#and what's fucked up in one case is that I'm *still rewatching the source material*

[imwritesometimes]

really tiring of the vicious cycle of 'ok revisit source material to poke brain' -> 'ok scroll through own tag to poke brain harder' -> 'berate and belittle brain out of frustration cause poking isn't producing anything' -> 'frustration gets worse doubts get really loud stop poking brain as depresh sets in' -> 'boredom' -> 'maybe if I had an idea for a fic I wouldn't be so bored I should poke my brain into activity!' repeat ad nauseam

#in the last few weeks I have: #abandoned a wip that had over 16k words and talked myself out of writing 2 others #this is all WHILE I'm rewatching source material. while I'm in my own tags. while I'm revisiting my own fics from before. #idk what is wrong with my brain but baby she does not fckn work anymore! #I'm *still* thinking abt the din.cobb idea I got and I go from 'oh kinda cute premise maybe there could be something there' #to 'this is fuckin stupid and also it sounds like too much work to write I just won't do it' #idk why but *everything* feels like too much work to write rn #even just like... a scene. it's like ughhh but that's so much work. #so much easier to have the fleeting thought and then never think of it again and just play a game on my phone instead #and what's fucked up in one case is that I'm *still rewatching the source material* #and STILL I cannot make myself do anything past lol that would be funny dialogue write it down in phone notes #where it sits. and becomes nothing. for all eternity. love it. #erin explains it all

[twixitativi]

do you have any tips on writing an au? normal fics i can usually handle but i’m working on a kunichuu grease au and i’m finding it quite difficult.

hiya! thanks for asking :3 also good luck with that, that seems like so much fun omg; feel free to send when you start releasing, i'd love to check it out!

ill be using splinters as my example here purely because thats closer to what you're trying to do (movie/musical as reference)

this is going to be long as fuck because i tend to ramble and go into detail, so im adding a read-more. i sincerely hope this helps because i know its a LOT (potential spoilers for splinters included)

1. The Foundation

when i first started working on splinters, it started with a lot of idea bouncing. who would suit what role? why would that role work for them? originally, i had looked at dazai as jd and chuuya as veronica, or dazai as veronica with fyodor as his jd.

then, i also started thinking about story 'beats'. to be clear about what that means, i like to think of different parts/scenes that i need/want to hit, and kind of the order if possible. this usually intertwines with the original story-- in your case, grease.

all this starts falling into the next step:

2. Research

it may not be entirely apparent, but i did (and still do) a FUCK TON of research for splinters. by choosing to have multiple source materials to base your work off (both bsd AND grease), depending on how close/accurate you want to be, you're going to want to get in touch with the material.

you've mentioned grease-- i'm assuming you're doing this based off the movie (love the movie. need to rewatch). what i personally do with heathers the movie is that i watched it the entire way through first to refresh myself with the material. it might help you to take notes about different characters, ideas, plot lines. i found a copy of both scripts online in case i wanted to see about throwing an iconic line in during an important scene without diving through the whole movie to find it.

i dont know HOW historically accurate you want to go with your fic--you may be choosing to explore the concept of grease rather than the actual setting itself-- but grease takes place in the late 50s, TECHNICALLY early 60s (movie itself came out in the late 70s) (my mom LOVED it when it came out). so, you may want to do some basic research: fashions/trends of the time (this has gotten harder to search online, you may want to even run to the library and find some books if possible)? societal norms? what did normal teens do during that time? did they have arcades, did they go to restaurants, what was the average place they hung out at?

a lot of times, i have to double-check if some of the stuff in splinters is period accurate. each decade has different lingo, slang, and general information that was normal during it. hell, looking back at the 2010s versus 2020s, if you were to write a story during, saying, 2011, and have your characters saying "slay" and "yas queen" and "road work ahead, uh yeah i sure hope it does", i regret to inform you that that will NOT be accurate, as those phrases are more late 2010s + that vine came out in 2016. now, could you quote/potentially reference these things? absolutely! but you have to be more strategic about it.

ALSO. look up fun trivia about your source material! you know where i got my title from? its the english translation of the italian name for heathers. im not even kidding. also, mix and match material! hell, even throw references in to other material! i had my mean girls reference in there! because its bsd, i like to throw in authors i like from time to time where they fit!

another silly one: what music came out around that time, playing on the radio? HOW did they listen to music? i specifically listen to a 1989 top hits playlist when im trying to figure out what songs might be playing on the radio while my characters are driving-- and even THEN i still will look up specifically when that song came out, because i made the choice to be horribly specific with my timeline.

on that note:

3. If you can, DON'T SET A SPECIFIC MONTH/DAY/ETC.

i made my choices. do i regret them? YES. is it still fun to work with? absolutely, but also the heathers timeline is lowkey a mess and you could simultaneously claim it takes place in 2 months or several.

honestly, avoid specifics. having to keep track of a timeline is an absolute bitch, and it's going to make your life a lot harder, because then, you HAVE to make sure it all matches up. if i say that kunikida went and got his glasses in march, i cant say that his glasses are brand new in may (this is a hypothetical example).

timelines suck. unless you think you can dedicate the time and energy to keeping with one, don't do it.

4. OUTLINES.

i've been writing fanfics for years, which is wild to me. i was writing fanfics in single digits (didn't even know what fanfics were). one thing that i have especially found useful with splinters is to make outlines for where you want the story to go.

let me break it down for you:

you're gonna have MULTIPLE outlines, and they are NOT set in stone. they are guidelines for you to use so that you're not sitting there going "shit i don't know what to do next". they may be scenes you want to have in the fic. they may be important plot points. they may be absolutely stupid shit that youre like "if i dont get this in here i will cry" (diarrheazai is a threat that i intend to keep)

FIRSTLY. try making a general outline for your whole fic. you don't need super specifics, but think of what events occur during grease. in it, danny and sandy meet in the summer before their senior year. sandy meets and joins the pink ladies. there's a dance competition. danny and sandy fly off in a car into the sunset. etc. TO BE CLEAR, you don't have to keep all the details! it is your story, and what you want to do with it! having that structure can be helpful when you start though.

THEN. once you have that general outline? start trying to plan out chapters. you dont have to make outlines for them all at once. more often than not, i'll sit there before i start a new chapter just trying to outline what'll happen in it. this helps a LOT on multiple levels. i'll provide an example of what that can look like below (SPOILERS IF YOU'RE NOT UP-TO-DATE WITH SPLINTERS):

(the blacked out bit is spoilers, everything else should be clear to see)

a quick explanation: i dedicate a small document to outlines for each chapter. as you can see, with chapter beats, i have diff things i want to try to hit. the stuff highlighted in green is stuff that i come back post-chapter to confirm i hit. sometimes, if it's not EXACTLY in there, i'll leave a note in bold (ex: WAS MENTIONED).

but you can kind of see what im talking about here. i have some things that im trying to knock out per chapter.

other things in my doc to outline:

yes i talk to myself in my notes.

i highlight different scenes according to their relevance to certain characters sometimes; i add scenes in where i need to, and then ofc as you see ill go into detail about specific scenes. and AGAIN these are not set in stone. for example:

as you can see, shit changes over time. that boiler room make-out scene during the homecoming pep rally appeared in ch 11. i did not make this sequence fyodor's pov.

sometimes? i just dont have the time or energy to write shit/dont think its relevant to the plot. good bye, corn maze. you'll be remembered in my thoughts and my outline

also try to have fun while outlining. it doesnt need to be something serious. literally my outlines are a mix of dialogue, scenes, my own thoughts, etc. get silly with it. this is supposed to be fun and enjoyable!

ANOTHER THING:

5. LOOP SOMEONE INTO OBSESSING OVER THIS WITH YOU.

i was inspired by ardeidae to write splinters, and i have successfully trapped them in splinters world for almost an entire year now. by both of us loving it, we can keep ourselves focused on it.

what also helps is bouncing ideas off other people. me and lu have had conversation after conversation after conversation about different plot lines, scenes, etc. sometimes, i don't know what to do and i will ask lu (or other people) for advice about the progression.

you may have also heard of the engineering rubber duck method. if you're unfamiliar, engineers will sit there with a rubber ducky by them and talk to it about what they're working on until they figure out what they need to do. sometimes, just ranting about the fic is enough to help you spawn ideas about what to do next.

OH also

6. If you do end up making a timeline? Have a calendar on hand.

this is no longer 100% accurate to the progression of splinters and the chapters, but it helped a LOT. laying it out like this can make one hell of a difference. im a visual person, so doing this helped. also, can help you keep track of holidays and shit. if you want to give your characters a day off from classes, check a school calendar for holidays. be like "uhhhherrrr yeah they're taking, uhhhh veteran's day off" yk

7. Write, but don't force it.

splinters doesn't have an actual updating schedule because i work on it at my own pace, and update once i finish a chapter. now, i usually finish chapters after a month, but i don't say it updates on x day. don't box yourself in unless you truly think you can handle it. some people are very good about schedules. i am horrible at them, bc ykw? LIFE HAPPENS.

when im in the mood, i write. i will sit for HOURS and just write. grab some snacks, maybe pop on some music, get a buddy to sit with you, but just go for it. sometimes, i'll pull a 25-10 method-- 25 minutes of writing with ten minutes of relaxing and bullshitting--and that helps me not burn out as quickly. but honestly, you cant always brute force it.

have i had to brute force it sometimes? yes. you will get stuck. it naturally happens. sometimes, a scene fucking sucks and you're like "i hate this scene but it HAS to be in there" (if it doesnt fuck that shit. throw it out. blegh) sometimes, you need to mix things up to make it more appealing to you, because i am of the belief that the readers can tell when you're not invested in a scene. if im writing a scene and its going slowly and i just want to get it done? the quality's going to go down, and i KNOW it. so, i evaluate. what do i need to do for this scene to work? can i add something to help? do i need to just rewrite the bastard and call it a day?

and sometimes? you can just go ahead and put a little "<'scene'>" in and move on. depending on how much your fic relies on that scene, that won't always work, but sometimes, you just gotta leave it and come back to it. you can also do that with certain dialogue/details. if you're trying to get your characters from point A to point B, don't shove them there if they run out of gas. make a detour, and see what happens.

eerrrrrrr yeah, i THINK that's the majority of the advice i can give? sorry that that's a lot, but uhhh hope it helps! :')

#wild that people would want advice from me but hopefully itll help #good luck with your fic anon! it seems like fun!

[iris-sistibly]

Since I'm rewatching Maria Clara at Ibarra on Netflix, at dahil may time ako for today's bidyow I'm just gonna give my two cents on this comment:

I think we can all agree that Maria Clara did NOT deserve to suffer the way she did, and yes she deserves to be happy with the only man she ever loved. But Maria Clara's story is the story of many women who were oppressed, and abused by priests during the Spanish era and sadly, this reality STILL exists even up to this day. And as much as I fucking hate to admit this, there are still many untold stories of women (even boys and young men) who were sexually abused by these disgusting hypocrites who call themselves instruments of God, and what's more painful is that the victims are silenced and the abusers get away with it because *coughs* ✨the Church protects them✨

Don't get me wrong, I was baptized and raised as a Catholic myself, but I refuse to ignore cases like these which thankfully in the modern times are being addressed and taken actions of, but I'm not sure how many of these mga sugo ng Diyos are actually punished for their crimes (*clears throat* Church is still quite influential af even in the 21st century 🙃).

Ibarra is a good man with good intentions for San Diego, yet he was framed and accused of being a heretic and filibuster by [again] these fugly Church peeps because they wanted the Filipinos to remain indios: uneducated and poor af. Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is the image of those people who only wanted to help their fellow Filipinos, yet are the ones who are being punished for the most nonsense reasons, and the very people who called themselves his friends and supporters are the same people who turned their backs on him because they were afraid of suffering the same fate as Crisostomo (and Don Rafael) .

In the show, I saw myself in Klay (except that I passed my Noli, El Fili and Rizal lessons 🤣) my only drive to read Noli and El Fili was to pass my Filipino subject. I did not have a full grasp of the lesson that Rizal was trying to teach. The moment I passed my subject, I was like "Oh good! Finally!" but I didn't take those learnings by heart. And I said the very same thing Klay said in the earlier episode, "What's the point of studying Noli and El Fili when I can't even apply it on the course I'm taking or my job when I graduate?" And I admit, history wasn't my favorite subject, I found it boring. I missed the whole point of what my teacher was teaching me.

I could go on and on about the characters of the novels and the show but to sum it all up, every character and events are the very images of every Filipino, their struggles, and the truth about what was really happening in our country. Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo weren't the kind of novels you expect them to be, it is not a stereotypical love story, and it wasn't written to make the readers OR the audiences happy. These novels are here to teach the Klays like you and me not only about our history but also open our eyes to the reality of how this cancer of the society still exists and if we, the Filipino people don't do something to "cure" this, our country will NEVER progress.

As much as I wanted Ibarra and Maria to have a happily ever after they both deserve, I am glad that GMA 7 actually didn't stray away too much from its source materials, because now I understand why I had to learn those books. I understand now why Rizal was named national hero, his novels paved the way for the Filipinos to finally stand up and fight the oppressors.

However, as much as it pains me of how tragic Rizal's novels are, at least in the show, they got a happy ending. Just in a different timeline and universe but still, happily ever after.

#misc #gma 7 #maria clara at ibarra #noli me tangere #el filibusterismo #jose rizal #suzette doctolero #netlifx #juan crisostomo ibarra y magsalin #maria clara delos santos y alba #maria clara infantes #dennis trillo #julie anne san jose #barbie forteza

[charliethemanticore]

Hi! I watch/read a lot of anime/manga, so I figured I'd discuss the filler thing with you! Hope that's ok!

That's actually a very good point, I never thought about it that way! I think people disregard filler and don't consider it a regular addition to an adaptation, like it happens in other movies or shows, because in most cases its point is not to add anything worthwhile to the story, but to gain some time to not catch up to the manga.

So then, particularly in longer anime such as Naruto or Bleach, there are these entire arcs that completely deviate from the story and are ultimately pointless and stick out like a sore thumb. Whatever happened there is never brought back again, and its characters are promptly discarded as soon as the arc ends. This is something that doesn't happen in adaptations in other media (as far as I know), and what makes filler such an unique thing to anime.

Then there are cases where from some point on the anime completely deviates from its source material, such as Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 or Soul Eater. People don't refer to its original content as filler anymore because there's an understanding that they're doing their own thing.

I think what ultimately draws the line on what's filler or not it's its purpose and of course this is not a black or white thing, or matter of quality. Most people would agree that FMA 2003's ending is garbage, and the episode in DBZ where Goku and Piccolo learn how to drive is incredible. But then in cases where filler adds to and elevates the source material, can we still refer to it as such? That's a more difficult question! But I think we can all agree that Naruto's filler is pretty pointless, it made the show near unwatchable, and it's as fillery as filler can get. It's there to fill time and nothing else, no one's happy that it exists but alas it's there.

Sorry this got so long haha

Disclaimer: I have a migraine so this is very rambly and not the response such a well thought-out explanation deserves.

Thank you so much for your perspective I really appreciate it. (Also I feel like my tags were misleading. I watch a lot of anime I'm just like... Sitting in the corner doing my own thing bc I find active participation in fandom tends to be bad for my specific combination of issues)

But my biggest toxic trait is I fucking love like... 60% of the Naruto filler arcs (they're the only time my most beloved shino gets any real airtime and he DESERVES IT)

BUT based on every conversation I've had with my friends about this, this is because I have very different... Requirements when it comes to the stuff I like. The filler arcs are silly and fun and I enjoy them immensely (the only one I couldn't watch to completion was the robot Naruto one). Have a lot of complicated feelings about them though. Like The Three-Tails' Appearance is great because shino gets to be competent and Lee is a sweetheart and Sakura and Ino get to work together... But if that adorable child plays that leaf whistle one more time I may cry (guess where I'm up to in my rewatch)

Bleach filler is so much worse. Bount arc wasn't even enjoyable 0/10 couldn't even be saved by hot villains. I watched all but one arc of Naruto. I did not grant the same to bleach, it burned me too many times.

DBZ filler is complicated though because a lot of the filler has canon stuff sprinkled in which I think is a more seamless way to buy time - sprinkling filler into existing arcs rather than having just... 76 episodes of near continuous filler NARUTO. I understand the constraints were different though.

(fma:b is one of my favourites and I sort of just pretend 2003 didn't happen. It has some good points but I just can't. The author told them to go with their hearts and I respect that they committed but results were questionable)

Point is I think it's really interesting to see how other people interact with media because I'm mostly just sitting here like "are my favourite little guys talking? Brilliant. 10/10 you're doing great sweetie etc" im stressed out by literally everything else, a few episodes of some kids trying to unmask their teacher is enrichment in my enclosure

#asks #thank you for such a well thiught out response

[lichfucker]

Hi! (feel totally free to ignore btw!) I used to looove starkid back in avpm days, but I haven't seen anything since Starship. You posting abt Black Friday is making me want to go back tho! What starkid/tcb shows should watch vs skip? I know twisted, saf, (&apparently bf) are great - which of the others have you seen & liked? Thanks! ☺️

twisted, saf, and bf are all TOP TIER and you absolutely should watch them

the guy who didn't like musicals is, like, technically kind of a prequel to black friday? they take place in the same town and there's a handful of overlapping characters (and since black friday is generally a lot. heavier in tone, a lot of the Jokes that get big audience reactions are just references to tgwdlm). you don't HAVE to watch tgwdlm to enjoy bf, and in all honesty I really didn't like tgwdlm very much (it's just not my kind of humor personally and the ratio of songs I liked to songs I didn't is just a little too low, y'know?). you'd be missing out on a LITTLE bit of context my watching bf without watching tgwdlm but not even really that much, they do a good job of re-explaining all the plot-relevant details and the relationship between the shows isn't quite as straightforward as prequel/sequel. so it's up to you whether you'd think it's worth it to watch tgwdlm in addition to bf

you mentioned starship which I LOVE. worth rewatching. starship and holy musical b@man are maybe the most underrated shows in the company's oeuvre. I love hmb so much it makes me insane. I'm so sick of superhero media that takes itself really seriously lmao the concept is inherently absurd and ridiculous, and hmb really leans into the idea that, like, this is all dumb as hell. the characters don't THINK it's dumb as hell, and they DO take it super seriously, but it's still very much dumb as hell

trail to oregon has a lot more potty humor than I usually like, but I absolutely fucking love it. tto makes me so happy makes me go 🥰🥰 turn my brain off and watch ppl be dumb abt The Frontier. (in case you couldn't tell, most of starkid's shows revolve around people being extremely stupid and they're soooooo good at it.) trail to oregon also has a choose-your-own-ending thing which is fun and because I'm me I have extremely strong opinions about which one is the best lmao but I won't tell you which bc I don't want to influence your decision-making

AND THEN THERE'S FIREBRINGER. the perfect lauren lopez vehicle. dumb idiot cavepeople my BELOVED. if you were On The Internet in 2017 you probably saw clips of the song 'work to do,' the "I don't really wanna do the work today" song. 'twas a big meme. it's very very good. and the music?? my g-d. heavenly harmonies. firebringer is just... fun. it's fun and very bisexual, if that means anything to you

don't watch me and my dick. it's good for corey dorris having a solo and bad/uncomfy for almost everything else. most people dislike ani; I have mixed feelings abt it. I'm not THAT into star wars so a lot of the references were lost on me, and a lot of people really didn't like that they don't sing (they did it in rep with tto, and tto took most of their best singers). that's not to say there's no music-- there is!! but the band does it all, movie soundtrack-style, instead of the characters. a lot of the songs are really good, though!! and clark's voice is soooooo 🤩. but it's, y'know, stylistically a very different experience than most other starkid musicals, and it's steeped in the granular details of star wars canon far more than the other parody musicals are in their source material. and in all honesty I haven't really watched much tcb beyond saf so I don't feel qualified to rec any other tcb stuff, though iirc people seem to really love solve-it squad

thank you for allowing me to ramble abt starkid lmfao :3

#anonymous #bluh bluh #long post

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 3x19 Choices

aka everyone’s just dying to give each other a piece of their mind

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and rant about it in 10-3k words. What you can expect: long run-on sentences and disjointed observations, often focused on one tiny detail about the episode. What you shouldn’t be expecting: actual reviews that make sense.

And I’ve been waiting forever for today’s episode to finally discuss some quality Willow and Faith feelings... And it turns out that it was just a 2-minute-scene all along? Still, we’ll be making the best out of those 2 minutes, folks.

There’s actually a lot going on in Choices, but I want to get the main rant out first, before I get lost in all the small details of it.

So... Willow and Faith.

Fun fact, did you know that that is actually the 5th most popular BtVS F/F pairing tag on Ao3? Right after the popular canon, the popular “it’s basically canon and you can fucking sue me” ship, the pairing of the two main female characters (shout out to the Wuffys, I got you) and the less popular canon ship.

Which... wasn’t really what I was expecting? I mean, I also wasn’t expecting #6 being Faith/Dawn (having a 2 fic-lead on the ultimate OTP because you’re all heathens), so I guess I know nothing.

Some of those switch though if you filter for the F/F category, look, I have charts:

(Meanwhile Buffy/Kendra has like 12 fics, you really are all heathens.)

Anywho, thanks for coming to my Ted talk about the math of Buffy femslash. Now, back to Willow and Faith specifically.

Once I thought about it, it did make sense that this is actually a popular fandom pairing I guess? On one hand, it’s a common denominator situation, as in note which characters pop up consistently on that chart... On the other hand, in this episode alone Willow taunts Faith to which she responds by punching her and threatening her with a knife... And that’s pretty much how foreplay works as far as Faith’s concerned.

Faith just likes it rough, okay? Remember the screencap I used for Consequences after Buffy punches her?

I rest my case.

But I’m already way off topic here. Because what I was actually planning on talking about initially was how Willow felt about Faith, and the source of those feelings.

I already pointed this out, but I feel it’s worth repeating - Willow’s dislike of Faith goes back to two episodes in particular: Bad Girls and Consequences. As far as I was able to discern this time during my rewatch, there were no previous signs of animosity between the two preceding that two-parter.

In Bad Girls, Buffy blows Willow off for their study session to go out with Faith, and starts rambling about how Willow and Xander wouldn’t understand anyway what she and Faith do.

Willow is deeply hurt and jealous... She actually blows Buffy off too in return when she tries talking to her at school in the next episode, and only listens once Buffy shows up crying at her doorstep not knowing what to do about the whole Faith killed a guy situation.

In the same episode, Xander lets it slip that he and Faith had sex... And Willow is once again obviously hurt and jealous. She even has a good cry about it in the bathroom.

And I guess that that seems like a stronger emotional response than how she reacts to Faith stealing away Buffy from her, but it’s still coming from the same place. Note her line in that episode when she acknowledges her biases:

I'm not the most objective, I know. I kind of have an issue with Faith sharing my people.

“Sharing my people” - she’s pointedly talking about both Xander and Buffy here.

And there is a specific kind of betrayal that she feels from Xander, and that’s going to translate to pretty much all of Xander’s relationship... But at this point, it’s not really about her wanting that relationship with Xander. She had the option and she rejected it.

Still, if Xander has that with someone else, that makes their shared experiences feel less special. It makes her feel like less special in his life. (Which unfortunately tracks with a lot of Xander’s behavior about how he’s always chasing the new, shiny and unattainable thing in his life.)

Meanwhile with Buffy, Willow is mostly supportive of her relationships... up until to the point that she feels like they’re taking up the space that she occupies in Buffy’s life. And that very much happens with Faith in those moments, as Buffy suddenly feels like she can’t share with Willow what she and Faith has. (I swear, I’m not even trying, these sentences just turn out this way.)

So... yeah. Willow is super pissed at Faith for having the audacity to try and take away her people from her, and then hurting the both of them.

And I guess we can see some of that same kind of jealousy with Faith (I can and I will read parallels into Willow and Faith’s characters, just you wait) and her whole thing with Buffy and Angel in Choices... Except it’s weirdly misdirected? Like is the Mayor and the show seriously trying to tell us that Faith is jealous about Angel not wanting to make out with her, when that whole thing was all about Buffy in the first place?

Really, Mayor Wilkins? Really?

Well, I guess he is evil.

Back to Willow though, we have this scene where she gets taken hostage, and after she murders her vampire guard with a pencil (amazing), she decides to get comfortable in the Mayor’s office and read through all 5 tomes of the Books of Ascension??? It’s such a delightful nonsense.

Of course, I’m definitely with her on the whole “knowledge is power” notion. Even if they were to prevent the Mayor from having this Box of MacGuffin, there’s no way to tell if that would actually stop the Ascension. But knowing what’s to come and what they could do about it? That’s a definite win.

The issue is that as Faith puts it, being caught red-handed while gaining that knowledge makes Willow some very strong murder material for the bad guys. She could’ve just put the books in a bag, and tried escaping with them, or get the hell out there the moment she discovered those sensitive pages.

But do you know what I think? I think Willow just wanted to have the chance to confront Faith. She was ready to die just to give her a piece of her mind.

Willow: It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo! Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends in your life like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste.

That’s commitment.

Notice also how she highlights Faith having Buffy in her life and not appreciating it enough to keep fighting. I do feel like Willow is deeply offended by that. I talk about her jealousy a lot, but her commitment to the people she loves is usually her more dominant character trait. Feeling like Faith stole her friends from her hurt her; but her anger mostly comes from the fact that Faith hurt Buffy and Xander in unimaginable ways.

I guess this episode did give me a lot of Willow feelings.

Someone else who shared Willow’s need to impart some wisdom in the most inconvenient times was the Mayor. And honestly? I didn’t care a whole lot about it. Angel and Buffy has a million other conflicts that come before him being immortal.

Like, I get that it’s supposed to shake them out of their own little bubble a bit, and face the fact that they don’t really see a future together. I believe the phrasing I previously used was that being together prevents them from becoming the people they want to be.

Their initial exchange at the graveyard is kinda hilarious though. “You never take me to any place new” - I’m still laughing, ngl.

At the same time, Xander and Cordelia still appear to be having their bitter verbal conflicts. Which is weird, especially after Earshot, an episode that I praised for including Cordelia in the group once again. (I guess maybe Earshot was written with a different place in the season in mind for it initially? I know that it didn’t air when it was supposed to too, because of the school shooting aspect...)

Here, the two of them are once again out to get each other. Even Buffy ends up in the crossfires, as Cordelia aims one of her pointedly cruel jabs at her. Yikes.

But we also find out here that Cordelia is working in a dress shop now, so there’s that.

And this episode of course is also about everyone’s futures. Willow decides that despite being accepted into literally every school ever, she’s going to attend UC Sunnydale with Buffy. Not just to be with her, but because she enjoys saving the world and all that jazz.

Oh, Willow, if you only knew...

This of course also presents a welcome contrast for Buffy, who feels like she doesn’t have a choice but to stay in Sunnydale. It’s a really nice moment between them, as Buffy realizes herself that she too very much made that choice herself. Because that’s who Buffy is. Someone who could never turn her back on the people who need her.

Buffy:  I kinda love you.

We all do, Buffy. Just ask Oz, and his decisive ingredient smashing move that annihilated the whole argument about whether or not they should rescue Willow. (”That’s your future wife!” - me @ Alexis Denisof in that scene.)

Also, shout out at that whole Mission Impossible heist premise we got going on in this episode. I always appreciate a weird clash of genres.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs