It's so telling to me that Ilya's father always called him. In the peak of his dementia, he always called Ilya. He forgot Alexei, he forgot Polina, but he called Ilya. This terrible man who never had a kind word for his son and destroyed his self-worth every chance he got, called ILYA. In my mind, there is really only one reason why that may be. I believe his father did care about Ilya. HORRIBLE at showing it, but on the basest level, I think there was genuine affection for his son.
All Ilya wanted (and all he deserved) was for his father to know him and feel some pride towards him. Why Grigori couldn't show it could be due to thousands of reasons. Whether it was just his generation (because in the book we know he was in his 50's when Ilya was born), or if he's the type of man to believe that love/affection = weakness, doesn't matter. It wasn't enough, but I do think it was there. Because he always called Ilya.
As soon as he had Shane in his arms, he was done for. He leaned forward and took his mouth. It felt different this time, as he wrapped his arms around Shane’s back and pulled him close against his body. Shane’s hands cradled Ilya’s face as he kissed him with the force of everything they had almost said out loud.
Heated Rivalry chapter 17
Shane Hollander is lowkey the most heartbreaking character of all time and I’m glad Jacob Tierney recognized that because Rachel Reid certainly didn’t.
Shane’s comphet and compartmentalization of his sexuality and true self outside of a few frantic encounters with Ilya a few times a year is devastating. His refusal to tell anyone in his life - his teammates, his parents, friends he doesn’t have - what he truly wants because he can’t even admit it to himself.
Everything is hockey, everything is brand deals. No, he can’t have a glass of wine because he can’t do anything that’ll potentially impact his performanceon the ice. He can’t date because everything is about his career and when it’s the off season, he locks himself away at his cottage where he spends most of his time alone. Hayden is the closest thing he has to a friend, but if Shane can’t even admit to himself how he feels, how is he supposed to confide in Hayden?
He can have sex with Ilya behind closed doors without words exchanged, but the second it begins to resemble something real, when Ilya starts trying to figure out what Shane really wants, Shane panics and forces himself into a relationship with a woman, because what he has with Ilya doesn’t make sense or fit into any version of himself that he can foresee.
One of the best decisions Jacob Tierney made in the show was showing Shane be intimate with Rose and frame it as devastating and stomach churning. Shane’s performance of heterosexuality is painful. It actively holds him back from being his true self. The book glosses over it and mentions Shane has shitty sex with Rose a couple of times, and doesn’t go into any meaningful detail about how Shane, a gay man in love with another man, forcing himself to have sex with a woman to perform heterosexuality would be extremely difficult and unpleasant for him.
The scene in the show is unpleasant and heartbreaking. We see and feel how much Shane doesn’t want to be doing this, but he feels like he has to.
Shane’s break up with Rose is 10 tens more emotional and impactful in the show than it is in the book, because Shane’s clumsiness with women is not portrayed as a punchline. We see him processing in real time that he can’t just keep faking it. Shane thinks he is good at hiding and compartmentalizing, but it only took Rose two sexual encounters to figure him out. He’s forced to reckon with the fact that he can’t just keep ignoring who he really is and what he really wants.
The scene where we finally get a glimpse into just how painful everything is for Shane is another scene that’s not in the book - Shane’s conversation with Yuna outside.
“I tried. I tried really hard. I just can’t help it.”
Now that he’s finally starting to let go of the performance and separation he’s tried to maintain all of these years - Shane Hollander Hockey Player versus Shane Hollander The Person - he can admit that there’s nothing he can do to change who he is or how he feels, but that will never erase the pain of all those years of trying, of trying to be who his mother wanted him to be and who the MLH wanted him to be. He denied himself the ability to be fully human and fully himself for so long and he’ll never get that time back.
I never want to hear the words “Shane doesn’t have trauma” ever again.
They put drugs in this show, and this edit is the closest I've come to being able to snort it like cocaine. Excluding binging the entire show in 6 hours after first turning on episode one to see what all the fuss was about.
Genuinely will be so disappointed if we don't see the press conference announcing their new bestie relationship/Irina Foundation and the dinner party with Hayden and Jackie in season two
I honestly cannot fathom the amount of cope it takes to view I Will Remember You as romantic.
It starts with Angel telling Cordelia and Doyle that going to Sunnydale was hard but he's okay. He knows he would be with Buffy if things were different, but they aren't and they never will be. So we have a thesis statement. "If Angel could be with Buffy, he would."
And of course Buffy shows up, rightfully pissed off that her ex is stalking her, telling her friends, telling her friends to keep things from her, grossly mischaracterizing the events in Pangs as "a fight for my life" because, honestly, Angel's presence made the sort of difference it might have if he'd phoned her to let her know something was coming. Like THIS gets a vision and not Glory? What are we even doing here, writers?
I digress.
Then, enter Mohra demon. Attack attack attack, Buffy and Angel follow into the sewers. Angel's blood mixes with the Mohra's and bing bam boom, he's human. He gets his new condition cosmically checked out, receives confirmation that it's permanent and he can do whatever the hell he wants now. And of course what he wants to do is Buffy. Which he does.
Everything is fine up until this point. Buffy and Angel have a shot at being together for real. They try to be logical about it, but decide logic's for the birds (and I'm not even sure why they tried, honestly, because this is literal miracle territory) and now they can be together in earnest.
Then Doyle gets a vision and comes to Angel, who, knowing how badly he traumatized Buffy in Innocence, decides to let her wake up in his bed alone AGAIN. Buffy has had sex three times now; Angel knows the last encounter wasn't a good one because Spike showed up and told him. Despite this, despite having intentionally caused the most pain he could the first time he and Buffy had sex, he lets her AGAIN wake up alone.
At which point the episode introduces a new thesis: "Buffy, you can't have Angel and save the world." This line is delivered by Cordelia, who reluctantly tells Buffy that Angel went after the Mohra demon on his own.
The problem with this statement is it's just a statement. There is no supporting evidence. The episode tries to tell us there is, but this evidence is entirely predicated on Angel being a fucking moron. Doyle had a vision; Angel had a choice. He could've woken Buffy up and said hey, thing to kill, but he said some schmoopy line and left her (AGAIN KNOWING HOW TRAUMATIC WAKING UP ALONE IS FOR HER), to fight something he had no hope of beating on his own. Buffy rushes in and saves the day and the episode tells us that her weak spot for Angel is what is going to get her killed. Well thank god Angel's the only person in the world she cares about and would risk her life for. Thank god her mom has never been put in danger, or she's never had to rescue Angel before (except those times she has), or that her friends haven't been used as leverage against her. Thank god Buffy is the sort of person who would happily let anyone BUT Angel die except OH WAIT THAT TIME SHE WAS THE ONE WHO KILLED HIM TO SAVE THE WORLD.
Angel sees this as irrefutable evidence that he will get Buffy killed, something the Oracles indicate is on the horizon. Whereas before this episode, Buffy had famously been staring down a long, safe, happy, threat-free life, suddenly because of one complication THAT ALREADY EXISTS IN HER WORLD, she's going to be put in more danger.
After a long, painful conversation with Buffy in which they discuss all options, including that Angel just NOT DO WHAT HE DID the next time there's danger, they mutally decide that the best thing Angel can do is become a vampire again.
Oh wait, no, that's not what happens. Angel gets an owie and decides on his own that he needs to be a vampire again. Clearly the only option in a world where demon hunters exist and he's given it his all (read: tried once and failed) to acclimate to humanity. He cuts Buffy out of the decision entirely, comes back just in time to tell her that he's again made a unilateral decision that affects her and gaslight her into thinking it's for the best.
And this is what kills me: He could've gone back, enjoyed some ice cream with her, cuddled, said everything was going to be okay, told her he loved her, and let her have a few happy minutes, but instead he ensures she knows and spends those last minutes together sobbing and breaking in his arms, just the way he loves Buffy best. Yeah, it's great dramatic television, but there is no way it makes Angel a good guy.
And don't come at me with "he knew it was the last few minutes with her and couldn't keep his emotions in check." This is Angel. ANGEL. Mr. Notoriously Does Not Emote. Something both shows call out regularly. Even more specifically, we know he is skilled at keeping his feelings masked from Buffy, because SHE'S TOLD US A BAJILLION TIMES AND LITERALLY TRIED TO READ HIS MIND ONCE TO GET AROUND THIS. So if you expect me to believe Angel can't keep it together for a final few minutes to give the woman he claims to love a perfect end to a perfect day, then you don't know the character.
Circling back to "you can't have Angel and save the world" -- the thesis that Cordelia introduces with zero supporting evidence. The episode is designed to make us believe it proves this thesis. It does not, because Buffy Summers is Buffy Summers. She who will risk her life for anyone she loves, not just who she loves the most. We've watched 3 seasons of her doing this, making the hard calls, taking on unspeakable pain to spare the world tragedy, or her friends discomfort. There is literally no reason why Angel being human should make Buffy any more vulnerable than she already is, and this is further undermined by the insistence that Buffy's connections are actually what keep her alive. Make her a different, remarkable slayer. Make it so she lives as long as she does. "A slayer with family and friends," Spike says in School Hard. "That wasn't in the brochure." So we're expected to take at face value that Angel being human would upset this so much it'd undo all of that? That Buffy is so weak and fragile she'd let Angel get her killed more than she'd let anyone else get her killed?
Sorry. No. I do not buy it. Angel makes the decision because Angel has Main Character syndrome and won't be satisfied unless he's fighting.
And you know what? That's fine! A decision he is more than allowed to make on his own. He can have ambitions outside of Buffy. He can decide he'd rather have the ability to fight evil than a life with the woman he loves. What he cannot do (and what the show endorses), is let Buffy believe that if things could be different, he would choose her the way she would choose him. That he made the decision for HER when she had no say in the matter.
He could have chosen a quiet life. Chosen to be supportive. Chosen to relearn how to fight as a human. Chosen to become a part of the Scooby gang. Chosen to find another way to be useful, be strong, fight. He could have chosen that, and he didn't. Instead, he lets her leave LA believing the original thesis (if things were different they would be together) hasn't just been disproven. He lets her take the belief that what she needs is a normal guy back to Sunnydale with her, where she throws herself into a relationship with a normal guy who turns out to be exactly what Human Angel was. He doesn't tell her the truth. He lets her believe a lie, because if she knew the truth, she might actually get to move on. And we all know how much Angel doesn't want that in practice, just theory.
This is not a romantic episode. It's manipulative, gaslighty, agency-stripping, and if it happened within my ship, I'd be furious. Especially since the reason cited for Angel's decision (more bad is coming and Buffy will die) goes completely unacknowledged by Angel moving forward. And guess what. She does die. Angel's being a vampire has zero impact on her world, 'cause Angel? He didn't do anything to prevent it. Didn't even let her know it was on the horizon. Actually took off in Forever when she was at her weakest and needed help the most, still without letting her know any of this. Without staying to help her. But then, he had to go wash the Darla stink off, after having just tried to fuck his soul away, so maybe he was distracted.
Honestly, the fact that they try to sell this garbage as peak romance is insulting.
In honor of Day6 releasing their new album (it's amazing, check it out if you haven't already), I just want to share how wonderful it felt to realize there was only excitement when I saw it on YouTube Music.
I was late to the MyDay fandom; it was around this time in September 2021 I believe when I first heard of them and my oh my did I hit that obsession HARD. They were the first group I bought kpop albums for. Though they weren't my first group I followed, they were the first ones I felt the need to spend all the money on and put up the posters for, etc. etc. fandom things lol
And we all know that Jae left the group later that same year. Finding that out right after JUST finding the group and being in that twitterpated stage was a MASSIVE punch to the gut. I can only imagine how it was for the hardcore, long term fans. And I don't know how it was for other fans when Fourever came out, but that being the first real release for the band after the departure of a member felt like a giant stab in the back, just for the title alone. It took almost a year before I could bear to listen to it because it just seemed so mean, like someone wanted to hurt me with the knowledge that, hey, don't forget there's only four people left!
I didn't like that. And I know it's not that deep, but I got a very real stomachache every time I thought about putting it on in the car, or slowly watching the erasure of Jae happen. When Sungjin got his Instagram account, I checked every day for months to see if he followed anyone, specifically Jae, and hating that I felt relieved that he didn't follow a single person for so long. But also happy because Jae was following Sungjin. But then crushed again because he unfollowed Young K. It was a vicious cycle.
And then for every single, EP, or album released, I couldn't stop trying to find where Jae's voice might fit into the songs.
But today, it felt so so SO good to just be excited because my favorite band released a new album and it's amazing and it's so perfectly THEM and I'm incredibly happy to have that back! I'm still a massive fan of the five of them and I want good things for them all, but I just wanted to share that
I don’t think Spike (or Buffy) acts out of character during season 6.
So, I just watched Buffy for the first time last month, at the age of 29. As I am not able to enjoy things normally, I am currently rewatching the whole show (doing a episodes tier list while I am at it) and I’ve been reading a lot of things about it (Wiki, tumblr posts, reddit posts, comments on YT video, etc.)
One of the things that keeps on igniting debates is the sixth season and I wanted to share my thoughts on Spike and Buffy's behaviours, because this season made me think a lot and I had to read more to order my thoughts.
Some things to know before I jump on the topic, so you know the “context” :
I absolutely adore btvs, I think the show is a masterpiece,
Season 6 is one of my favorites (with season 5),
I am a Spuffy fan, but I don’t really think they are right for each other on the long run (I am still trying to order my thoughts on that, might be another rambling and I might change my view on it !),
I really appreciate reading the different perspectives and opinions on the show, I think it says a lot about its quality that different people, with different experiences, can interpret things in their own sensible way. Depending on what you’ve been through, where you were at in life when you watch the show, you could perceive things in a complete different light.
English is not my first language, things might not be as clear as I thought they were.
On to the topic of Out of Character claim regarding Buffy and Spike but especially Spike in season 6.
First, the “truths” of the show, I don’t mean the writers’ intentions because I don’t pretend to know them, but the things that I consider to be the core principles of the serie :
A vampire without soul cannot be good by themselves (i.e. without external motivation). I don’t say it is a good or bad concept, I just say it is the hill the show decided to die on. It is a core concept introduced in the first season, a key part of Angel as a character and, as a consequence, a common thread throughout the serie.
A soulless vampire has no moral compass and act according to two things : their desires and their community (copycat behaviour). They will do what they want (which vary a lot for each vampire) and, if they are in a community, they will follow the actions of said community and/or the community’s strongest. It is said that Angelus made Spike the way he is now (a soulless vampire), Darla made Angelus, she made him a vampire and the vampire he is (his behaviour), Angelus did the same to Drusilla, Angelus and Drusilla did the same to Spike. Furthermore, we frequently see vampires living in group with a leader and acting together.
Spike main personality trait is that he loves and his love is strong. And that is something he keeps as a vampire. He loves his mother so much, the first thing he did when he became a vampire is turning her so she could be cured (the first thing he did was an act of selfish love). He is totally obsessed with Drusilla, all he did in season 2 is for her and to keep her (he is very possessive), even his cameo in season 3 is all about his unhealthy and obssessive love for Drusilla. “I want Dru back, I just got to be the man I was […] I’ll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, torture her until she likes me again” (3x8 “Lovers Walk”).
That was a very long introduction and I think I can start my (much longer) “essay” :
I don’t think Spike or Buffy act out of character during season 6.
When Spike realises he loves Buffy, he is alone. He has no community, no group (I don’t think Harmony can be considered a community), he has the chip, cannot be vampire nor human, he doesn’t belong. Thus, he has one thing to follow, his desires which are :
Being loved by Buffy
If 1 can’t be achieved : Have sex with Buffy
If 2 can’t be achieved : Being important to Buffy
At this moment This is his only raison d’être.
He knows that Buffy doesn’t like him. She said so before, she has and continue to show him. And for that to change, he needs to act in a way that will please Buffy. And to achieve that, Buffy becomes his mirror.
He starts testing various behaviours and adapting when he doesn’t have the desire outcome. He tries to help her patrolling, he assists Dawn, he tries to be realiable, to comfort her when she is sad.
He is literally:
But everything he does is directly linked to how Buffy will respond, she is his moral compass (I don’t say he considers Buffy his moral compass per se, just that Buffy motivating all his doings, her morals “become” his).
And this is where I will focus on Buffy, because I said that she is Spike’s mirror and moral compass.
In Season 5, Buffy is strong. She is confident in her Slayer’s role, she’s righteous, she knows she does good. Even when things go bad, she has convictions, she has her friends, she will protect them, protect Dawn and the World. She doubts her strenght (to fight Glory) but never her character. At this point, she is hard on Spike. She doesn’t tolerate him crossing the line, she’s cold bordering hostile.
Up to 5x14 “Crush”, she is using him for information and sometimes she pays his help. In Crush, when he tells her he loves her, she is disgusted because he’s done nothing by himself to prove he is good. He asks for something, "Just... Give me something, A crumb... the barest smidgen" and she gives him nothing. But Spike has one raison d’être and he will keep on trying. “Fella’s got to try though” (5x10 “Into the Woods”)
The first real good thing he does is in 5x18 "Intervention”, resisting Glory’s torture and keeping Dawn’s identity as the Key a secret. He gets is first “reward”, a kiss and an acknowledgement from Buffy. This will train his response, he knows now that protecting Dawn, being a hero in this time of crisis against Glory will make him closer to Buffy. All he does in the end of season 5 is according to that.
Side note : I don’t think him staying to protect Dawn after Buffy’s sacrifice is selfless. He still has the chip, he is still alone, he cannot join a community of vampires or demons, he just has his love for Buffy and the promise he made her. It’s something to live by. Plus it’s in line with his character as a poet living for great love. End of side note.
Here comes Season 6. Buffy has been ripped out of Heaven, she is clearly depressed, she is not confident anymore, she doesn’t have any motivations to be the Slayer, thus she thinks she’s a bad Slayer and a bad person. She resents herself for being like this, she thinks she disappoints her friends but she cannot get better. She has lost her drive.
At the beginning Spike is here to help, his mirror at this point is Pre-sacrifice Buffy, he tries to be here for her and he is ! But Buffy is destroyed, she can’t count on her friends, Giles who could have helped her is gone, and she feels empty and/or bad, she just wants to feel something that is not suffering. “Give me something to sing about” (6x7 "Once More, with Feeling"). The line is blurry and she goes to the only person who has shown the kind of support she needed, Spike, giving him what he wished for.
She’s given him the “smidgen” he was asking for and he won’t let it go. He wants to talk to her, he wants to know if they have something. I think here he is still with the Pre-sacrifice Buffy moral compass and I am sure that Buffy treating him like a man, like someone she knows she can count on would have taken their relationship in a whole different way in season 6. Because Spike is good when Buffy treats him like a man, “I know I am a monster but you treat me like a man” (5x22 “The Gift”). But Buffy is not the same, she is suffering and she sees what she does with Spike as a proof of her wrongness, something she would’ve never done before her sacrifice, another evidence that she is not the same, that she is not The Good Slayer. How does she cope with this realization ? She externalises her self-loathing by insulting Spike, belittling him and what they shared while keeping on seeing him “The only thing that’s different is that I’m disgusted with myself” (6x10 "Wrecked").
And I think that’s when the shift occurs;
Spike doesn’t need to act heroic to gain what he desires,
He’s not treated like a man anymore, so why do good ? Plus he would rather defend himself against Buffy’s insults by being offensive and violent. “You’re not a man. You’re a thing.” (6x9 "Smashed”).
He sees that while Buffy insults him and says no, she keeps returning to him for comfort. He gets to be his “”bad self”” again without losing what he wants.
From this point in time, Spike loses the incentive to do good, he sees Buffy’s in a dark place (and I said she is his moral compass), he himself relishes in the dark so he tries to keep Buffy there, because when she’s there, she’s with him so that means that what he’s doing is working, right ? It is selfish, obsessive and unhealthy like his relationship with Drusilla (but Drusilla was also a vampire). I am not saying that he doesn’t want Buffy to get better but I think he wants her to get better through him and that means the “dark place” because she is not showing him another way (the mirror).
While they don’t act out of character, they act in a specific context :
Buffy is depressed and lonely, she’s got financial problem,
Willow is addicted to Magics
Tara is not immediately here because she has broken up with Willow,
Xander is caught up with the wedding,
Giles isn’t here,
There is no “Big Bad” threat, apocalypse-like villain to unite the team.
A lot of things aren't going well and it can appear exaggerated compared to the previous seasons. But the show’s always aimed to tell the stories of “personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wikipedia) by using the supernatural as metaphors, and even if those metaphors are less subtle is this season the themes stay intact. Sometimes life sucks. Everything is going downhill, your friends are not here for you, you think you will fail, that you will be in this dark place forever. You don’t see a way out, your most reliable friend is going through a rough path and everything is against you. And there is no Big Bad that you can fight for all to be better, it’s a lot of little issues that take time to resolve.
It is important to understand that soulless Spike cannot be good for Buffy and eveything that happened during season 6 would have inevitably happened. Even if Spike and Buffy had managed to get into a healthy relationship, Spike is only good because Buffy is strong and confident and can draw the line, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be. He needs to be good for himself and not based on another person, nobody must endorse the role of the moral compass in a relationship. The first moment Buffy wavers, soulless Spike would have fallen in the same pattern, his “bad self” again. And Buffy wavers in season 6.
My conclusion : seaon 6’s events were bound to happen and nothing was out of character.
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