(crossposted from Bluesky)
Chaggie is as deep as Stolitz if people would just take a moment to LOOK & THINK 😤✋
to see how lovingly they’re animated, their sheer physical intimacy & love languages
to make the effort to see the subtext of their love, and the meaning a repenting Exorcist & a lonely Princess have to each other
Charlie comes into Vaggi’s life when she needs it most. Charlie is the first being to show her kindness, unconditional care, after a lifetime in an abusive and traumatising military environment that just mutilated her and cast her aside for showing mercy and remorse.
Charlie has to have been the first one to say Vaggi’s name with the pronunciation she likes and has kept ever since.
And Charlie, with her dreams of redemption, gives Vaggi hope that she too can atone for what she did as an Exorcist (and how she kept her past secret out of fear of losing her girl)
and to Charlie? Vaggi comes into her life at a time when she’s cut off from her parents, with perhaps only the Goat Bois for company, struggling to get her dreams off the ground. Then here’s this beautiful, poor injured ‘sinner’ in an alleyway who’s receptive to her aid (and seems to like her back).
And not only that, but is enthused by & wants to support her goal of creating a hotel that rehabilitates sinners!
And she does get her so far; renovating the Hotel building, helping recruit Angel Dust… Alastor may have gotten the Hotel off the ground, but Vaggi laid the foundations with Charlie.
They are each other’s respite in a cruel realm; it’s no wonder that their most intimate love language occurs when they‘re alone - though as we see in S2, as the Hotel becomes more successful and more of a home, they get comfortable with PDA, harmonising in song, Vaggi flying Charlie around
And of course they have their hiccups. Vaggi kept her past a secret out of a fear that Charlie would leave her, only for Adam and Lute to cruelly out her.
But Charlie recognised Vaggi was trying overall, to do better, to redeem herself, and she forgave her because redemption is her whole mojo
then in Season 2 they miscommunicate with Charlie’s mounting stress and fixation on her way of doing things. Vaggi goes behind Charlie’s back to try and get Lucifer to help re. Vox, which just ends up boosting Vox’s case for total war with Heaven.
Charlie is hurt. They have a deeper, more cutting argument this time over Vaggi’s tempering of Charlie’s wild, hyperfixated ambitions. But Charlie sees that Vaggi is triggered by their argument, realises she was wrong to not listen, and apologises and shows remorse. they forgive each other
It‘s a complex, realistic argument where neither of them are completely in the right or wrong, where their codependency is challenged as Vaggi for the first time stands up to and aggressively voices disagreement with Charlie… a decision which leads her to try and drown her sorrows just minutes later
It’s understandable that Vaggi is codependant on Charlie, when she came right out of a military environment that betrayed her, & immediately imprinted on the woman who saved her. Of course she’d want to serve Charlie, and is most of the time completely smitten with whatever Charlie’s plan is
losing Charlie is Vaggi’s biggest fear. It’s why she was afraid to tell her she was an exorcist. It’s why she’s never combative and tries to gently let her girlfriend down, until the stress of the Charlie’s poorly-thought out PR for the Hotel and Vox’s rally pushes her to the breaking point…
and likewise for Charlie, when Vaggi is someone who’s been unwaveringly at her side for over 3.5 years and never really pushed back on most of her ideas until now, the shock of her girlfriend blaming her for something she sees as the fault of Vaggi and her dad going behind her back hurts
their argument in ‘Silenced’ and ‘Scream Rain’, the culmination of Charlie’s character arc of crumbling under the pressure for the past few episodes, activates both of their abandonment fears.
Carmilla might not have the time for “this lesbian drama”, but we should. It’s not just a petty split. It is a somewhat codependent relationship being challenged by miscommunication, but on the strength of Charlie & Vaggi’s love for each other, they make it out the other side just as close
So, a bit like Stolitz, Chaggie is a relationship founded on a miscommunication (albeit a smaller one, Vaggi keeping her identity a secret) and informed by both characters’ respective traumas & mental health (Charlie’s abandonment & low self esteem; Vaggi‘s military trauma & low self-worth).
But they know they love each other right from the start. And even if there’s still more bumps on the road ahead – addressing that Vaggi still is a people-pleaser for Charlie & that she’s still in the process of forging her own independent identity; maybe challenging who they are without each other…
because Charlie and Vaggi love each other more than anything. they are secure in that fact and have been all along
and, like Vaggi sang: anyone who finds love in Hell can do anything 💖💖
