#amends

[raaorqtpbpdy]

The Only Way Out is Through (2)

Vlad overshadows Jack as part of a diabolical plan to get rid of him and win Maddie's heart. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry when Vlad finds he can neither take control over Jack, nor leave.

For the prompts: Vlad's murderous plan for vengeance goes awry when he finds himself unable to stop possessing Jack's body. Jack is very much still alive and complaining about the "insufferable spook inhabiting his form". He's forced to live Jack's life until he can come up with a solution. IF he can... [from Balshumet], Vlad wishes his friendships could go back to the way they were in college, little does he know that Jack and Maddie have similar sentiments. [from @half-deadmagicperson], and Jack wants to save Vlad, but he'll have to face the harm he caused twenty years ago in order to accomplish this. [from @kuzann]

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Chapter 2: Forgive, but Never Forget (Chapter 1)

[Warning for past trauma, guilt and blame, and mentions of death]

Jack stared.

Before him, he saw the rotten specter who'd tried to possess him and gotten stuck... and he also saw his best friend, Vlad Masters. And he had no idea what to make of it.

"I... I don't understand," he said.

"Of course you wouldn't understand, you oaf," the Wisconsin Ghost sneered at him. "I can't stand to be near you for even another second."

Then, with a flourish of his cape, the ghost flew through the portal and was gone, leaving Jack alone with his friend and no less confused.

"Vlad, are you alright?" he asked. He reached out to his friend, only to have his hand slapped away.

"Don't touch me," Vlad said, though there was little bite to it.

He looked... sad. Sadder than Jack had ever seen him, and he was overcome with the desire to help, though he still hadn't the foggiest idea what he needed to help with.

"Vlad... what's going on?" he asked, trying and failing to put all the pieces together. It just didn't add up.

Had the Wisconsin Ghost possessed Vlad before coming to do the same to Jack? But... how would it have even done something like that? It was impossible. Still, Vlad would know better than Jack, he always did, so it probably would be best to ask.

"Did the Wisconsin Ghost overshadow you, too, Vlad?"

"I wasn't overshadowed by the Wisconsin Ghost," Vlad muttered darkly. "I am the Wisconsin Ghost. Or I was, anyway. Your device seems to have separated me from my ghost half, and now it has apparently abandoned me in its disgust. I hardly blame it for wanting to get away from you."

"I don't understand—"

"I told you, didn't I?" Vlad replied. "You killed me. I came to get revenge. It's as simple as that."

Jack shook his head, still as confused as when he'd first dispossessed himself of that ghost and seen Vlad standing there, if not more so. It certainly didn't seem like anything about this situation was at all simple. Actually, it seemed quite confusing. Most confusing of all, however, was that, even though Vlad's words should have sounded angry... he just sounded sad.

"Is... is something wrong, Vladdie?" Jack asked. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be? The man I once called friend betrayed me by stealing away the woman I love, sending me to an early grave in his incompetence, turning me into a half formed freak, neither truly human nor truly ghost, trapped me in his body for a week, and then split my two sides apart from each other, leaving me a broken man in every sense of the word."

Jack wasn't always the best at picking out sarcasm, but he didn't think Vlad was being genuine when he claimed he was fine. He actually sounded rather displeased and depressed about the whole thing. But Jack knew the cure for that.

"Come on, old chum," he said, grabbing Vlad by the arm despite his protests. "I'm taking you upstairs for some hot-chocolate and a warm blanket and we're going to talk this out."

Too bad Jack didn't know what to do about any of the rest of Vlad's problems. He didn't even know what Vlad was babbling about when he said half those things. Stealing away the woman he loved? Jack didn't know Vlad was dating anyone, or even crushing on anyone. And the only person Jack had dated since meeting Vlad was Maddie. By all accounts, it didn't make sense.

Once they got upstairs, Jack sat Vlad down on the sofa, grabbed a blanket from under the coffee table, and threw it over his friend's shoulders. It was a good blanket, thick, and warm, and soft. Jack knew because he'd knitted it himself, and he said as much. Then he told Vlad to stay put while he made some cocoa.

While Jack went through the familiar process of warming the milk, and mixing in the powder, and hunting down the marshmallows from wherever Maddie had hidden them this time, he tried to think over what Vlad had said before. There was something about a woman, and a half-formed... something, and a ghost? Or rather, not truly a ghost.

He felt like he was trying to put together a puzzle when he had only been given every other piece, and he'd gone and lost half the pieces he did have. It was, admittedly, rather frustrating, but Jack had done many puzzles with missing pieces—because he had a tendency to lose real puzzle pieces as much as metaphorical ones. He never gave up until he could see what the picture was, missing pieces or no.

When he returned to the living room with two cups of cocoa—he'd made one for himself while he was at it, just because—he saw Danny standing across from Vlad with an angry expression.

"I don't know what you're playing at, Vlad, but I want you out of here. Fly home. Now," he said in a low, growling tone.

"I would love to, Daniel, but alas... I don't have my powers." Vlad replied. "I won't be flying anywhere."

"What do you mean you don't have your powers?" Danny hissed. "You've been overshadowing my dad for like, a week, you're telling me you've lost your powers in the last ten minutes?"

"He used something called a 'ghost catcher' to separate us." Vlad shrugged.

Danny cringed hard. "Oh."

"Worked a bit too well, it seems. My ghost half flew off who knows where. I'm sure it'll come back for me when Jack's asleep."

"Fine, but I'm watching you, Vlad," Danny told him. "If you try anything funny, I'll dropkick you into the Ghost Zone and let you flail. Play nice with Dad, don't flirt with mom, and generally don't be such a fruit loop, or you're done here. Got it?"

"Loud and clear."

"Good."

With that, Danny turned around and left Vlad sighing behind him.

"What was that all about?" Jack asked as he entered the room, at last, two mugs of hot-cocoa in hand.

"You really have no listening comprehension, do you?" Vlad sighed, accepting a mug of cocoa, but not drinking it yet.

"Or maybe you haven't explained anything very well," Jack replied, starting to get a bit huffy.

Vlad couldn't put this all on him, when Vlad had just been saying things that didn't make any sense and expecting him to just know what they meant.

"Like that thing about me stealing the woman you love," Jack continued. "What's that all about? You never told me you were dating anyone. I didn't even know you liked anyone. And the only person I've dated since we met is Maddie, so how could I have stolen the woman you love?"

"Maddie is the woman I love, you utter buffoon," Vlad grumbled, then took a sip of his cocoa.

"Really?" Jack asked. "But... you never said anything. You never told me. How was I supposed to know?"

"I would have thought I was rather obvious about it."

"That's not fair," Jack replied. "With the number of times you've talked about how oblivious I am, it's not fair of you to assume I know things just because they're obvious. You know more than anyone how bad I am at noticing things. You're my best friend, if you liked Maddie, you should have told me."

"And what would you have done if I had? Hm?" Vlad asked. "Let me have her?"

"Well... no," Jack said obviously. "I couldn't do that. Maddie's a person, not something you can just have. If I knew you liked her too, we could have told her together and let her decide. At the very least I would have wanted us both to have a fair chance, instead of just making a move on my own. In fact, we can call her down now and ask her what decision she would have made."

"Really?" Vlad asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. "And what happens if she says she would have chosen me?"

"Well... then maybe we can work something out," Jack said. "I'll always support Maddie a hundred percent, no matter what she chooses. And no hard feelings from either of us, whatever she says, right?"

"Very well."

Maddie was reading a book in bed when Jack went to get her, telling her Vlad was here and they had an important question to ask her. She grimaced.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked.

"No, nothing," she said, putting on a smile. "Oh, is that ghost still attached to you?"

"No, I used the ghost catcher to separate it, and it flew off into the Ghost Zone," Jack said. "Then Vlad showed up, which... still not sure how that happened, but I'm working on it."

"The ghost catcher!" Maddie put her palm to her forehead. "I can't believe I didn't think of that. I totally forgot we made a ghost catcher."

"Don't feel too bad. I forgot, too. Now come on, Vlad's waiting downstairs."

"Right...." Maddie got up and followed, but she was walking slower than usual.

When they got to the living room, she took a seat on the armchair and Jack sat next to Vlad and started to explain.

"Did you know V-man also had a crush on you in college?" Jack asked. He opened his mouth to continue his speech, but Maddie interrupted him.

"Yes, I knew," she said.

"You did?"

"It was obvious," she and Vlad said in unison.

As much as he loved them both, they sure knew how to make Jack feel stupid at times.

"You and Vlad were both ridiculously obvious about your crushes on me," she continued. "At the time, I wasn't sure if I liked either of you, or who I liked more, so I decided that whoever asked me out first, I would go with, and if it worked, it worked, and if it didn't, it didn't."

"So... what if we'd come to you at the same time to confess our feelings and asked you to choose?" Vlad asked. "What would you have done then? Who would you have chosen?"

Maddie's eyes widened in surprise. "I... I don't know."

"Humor us," Vlad insisted. "Imagine that that had been what happened."

"Well... I suppose there are two possibilities," Maddie said. "You were both very good friends, and I wouldn't want to alienate either one of you by favoring the other. Either, I would have turned you both down to avoid hurting one of you so much that I would have lost him. Or I would have proposed an experiment to go on one date with the both of you and see which one I liked better as a boyfriend and which I preferred as just a friend."

"You always were very scientifically minded," Vlad commented.

"If you'd done the experiment, who do you think you would have picked?" Jack asked. More curious about her thoughts than actually concerned about whether she loved him or Vlad more.

She sighed. "I don't know. I really don't. It would have depended entirely on how you both met the challenge. But I was young, and naïve in college. I'd never dated anyone before, and I didn't know what to look for to know if a relationship would last. What I would have done back then, with the knowledge and experience I had back then, it doesn't really matter now, in the present.

"Knowing what I know now, I know I chose the right guy back then, even if it was just coincidence, or luck... I'm sorry Vlad. You were a good friend then, and I wish our friendship hadn't fallen apart, but the way you are now... you're pushy, and controlling, and I couldn't be happy married to a man like that. I know you both love me, but Jack understands me, and supports me, and even though he's forgetful, he cares about me as a person, and doesn't just want me, like you seem to.

"I just... I just wish we could all be friends like we were before," she said. "Before the accident, before all the resentment, and the pain, and separation. Before you turned into such a creep," she tacked on. "I miss those days. But it's too bad we can't just ignore all the time that's passed, and everything that's happened."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Vlad agreed miserably, then took another sip of his cocoa.

"Well why not?" Jack asked. "Why can't we just go back to the way things were between us in the old days?"

"Because you killed me!" Vlad snapped. "Because you were overeager, despite our warnings, and by your incompetence, made me spend two years in a hospital, suffering poor care and constant mistreatment in addition to extreme pain as the ecto-acne simultaneously killed and healed me.

"Did you know, That ectoplasm can do that? Kill someone and resurrect them at the same time? I found that out the hard way. Guess who else found that out the hard way, twenty years after I did?"

"Danny," Jack breathed out.

If the ghost really was somehow Vlad, like he'd claimed to be, then that thing he'd said about Jack killing his son and not even realizing it was starting to make sense.

"In the portal accident," he realized. Killed and resurrected at the same time.

"What?" Maddie asked.

Jack just shook his head. He couldn't explain now. He felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't even imagine how horrible something like that would be to experience. The way Vlad put it, it sounded like agony.

"Vlad... it was an accident," Jack said.

"That you caused."

"I never meant to—"

"But you did, didn't you," Vlad said. "You pressed that damned button and I didn't hear from you again for twenty years."

"We tried to visit you in the hospital, Vlad," Maddie said. "We tried so many times we were permanently banned from visitation there. They wouldn't let us see you because we weren't relatives. We didn't even know if you'd survived."

"And what about after?" Vlad asked. "After I left the hospital, I became a millionaire. I was all over the news. Why didn't you reach out then?"

"I tried!" Jack told him. "Your receptionist said she was told to screen all calls from me."

"You killed me," Vlad repeated. "Why the hell would I take your calls?!"

"He's only trying to say that we're not the only ones to blame for losing touch," Maddie intervened, leaning forward, though she didn't have the reach across the coffee table to put herself between them. "You shut us out because of your bitter resentment. How were we supposed to reach out to you when you put a wall between yourself and us?"

A wall. That was a perfect metaphor, Jack decided. Ever since they'd reconnected with Vlad, it had felt like there was a brick wall between them, as much as Jack tried to ignore it, and pretend it wasn't there, even he wasn't so oblivious that he didn't notice.

It felt like a Cask of Amontillado situation, except that Vlad was both the one who'd built the wall, and the one trapped behind it, isolated, stuck, and suffering. Jack had burst through many a wall, but he couldn't break down this one. He wanted to help his friend, to save him... he just didn't know how.

"I... I'm sorry, Vlad," Jack said.

It didn't feel like the right thing to say after everything, after what he'd done, intentionally or not. Especially now that he realized the true extent of the consequences of his poorly-thought-out actions. It wasn't strong enough to express his remorse, or tangible enough to fix the damage, but he'd realized, out of nowhere, that he'd never actually said it.

In all these years, he'd never actually apologized. Or, if he had, he didn't remember, which wasn't exactly unlikely. Still, it couldn't do any harm to say it again, if he had said it at all.

"I know I can be overzealous, and clumsy, and thoughtless," he continued. "I didn't choose to be like this, I don't do it on purpose, but I know I do it, and I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do to make it up to you, but say the word and I'll do it."

"You could give me Maddie—"

"No, he couldn't," Maddie cut in sharply. "I am not something that can be kept or given away. I thought I already made myself clear about all this."

"Worth a shot."

"Wasn't," she scowled.

"I can't do that," Jack said. "But I will try to do better. Jazz is always suggesting things I can do to help with my forgetfulness, and I never remember to try them, but I'll work with her to start doing that. I'll find ways to stop me being so impulsive. And I'll try to think more. You're always getting on my about how I don't think enough."

"That'll be a real challenge for you," Vlad replied.

"I know," Jack replied with a short laugh. "But I'm willing to do it. Whatever else you are, dead, alive, even a ghost—you're my best friend. And I hurt you, and I want to make amends. If you'll let me."

Vlad looked down his nose at Jack, and sipped his cocoa once more. Jack realized he hadn't even touched his own drink during all this. It was probably lukewarm by now.

"I'll consider it," he said finally. Then he put his drink back down on the table and added, tersely, "It's late, you should go to bed. I'm sure I'll be gone in the morning. I'd like to be left alone for a while... to think."

"Of course," Maddie said. "Come on, Jack, let's leave him be. I'm sure we've bothered him more than enough for one evening."

She stood, and took Jack by the hand to lead him upstairs to their room.

"So... what exactly happened?" she asked once they were alone in their bedroom and Jack was changing into his pajamas. "Why was Vlad doing here? And what happened to the ghost that tried to overshadow you and got stuck? And what did you mean about Danny and his accident with the portal?"

"Slow down, Maddie, I can only answer one question at a time," Jack replied. "I'll start with Vlad and the ghost. Vlad was the ghost."

"What?"

"When he said the ecto-acne killed him and brought him back at the same time..." Jack trailed off to swallow back the discomfort at that mental image. "I think it made him a ghost... but also not a ghost?"

"What, like... a half-ghost?" Maddie asked, he eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Jack imagined he must look like that pretty often. Confused, that is. He knew he didn't look anything like his wife.

"I guess so," he agreed. "When I used the ghost catcher to get rid of the ghost possessing me, it separated me from him, but it also separated Vlad's human self from his ghost self. That's what he said, anyway. Then his ghost self said he couldn't stand to look at me and flew into the portal."

"Rude."

"What do you expect from a—uh..."

Jack had been about to say 'what do you expect from a ghost', but he reconsidered when he remembered who he was talking about. We half-ghosts completely different from regular ghosts? Or were he and Maddie completely wrong about ghosts altogether.

"He was just upset," he said instead. "I think he'd been poking around in my memories, and he saw some things that upset him. He confronted me about my brother."

"I didn't know you had a brother," his wife said.

"I don't anymore," he looked down at the floor and tried not to recall to much and upset himself. "His name was Johnny, but he died falling through ice when we were kids. I... I was supposed to be watching him at the time, but I got distracted."

"Oh, Jack..."

"It was a long time ago," Jack said before she could try to comfort him and only made him linger on the guilt he still felt. "We all made mistakes that day. I should have learned from mine, and not let anyone else get hurt because of my negligence, but I guess I didn't learn well enough."

"How old were you?" she asked gently.

"I was ten," he replied. "Johnny was seven."

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head. It wasn't something he liked remembering, let alone talking about.

"You had other questions," he said, redirecting the subject back to what they'd been talking about before. "I'm sorry, I can't remember what they were...."

"Oh, Danny," Maddie said. "You said something about Danny when Vlad was telling us about what happened to him. And his accident with the portal?"

"Right... I think Vlad was trying to tell me that Danny was like him. Half ghost, I mean," Jack explained. "He told me I'd killed Danny, before I knew it was him. And then he said that thing about ectoplasm and—"

"Someone else found out the hard way, twenty years after he did..." Maddie realized. "Oh, Danny."

"Should we say something to him?" he asked.

She shook her head, although he wasn't sure if she actually meant 'no', or if she was just thinking.

"Why wouldn't he tell us?" she asked.

"Maybe... for the same reason as Vlad?" Jack guessed. "Maybe he blames us for what happened."

"Do you think so? Or maybe... maybe he doesn't feel safe telling us?"

"What?"

"We're ghost hunters," Maddie reminded him. "What if he's worried that our feelings for him might change if we knew he was a ghost."

"Oh no... what should we do?"

"I think... we should let him come to us when he's ready," she said. "Can you imagine how scared he might be if we brought it up to him now? We should wait for him to feel comfortable telling us, and in the meantime we can have some fun reexamining all the research we've ever done on ghosts in order to draw new, differently biased conclusions so Danny doesn't think we think he's evil just because he's half ghost. If he's half-ghost."

"And if he's not, we can reexamine our research so Vlad doesn't think we think he's evil," Jack enthused. "Should we start tonight?"

If reexamining their research and studying ghosts even more carefully than before was the worst thing that came out of this whole situation, than they really were on easy street.

"No, let's start tomorrow," Maddie suggested. "I don't think we should bother Vlad any more for tonight, and no offense, sweetie, but I don't think you'll be able to sneak past him to the lab without being noticed."

"I am pretty hard to miss."

"So come to bed for now, Jack," she said, patting his side of the bed invitingly. "A good night's sleep is a good start."

"Right you are, Maddie!"

He climbed into bed, and the two of them fell asleep cuddled up in each other's arms.

—

That night, Vlad paced the lab, waiting for his ghost half to decide to come get him. Lousy, good-for-nothing spook, leaving him behind. He'd examined the ghost catcher, and discovered that, for whatever reason, one of the sides separated people from ghosts, and the other side merged the two. Why it would be designed that way, Vlad couldn't fathom, but it was certainly convenient.

While he waited, blanket still hung round his shoulders because it really was quite comfortable, he considered all the things he'd learned, both from Jack's memories, and from the conversation he'd had with his two old friends upstairs.

They missed the old days as much as he did. All three of them wanted their friendship to go back to how it had been. But they all knew now why it couldn't.

Perhaps... perhaps that didn't mean they could never be friends again, even if it could never be like back in college. Perhaps it wasn't too late to forgive and move on.

Finally, Vlad's ghost half returned, as expected. They weren't meant to be separate, after all.

"There you are," Vlad said. "Come now, we can use the device that separated us to merge us back together."

"Good," Plasmius replied. "I scared the butler half to death when he saw me."

Together, they went through the merge side of the ghost catcher.

It wasn't as seamless as Vlad would have hoped. It seemed his ghost half had taken much of his anger with him when they'd been separated, and having it back made him less willing to forgive.

But the reflection stayed with him to. The sting of Maddie telling him off for being possessive and controlling, of both her and Jack pointing out that he wasn't treating her like a person, but a prize. Was he really that awful? He'd never thought of her that way before he'd developed feelings for her.

Perhaps it would be better to just let those feelings go, after all. She'd made her decision, and she didn't regret it, or want anything other than she got. Maybe he should cut his losses and give up before it further ruined a good friendship on the verge of rekindling.

Perhaps he should forgive Jack, too.

He would never be able to forget what had gone down between them. For years he'd tried to erase those bad memories from his head, of his accident, and his long hospital stay, and his slow and painful death. He'd even gone so far as to get plastic surgery to remove the pitted scars all over his skin, but even though he couldn't see them, he couldn't forget them either.

Jack was giving him a second chance, even though he'd tried to kill him, and steal away his wife and children, and even though he was a ghost, the very thing Jack hated most in the world. Perhaps Vlad could extend the oaf the same courtesy... for old times' sake.

There was much to consider as he flew, whole again, through the Ghost Zone to his own portal, and his home.

[bangelgifs]

❄️ Bangel + Miracle Snow ❄️

"Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends."

[liam-summers]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 3.10 | Amends

Be of good cheer! It's Christmas!

[mycatismyfriend]

And while most of Southern California is enjoying a balmy Christmas, an extreme cold front has sprung up out of nowhere around Sunnydale, where they are reporting heavy snowfall for the first time in, well, ever. - Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 3x10 "Amends"

[thehouseofevangelista]

Ok, so a lot of us have contemplated how Carmy will repair relationships post freezer, and rewatching him and Richie, it occurred to me that Richie is very much arguing with Carm the same way one would argue with an addict. For Richie there is so much love there and he can see Carmy self destructing, and it’s not that Carm’s words don’t hurt, but that Richie knows that Carmy is scrapping the bottom of the barrel and trying to cut deep as possible. And I’m not saying that Carm doesn’t need to make amends, what I’m trying to get at is that I don’t think Richie will put up a fight when carmy does. Richie wants to see Carmy succeed, and his anger revolves purely around the frustration of seeing someone you love, someone you know has so much potential, self destruct. Exactly like how he had to watch Mikey self destruct.

[hamiltonsunnydale]

Expanding beyond Hamilton

[elysianholly]

The First

So I’m in Season 3 of my Buffy rewatch and just passed Amends, and holy cow, is this ever an informative episode.

We have the first appearance of The First, who will go dormant again for four years until emerging as the Big Bad in Season 7. The entire conceit of this episode is The First understands Angel’s desires and weaknesses and tries to manipulate those to its own end.

And what is Angel’s desire? Buffy, obviously.

The First knows Angel has the capacity to hurt Buffy. He's done so already, after all. More than anyone else has at this point in the series.

And in fairness to Angel—he is trying very hard in this episode. He’s being tormented by visions of his victims, most prominently the visage of Jenny Calendar. These visions weaken him to the point where he shows up in Buffy’s room specifically to tell her to “stay away from him.” But he can’t stay away from her—even Buffy points out that he’s not making any sense.

And there is Jenny Calendar in the background, saying:

“She wants you to touch her. What are you waiting for?” “She wants you to taste her. Think of the peace. You'll never have to see us again.”

Essentially making the “she was asking for it” case to goad Angel into SAing Buffy. This wouldn’t be nearly as telling on its own, without Angel’s admission at the end of the episode:

Angel: It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again. Buffy: I know what it told you. What does it matter? Angel: Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care.

Now, it’s important to acknowledge that despite this desire, Angel did not give in. He did not SA Buffy. He did not try to touch her. He chose death instead. It is equally important, however, to acknowledge that the reason he was so tormented in this episode is because The First was appealing to an existing desire that he was trying to suppress, specifically the knowledge that:

He could do this

He has done this

Some part of him still wants to do this

The “Because I wanted to” admission is everything. Without it, The First has no hold on Angel. Remove the Buffy of it all and The First could taunt him with victims past, sure, but its goal was very specific: get Angel to go bad. And failing that, get Angel to remove himself from the equation. I’m sure it would have also accepted “get Angel to violate Buffy and spiral even further” because, as we see at the end, the Powers need him to believe in himself. The best way to get Angel to not believe in himself is to make him responsible for harming Buffy.

Anyway, skip ahead. Like four years ahead.

We have almost the exact same situation. Spike is newly souled and tormented by both his past victims and especially what he did to Buffy. We have The First now appearing AS BUFFY to Spike, Spike incapable of discerning what’s real and what’s not, and confirmation that The First definitely has plans for him. Plans that will position him in opposition to Buffy, weaken her, and essentially kill any chance that she will do exactly what she ends up doing.

It’s also important to note that Spike is much less mentally sound than Angel was when The First starts fucking with him.

So what does The First do? It brainwashes him. It notably does not try to convince Spike that Buffy “wants him to touch her.” It does not play on an existing desire to cause Buffy harm. It does not attempt to appeal to the part of Spike that assaulted Buffy in the bathroom the way it appealed to the part of Angel that spent years happily assaulting women before he was cursed.

And this is important because if that desire existed, there would be literally no reason for The First not to use it. Are we expected to believe The First evolved in the years since it attempted to goad Angel into attacking Buffy because “she was asking for it?" That orchestrating another assault wouldn’t further isolate Spike, if not drive him to do what Angel nearly did and remove himself from the equation entirely? We know from later in the season that The First is fine with Spike killing himself. Hell, we're shown that if The First can't use Spike, it wants him dead and is willing to manipulate others to see that realized.

But The First literally had to brainwash Spike to get him to do anything it wants, and the second it unleashes him on Buffy, he snaps out of it. She brings him back to the light. She says she'll help him.

And The First is noticeably pissed off. This was not what it wanted. Spike under Buffy's care was dangerous to its goal.

So why didn’t it try to manipulate Spike into assaulting Buffy again? Make sure she'd never invite him back inside her home? Why didn't it appeal to his worst urges the way it did Angel?

Angel: Because I wanted to!

Like I said, Amends is an informative episode. It shows us how The First operates (doubled down in S7 with its manipulation of Robin Wood). Even more, how The First interacts with Angel compared to how it interacts with Spike tells us a lot about who these characters are as men, as vampires, and specifically men who have hurt Buffy.

[herinsectreflection]

A New Kind of Bad, Just In Time For Christmas (Amends)

Holiday episodes are a dying art form in the televisual world of 2023. With the domination of on-demand streaming services, the exact airdate of an episode has come to matter less and less. Modern shows might still centre episodes around certain holidays, but rarely can they be considered true Holiday Episodes. By virtue of being easily available outside of one specific date and time of airing, they cannot have the same inherent link to a specific temporal point that the Holiday episodes of years past did.

Things were different in 1999. Episodes were tied to specific points in real time, which affected the fiction. Buffy is no exception. The show progresses at a linear rate of one in-universe year to one real-world year, and all on-screen events occur within the nine-to-ten months we would recognise as an academic year. Buffy herself notes the hellmouth’s tendency to become extra-apocalyptic each May in Get It Done. The show moors itself in the chronology of our world, a choice which benefits television’s personable nature. 

As far as traditional holidays go, Buffy is slightly more indifferent. The closest thing to an annual holiday the show has is Buffy’s yearly birthday disaster. Outside of that, we have three Halloween specials, one Valentine's Day episode, one wildly misguided Thanksgiving story, and this - Buffy’s first and only Christmas episode. This episode has no shame in wearing its Christmassiness on its red-and-white sleeve. Everything from the advertising, to the carol singers that open the episode, to the saccharine snowfall of the climax, to the Santa hat placed on the Mutant Enemy demon during the credits, all screams Christmas. ‘Tis the season, screams the Buffyverse, and of course that means that this is a time of warmth, community, and coming together with the people you love - for other people. For the inhabitants of the Buffyverse, it is a time for demons, loneliness, and seasonal depression.

The Scooby Gang discuss their plans for the holidays, and each of them seems progressively more bleak. Buffy has probably the best time of it - a low-key Christmas with just her and her mother. Willow is alone, still flagellating herself over the Xander incident, and trying to make things up to Oz. Xander is planning an escape from his abusive family’s violent arguments. Cordelia claims she is going skiing in Aspen, but given that we are now in the mystery zone where Cordelia’s father may or may not have been arrested yet, there’s a good chance she’s lying and is spending the Christmas penniless and friendless. She would have this in common with Faith, who is stuck hanging a sad single string of lights in a dingy motel room, inventing fictional parties that she can claim to be invited to so as to not lose face in front of Buffy. And then there is Angel, who, in addition to being a vampire stuck in a Christian holiday, and having recently been dumped, is also being tortured by the incorporeal manifestation of pure evil.

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[lowlandsofthemind]

Christmas // Halfway Out of the Dark

[twosomeofcuteness]

Actually, I have one big thought. When Buffy shows up in the office to ask Giles for help with Angel.... For help with the vampire who tortured Giles and murdered Jenny just last season??? The background of the shot makes me absolutely insane. Why? Because this:

Who decided this room, with that window, was the best place for Buffy and Giles to have a conversation about Angel? Buffys head in front of that window is Giles' view. And yes, while they don't know that's the same window (albeit a much smaller version) Jenny died in front of, it still makes me insane. Like:

(That's a very bad picture of the event but I don't feel like scrolling through my entire gallery rn) And this comes less than ten minutes after the scene of Giles threatening Angel with a damn crossbow reminding us all of that time Jenny shot HIM with the crossbow. (see Celia's post about the crossbow scenes for more information)

[bangelgifs]

Bangel + Tropes ∟ Requested by Anonymous

[liam-summers]

Bangel + Baby Bangs in Public

[fieriframes]

[If i have the space of half a day. I'm ashamed of half the things I say. I'm ashamed to have turned out this way. And i desire to make amends:.]

[3score11poet]

Coffee Hour

AMENDS, 04/09/2024

"If you were going to die soon and had only one call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?" Stephen Levine

After planting flowers over the weekend, I found the deck littered with dirt, roots, leaves, and all the debris that is left behind when a project is completed. I could have left it, for we were expecting rain. I could hope the rain would wash the mess away, but I knew it wouldn't. Our rains don't come with much power. They're pretty gentle. So I pulled out the hose and hosed the debris off the deck and onto the flower beds. When I make a mess, I need to clean it up. What's true of gardening is doubly true when messing up human relationships. I may not be entirely at fault, but I usually have a part to play, and it is that part I need to clean up before I can move on.

[herinsectreflection]

Fun fact! The last episode aired before Christmas 1998 was Ted, in which Giles and Jenny reconcile. Given that Jenny was actively avoiding her secret family and Giles seems to never visit his, it's likely that they were both in Sunnydale on Christmas '98, and therefore likely that they actually spent it together. This would have been their first and last Christmas and one of the last days they actually spend together! ☺ Now Jenny has returned the next Christmas, except only her murderer can see her! Giles has no idea and will spend this Christmas alone! It's a yuletide miracle. ☺☺

[mitigatingchaos]

On Forgiveness

“Forgiveness is accepting the apology you never received”   I took this photo (with the old Olympus) at Edisto Beach, SC in 2011. It has been used on websites and other places.  Not forgiving people only hurts us, not the person who did the harm. Figure out a way and prevent people from living rent-free inside your head.