the fact of the matter is that buffy ends up isolated no matter what the scoobies do because she bears the burden of the slayer alone at the end of the day and nothing can change that. the problem with this isn't that she's separate from them, it's that they don't want to acknowledge that she is, and in doing so they drive a wedge between them that just grows and grows. the best thing about spike is that he's similar enough to this other side of buffy to understand it and her by extension. he is the only person around who can support that side of her.

most of buffy's issues in season six stem from the scoobies rejecting a part of buffy that spike accepts. and this shame she feels for her reliance on spike and the presence of this darkness and isolation she cannot avoid is largely because of them. i'm sick of this bizarre assumption that pointing out where the scoobies go wrong in their relationship with buffy somehow equals an uncritical uplifting of spike. just because he understands her and represents a certain aspect of her doesn't mean he doesn't fuck up. i mean that's kind of the whole point of their season six dynamic. one of his biggest issues is that he thinks he's helping her by enabling her completely because he doesn't have the ability to properly identify the line between self acceptance and self destruction - pursuit of the id is one of his biggest character traits. that's what makes the end of season six and his decision to get the soul so interesting (although of course there's just as much i can say about the narrative framing of that in regards to lore consistency and the story's obsession with angel, but that's a whole other thing).

point is, the scoobies cannot understand all of buffy, and when they refuse to acknowledge this they destroy their chances of building any bridges to even a simple relationship with that other side of buffy or helping her carry that burden in any way. meanwhile, spike is in the proper position to understand buffy as the slayer and hold his own with her in such a way, but his definition of love is wholly obsessive and destructive. while i disagree that he's incapable of love and even of loving selflessly without his soul, i think spike's version of love in particular is self destructive in a way that enables buffy's own desire to hurt herself through hurting him (see the aforementioned shame regarding her shadow self). spike cannot identify why allowing buffy to give in to her dark side in such a way is bad because he struggles to understand how she could use this to resent herself - although i do think he realizes it's happening on some level.

spike is also buffy's only form of catharsis and the only one that actually listens to what she is saying during a time when everybody else is dismissing her because of the aforementioned inability to understand her as the slayer. it's a clusterfuck - and a clusterfuck that needed to be shattered with a hammer for any kind of relief. and quite frankly to disregard the scoobies' own part in this situation does a disservice to buffy as a character. to be honest, she deserves fucking better than what everyone in her life gives her, especially the scoobies, who grow to take her for granted and feel entitled to controlling her life as a way of keeping her conformed - again, due to the aforementioned lack of desire to acknowledge this other part of her that they cannot connect with.

which leads to season seven, where spike is the only person on the show who has developed and changed enough to remain at buffy's side helping her carry the burden. while everyone else suffered during season six, none of them opened their eyes to what they were doing to buffy - and if they did, none of them acted on it. spike is the only one to acknowledge the damage he's done and work to become better for buffy in any way he can. he is the only one that ends up able to carry that burden with her because he is the only one capable of facing the truth and acting on his desire to do better.

the fucking problem isn't that he hurt buffy - because to be quite frank everybody did - it's that he's the only person on the whole damn show to acknowledge his place in buffy's life, and to acknowledge the burdens she bears, and actively change himself for her. did you know he has almost all of the genuine apologies in the entire show? seven seasons and all of the harm the scoobies cause buffy, and it's fucking spike that is acting like a mature person capable of being a proper partner.

So if Amy isn’t in the film, who would give the humanity speech to shadow?

Hi Hon❤️✨

I’ve shared this thought before, but I’m more than happy to talk about it again. I definitely think—and strongly feel—that moment needs to go to Sonic. Not Amy Rose. Please understand that this is not a hate post towards the character. This post is meant to be a reflection of the characters that we know and how they would respond the best to an emotional situation.

The conversation that Amy Rose had with Shadow worked because we got to grow up with her. Through a progression of years, we’ve watched Amy Rose go from cheerleader to becoming her own hero. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing her love the world around her over time. We’ve seen her form relationships with people, we’ve seen her create a life for herself everywhere she goes, we’ve seen her tag along on adventures and prove her worth, and we’ve seen her experience the good and bad that come with life as both a heroine and a civilian. That’s why the moment worked so well in Sonic Adventure 2; we got to grow up with her throughout the games and experience life through her perspective. And because we got that perspective of her “growing up,” her conversation felt much more meaningful in order to trigger a locked memory in Shadow.

This moment wouldn’t work in the films. We wouldn’t have the same relationship that we’ve formed with Amy Rose in a 2hr+ movie as we did in a span of 30-odd years. It wouldn’t feel natural and heartfelt either. The moment would feel like a forced interaction that pays homage to the games. However, this interaction would work best with Sonic Wachowski because we are watching him grow up. We’ve seen how Sonic Wachowski handles the bad and the good in SCU through a progression of years.

This moment needs to come from Sonic. He will have the a level of compassion that Shadow would need in order to snap back into reality. Believe it or not, Sonic also has an understanding of what it’s like to be compared to as something dangerous. The whole point of Sonic remaining hidden for years (from both humans and other species) is because of his abilities. His power is controlled by emotion; when unchecked, it can be dangerous. But when controlled, he can master it. That needs to be a conversation with Shadow, considering he’s viewed as both a weapon and hope for humanity.

Sonic also has an understanding of what it’s like to lose someone that he loves because of him existing. It’s a guilt that resides in both of them where it feels like it’s their fault for the loss of a life. Granted, their experiences are different in how they both loss their loved ones. No one will understand that better, and relate to Shadow better, other than Sonic.

Sonic will have a better understanding of how humans function in the modern world. We’ve seen a healthy balance in how humans respond to extraterrestrials coming to earth. The humans have either welcomed them with open arms, acknowledge their existence and move on, or try and steal their power. Sonic knows the wide range of response; he can vouch on the behalf of those that are kindhearted.

As much as I love Amy Rose, I don’t believe that this moment should come from her. This moment needs to come from Sonic. And that’s okay. Don’t include her into the film to act as an Easter egg. Include her for the right reason. Give her a proper moment that outshines that one. I guarantee you that she is so much more than that. I hope that this answers your question, my dear.

At the end of the day who cares if the buddie shippers have a problem with Tommy and keep making up (annoying) theories. We have to realize they exist in an echo chamber and have done nothing but annoy Tim multiple times. Tim loves buddies friendship but you can clearly tell he’s fallen in love with Buck and Tommy’s romantic relationship, which is why he added Lou into these last two episodes ( which isn’t easy as Lou was only contracted for 4 episodes which means having to renegotiate additional contract). We have got to stop letting them annoy us by trying to bring in the cast and crew as a reason to why Lou is hated and why he’s not sticking around. We have to look at the fact and know that they (buddie shippers) will never acknowledge that Lou has been treated very differently than Bucks former love interests when it comes to the cast and crew already.

• There’s a reason why Lou is being included in behind the scenes content.

•There’s a reason why the official account is following along with the main cast.

•There’s a reason why Tim is posting and responding to messages about him.

•There’s a reason who since 7x06 that the cast (Kenny Ryan and Jennifer) have turned away from taking about buddie (romantically) in official media interviews and have redirected the conversation to BuckTommy.

•There’s a reason why Ryan keeps bringing up buddies platonic relationship and calling Eddie hetero.

Sorry for the long rant but it’s just something I thought of as I was reading your other responses.

Exactly, we shouldn’t and can’t care about what they think. I love your reference to an echo chamber, that’s a great way to put it. I anticipate the more we stop caring and interacting then they’ll end up destroying themselves because they have to get negativity somewhere, even if it’s from each other. You can already see it turning into a Buck vs. Eddie over there.

Tim has literally saved this show, I was honestly terrified going into this season after the dumpster fire of S6. Since he’s come back the show has a new life and he has let the characters truly shine again. And you can definitely tell he is proud of his (and whoever else’s) choice to bring Tommy back. I definitely respect him doing it as a little “experiment” with the two episodes to see how it was perceived and boy did we deliver!

I 100% agree that, among all the other things, we need to ignore their attempts to involve the cast. They know we feel the need defend the cast so they push that agenda. It’s clear they love you and as always it their opinion that matters most!

All those reasons are all the ones I have seen and agree with. This is all very strategic and honestly, the award show reel was what solidified it for me, both having Lou with the fast and having him end it (mostly because we all passed out and they wanted us to see the other cast too)!

Rant away, I really appreciate constructive rants that give others insight into the ship. It really helps us understand the reasons for this behavior which only further helps us ignore it! So thank you for it ❤️

Sorry but one of the dumbest things I see fans get excited about is when they say how “iconic” Portia was for not abandoning her daughters to fuck off to the Americas with Cousin Jack as if it’s not the bare minimum for a mother to actually care for her kids, an expectation so low that the bar is in hell. Portia is a complex female character and I could write essays on how Portia is a very realistic and raw portrayal as a woman who is the product of her environment and a dysfunctional mother. I love that about her characterization and I think the dynamic between her relationship with Penelope is a great execution of that. But my issue with interpretations of her character comes when people take her complexities and pass them off as some sort of “girlboss”-isms when the point of showing the things that Portia does and thinks is to show how a lot of the time the people we love (in this case a mother) can and do hurt us deeply, and we can acknowledge that while also not excusing the pain they cause us. Violet and Portia are supposed to be foils of one another: a story of how tragedy, trauma, and circumstance affects each woman and her relationship to her kids, but different in how they deal with that. Where Violet is able to recognize and adapt herself to what it is each of her kids need (violet is also able to validate, take accountability, and apologize for the pain she caused when Edmund passed), Portia on the other hand is entirely ignorant of this at best and at worst actively dismissive of it.

Portia so often fails to adapt to provide what it is Penelope, her most sensitive daughter, actually needs from her. At her worst, she belittles and demeans her daughter for who she is at her core and it is so cruel and heartbreaking to watch. Even with her daughter at her happiest (engaged to the love of her life) Portia is still unable to do the bare minimum (keep her mouth shut) and finds ways to drag her daughter down. That’s why Penelope snapping at Portia by ep.4 is so sad to watch: it’s Penelope’s last straw, her last cry out in holding out any hope for a relationship with her mother that is meaningful and fulfilling to her.

I TRIED giving Chaggie a chance, I really did. When I first watched the Pilot, I thought they were best friends. And then I learned that WAS the original decision for their relationship but Vizie made them a couple because the storyboard writers thought they were a couple.

Now as a writer I'm open to whatever ideas people may suggest for my stories, but I think something Vizie forgot to do was think about how it would impact the plot and characters.

Something I take into account when thinking about my main characters being in a relationship is how it ties into the story and the themes. Like what do these two being together accomplish? How do the other characters react and are they supportive? How do they act as a couple? Do they have their fair share of ups and downs? And most importantly what does the relationship add to their characters?

It's these kinds of things that I feel are missing for the majority of the Chaggie relationship. The show only seems to acknowledge them as a couple when it's convenient and just ignore it for most of the show.

Which begs the question of if it does nothing for the story, why even have it there at all?

Honestly, same. As per my username, I love sapphic couples. I was super into the idea of Chaggie but it's just... Nothing. No chemistry, no significance. Vaggie's betrayal would still hold the same amount of water if they were just friends.

A lot of Chaggie shippers say that it gets hate because it isn't sexualized... But Catradora and Lumity weren't sexualized either and they're still adored by their fandoms to this day. Chaggie's problem is just a lack of them being an actual couple aside from a few comments. This could have been easily rectified by simply sparing a few minutes. Instead of the More Than Anything reprise, we could have gotten a flashback, a heart to heart conversation, something to tell us why and how they're together.

I've heard Vivzie takes fandom input a lot. And there's nothing wrong with that... Until it negatively impacts the story. And in this case, Chaggie is plopped awkwardly in the middle of the plot with no real purpose for existing. I can't get into it because the story has done nothing to make me care about it

yea that's my boy

Reading the webtoon and…

Does this imply that Kim Dokja also tried to write a questionnaire for her to fill in since she wouldn’t speak to him, that either he 1) never gave her in the end (especially if he couldn’t find her after she was released) or 2) gave it to her and she STILL refused to answer?

Because that is so so so so awful. It was already bad but if he tried so many ways to get her to speak and she still gave him no response, regardless of her reasoning… isn’t that still directly choosing to cut herself fully out of his life? Why in the hell did she lie for his sake and allow him to visit her if she wanted to never speak to him again?

I know everyone claims Kim Dokja is just like her in sacrificing himself for loved ones, but at least he tries his best to stay with them and to keep them in his life. He still chooses sacrifice, but it’s not because he intends to never return. He always returns (even if much later than planned).

The only time this differs is with 51%, when he STILL tried his best to stay with them - at least as much as he could.

I sometimes like Lee Sookyung, but I am mostly still SO mad at her for completely ignoring her child since he was 8 years old. Especially when he must have looked like shit any number of times from being mistreated and bullied by family, friends, army, employers.

But maybe that’s just the fragment in me being eternally pissed with her. She DOES love him, but like he says in the webtoon in this chapter - maybe such truths are painful enough to be false anyways, because they’re just SUCH bullshit. That’s not how affection should work, if you actually care about someone and want them to be happy.

Not every positive platonic relationship is siblings. Sometimes people are just friends. Best friends, even! But just friends.

Sometimes I forget why I ship odazai, then I watch Dark Era again and go “Oh! It's because they're canonly in love with each other! Cool 👍”

Hello Mari, sorry, I wanted to ask you about a scene from the novel that Lithi published, the one where Jennette says that every time she saw Ijekiel her heart raced and she says that Ijekiel is kind to her. I wanted to ask you if you remember when in the novel that happened, before and after what events, because when I read it I never saw that scene :(

I do recall the quote you are talking about, but I don't remember it word for word. If it was from Jennette's POV, then it must have been in the last book of the main story. Maybe around Jennette and The Black Tower Magicians or Marionette on Stage? But she does think about her attraction to Ijekiel quite often, so it could be many other scenes, really. You'll have better luck asking Lithi herself haha.

one thought before i disappear again but i really fail to understand damian fans' logic or interaction with canon on any level like your entire engagement with him as a character relies on a bastardization of every person around him. i don't see what worth there is in comparing how dick and bruce are comparatively written as parental figures in damian's life when your primary basis for analysis is canon from a writer who believes (1) dick shouldn't be in a relationship with kory bc he's happy-go-lucky and hates drama; and (2) bruce's life as a hero naturally culminates in fascism. neither of these are good faith takes on the characters involved so how can you place any value in how either of them are portrayed to interact with damian by way of that. and obv this doesn't even get into the plethora of talia issues which i have essayed about to the point of exhaustion. like idk i get that i can't make people hate a character obv lol and for many damian fans that attachment is there bc they read about him when they were young but i still don't really understand what there is about damian to be invested in once you're an adult who realizes he is holistically built on character assassination and racist stereotypes that he is inseparable from. like you can't really analyze his interactions with anyone without the context for those interactions being shoddy writing of someone else and i know that can happen in comics a lot but it happening in isolation is different from it forming the entire basis for a character

just realizing like 90% of my character relationships are toxic yaoi and doomed yuri. how do i process this information.

i know it's the logical conclusion and realistically it makes sense to point out that people can only like you so much. but. i really want lloyd to be proven wrong. i really want him to realize there's no limit to how much someone can love you. i want his parents and javier and julien's approval rating to keep going up even when lloyd thinks there's nothing more he can do to earn their love for him. i want him to be able to learn that sometimes love can keep growing every day for no other reason than because the other person is choosing to love you over and over again. i just want him to feel loved just for being him and not for what he does is that too much to ask for?!?

Ahhhhhhhhh possessive fem!Natsume, I'm weeping, I love it. This is also why I cling to the idea that Natsume did Tsumugi's piercings post-fine.

WAAAAA I LOVE THAT 😭😭 i love when natsumes Weirdness gets highlighted bc i feel like tsumugis usually takes priority just bc his is more shocking considering the contrast of his character as if natsume doesnt Also suck at respecting tsumugis boundaries and gets super "passive"-aggressive whenever mugi does something he doesnt like

theyre both horrible but thats what makes them perfect for each other and i love them

being aroace is crazy bc sometimes it's like. whoo yay i have such a wider perception of relationships that's so cool yay!!! and sometimes it's like. i hate this it sucks

u know i’m not sure if it’s because i read the series pretty young but i never got into percabeth even though i like their characters and enjoyed the narrative of them growing up and getting together !🫣 i think it works for the story but i don’t have any strong feelings abt it