Chicken Meta
Prompt: Spike/Buffy: What makes an OTP?
This is a difficult question to answer, because there's not just one Spike/Buffy pairing. There are as many as there are Spike/Buffy shippers. Well, you may say, but surely we can make a few broad categories? There's the canonical version, and... oh, but wait, which canonical version? The one where Buffy was in love with him, and Spike knew it? The one where she was in love with him, and he didn't know it? The one where she was never in love with him until the last minute? The one where Spike was the manipulative abuser, or the one where Buffy was the heartless user? The one where Spike getting a soul is the only thing that makes it OK to ship Spuffy at all, or the one where the remorse which led Spike to get the soul was all he ever really needed?
And that's not even getting into fanfic, with its endless mazes of what-ifs and fill-in-the-blanks.
So what made Spike/Buffy my OTP? Most of the people I know got on the Spuffy wagon with "Fool For Love" or "Intervention." For some of the early adopters, it was "Something Blue," or even "Becoming I & II." But for me, it was five words: "I can be good too!" See, Spike was a vampire with no soul when he said those words. He wasn't supposed to be good. He wasn't supposed to be able to. He certainly wasn't supposed to want to.
A lot of people go on about the fact that since Spike wanted to be good in order to impress Buffy, it doesn't count. But I always wondered about that. I mean, Spike could have fallen in love with Anya or Willow or Faith or... well, a lot of people, any of whom might have been a little less freaked out about it and more willing to compromise. So why did he fall for Buffy? And fall for her at, it can be argued, the absolute top of her game, the point at which she was the most fulfilled and happy she was during the entire series, and everything was going right for her? Was it just Stockholm syndrome?
I don't think so. There are some obvious reasons - Buffy has a lot of traits Spike admires. But she has one thing that the others don't - or at least, she had it at this point in her life. She had that righteous fire. She was a hero. Spike may never have realized it, and Buffy would certainly never have admitted it was true, but I think Spike fell for Buffy not in spite of her being a champion of light, but because of it. Because good or evil, soul or no soul, Spike has always been drawn to effulgence. And it's to his credit that even after life quenched that fire in Buffy, he's always believed (even when she doesn't) that someday, it can burst into new life.
This is a difficult question to answer, because there's not just one Spike/Buffy pairing. There are as many as there are Spike/Buffy shippers. Well, you may say, but surely we can make a few broad categories? There's the canonical version, and... oh, but wait, which canonical version? The one where Buffy was in love with him, and Spike knew it? The one where she was in love with him, and he didn't know it? The one where she was never in love with him until the last minute? The one where Spike was the manipulative abuser, or the one where Buffy was the heartless user? The one where Spike getting a soul is the only thing that makes it OK to ship Spuffy at all, or the one where the remorse which led Spike to get the soul was all he ever really needed?
And that's not even getting into fanfic, with its endless mazes of what-ifs and fill-in-the-blanks.
So what made Spike/Buffy my OTP? Most of the people I know got on the Spuffy wagon with "Fool For Love" or "Intervention." For some of the early adopters, it was "Something Blue," or even "Becoming I & II." But for me, it was five words: "I can be good too!" See, Spike was a vampire with no soul when he said those words. He wasn't supposed to be good. He wasn't supposed to be able to. He certainly wasn't supposed to want to.
A lot of people go on about the fact that since Spike wanted to be good in order to impress Buffy, it doesn't count. But I always wondered about that. I mean, Spike could have fallen in love with Anya or Willow or Faith or... well, a lot of people, any of whom might have been a little less freaked out about it and more willing to compromise. So why did he fall for Buffy? And fall for her at, it can be argued, the absolute top of her game, the point at which she was the most fulfilled and happy she was during the entire series, and everything was going right for her? Was it just Stockholm syndrome?
I don't think so. There are some obvious reasons - Buffy has a lot of traits Spike admires. But she has one thing that the others don't - or at least, she had it at this point in her life. She had that righteous fire. She was a hero. Spike may never have realized it, and Buffy would certainly never have admitted it was true, but I think Spike fell for Buffy not in spite of her being a champion of light, but because of it. Because good or evil, soul or no soul, Spike has always been drawn to effulgence. And it's to his credit that even after life quenched that fire in Buffy, he's always believed (even when she doesn't) that someday, it can burst into new life.