strong and amazing. They can be annoying or wrong for a hot minute, but we support women's wrongs. Go on, my favorite baby princess. You're allowed to commit a war crime once in a while.

Men, on the hand, deserve rights only if they went through a biblical level of torture. Which tbf they all kinda do, so it's okay. And even then you truly attracted to one super specific type that defined by your mental illness and amount of daddy issue.

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you're forever in my heart, my sweet (Spike's grown curls from Lessons)

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how flashback from Fool For Love reframed Lover's Walk... crazy as everything about spuffy. Spike and all his love is not brain, children, it's blood rhetorics and his mocking of Buffy and Angel attempts to repress their feelings are such a clown move. my son in evil, you're here because you girlfriend of hundred years, with whom you're obsessed with to the point of her being your first priority in an apocalypse, just told you that your obsession now shifts to your nemesis and it's deeper than just respect for your opponent. and instead of simply killing the said nemesis as a good boy, you conclude another truce with her (which is exactly why your girlfriend is mad at you), make your girlfriend a problem in this conflict and then you're third wheeling a quest with the nemesis and her situationship (who is also occasionally your situationship but it's not important right now). and while you're watching those two pinning for each other you're thinking "what an idiots, love is terribly simple and you can't rationalize it". and ofc his dark princess was wrong. no feelings for Buffy there, it's just warrior honor was speaking in you cause logically The Slayer is a great fighter therefore she deserves your basic respect. so you're using your head to convince yourself this intense feeling for Buffy is just hatred. so all reluctant sympathy you have for her lives in your head and based on appreciation of her competence. so you tell yourself for next two years you're The Big Bad and you would kill her with first opportunity, but there's always a good rational reason not to. and then love hits you like a truck, cause you always overlooked what your head is telling you.

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buffy summers was such an intense case of an only child with eldest daughter syndrome, she manifested herself a little sis out of thin air