Normal Again
I may have spammed Barb's LJ with this somewheres, but I'm going to attempt to paraphrase my thoughts on this.
I like that Spike stands up for himself, and tells Buffy (or who he thinks is Buffy) exactly what he wants, and that's to not be her dark space. However, saying he wants normal...
Just...no.
That isn't going to happen. I don't care how many polos and khakis he may buy or if he decides to leave the bug ship behind--a vampire, soul or not, is never going to be normal.
Now, I'm not against Spike going for what he wants and being specific or anything, but to even propose the idea of "normalcy" with Buffy...it's a HUGE error, in my opinion. It's the unobtainable, and to present such a thing to someone like Buffy with a boat load of hang ups, well...I mean "bad idea" is an understatement. What I think they should be shooting for is happiness with one another, and a solid foundation for a relationship.
(Of course, this is probably moot now since that was a robot and not Buffy, exactly).
That being said, I think there was a lot of progressive steps for Spike in his little speech. The "normal" comment, however, was a step back. Do I think they can enhance one another? Yeah. Do I think they can make each other happy? You betcha. But "normal"? No.
Unless of course...their definition (Buffy's specifically) of "normal" were to be adjusted to that of a slayer and vampire, then yeah! I'd be all in. But I'm fairly certain Buffy still sees that as abnormal/wrong. If Buffy (the real one) can learn to embrace their collective specialness, then they'll be alright. You know, once they find her body and stuff...
ETA: I had a dream last night that Spike had his own comic in an AU-verse at IDW, and that his comrades were Cordelia, Andrew and...a unicorn? I was torn between thinking "lame" and "cool!" in the dream, but I felt a bit of hope at the story because the writer (with no affiliation with Joss & Co) was a huge fan of James and those characters, so I thought she'd (it was definitely a female writer) do the character more justice...Yeah, I don't know either.