on spike

[a_white_rain]

Today while reading Buffy fandom meta I realized something. I don't actually care about Spike any longer. I like to write him. There's a lot I can do with him in fic. But he's much like Xander, in that I don't much care about thinking of him as a person. Xander is important to Anya, Buffy, and Willow and the Scoobies as a whole so I've got head

Comments

[kita0610]

My main problem with trying to deal with the attempted rape scene in Seeing Red in fandom is that it inevitably gets derailed by "Willow mind raped Tara!" and "Buffy physically abused Spike!" and "Xander tried to attack Buffy when he was a hyena." All of which happened. None of which have a godamn thing to do with this conversation.

[a_white_rain]

I tried to talk about Seeing Red once and I nearly said some things that were way out of line. It's too personal. I can't help but read Buffy as using the soul thing to excuse Spike because she can't deal and that's what I want to write about. If I felt braver.

Maybe I could do it in meta. But it'd be too easily derailed by what happened. And I kinda hate talking about rape in fiction in general because I often find the language dehumanizing to me.

[kita0610]

I feel you. Everything you just said. Especially about Buffy and her reaction, and the dehumanizing.

[a_white_rain]

I think hands-down the hardest moment for me to watch in Buffy isn't The Body (and it's hard) but when Spike touches her in season seven and she flinches. I don't know if I want to cry, to make Buffy real so I can hug her, or watch Spike die in a fire because I hated him so much right then.

[carlyinrome]

But he's much like Xander, in that I don't much care about thinking of him as a person.

This.

[a_white_rain]

Sometimes I want to write a fic where Buffy realizes he's an asshole (and hell that Willow has control issues boarding on abusive) but she wouldn't be Buffy is she did. It's why I love her so much and relate to her so deeply.