#add it to the many accidental essays i've written for them over the years lol

[glorfindel-of-imladris]

Glorfindel and Erestor for the ship alignment chart?

Glorestor is so funny because of course it compels me, can you not tell from my blog and entire shipping, even pre-AO3 career? I have been shipping these two for 20+ years, but whether they make sense or not depends on who you ask and what you mean by “makes sense”. I am very aware that Glorfindel and Erestor are shipped literally by virtue of them standing next to each other—twice, mind you, which in the 90's and heydays of shipping, was plenty. (Once, after all, was enough. 🤣)

I can write (and have written lol) entire essays about why I love this ship so much. Glorfindel is my one true favourite Tolkien character—my one true favourite fandom character, period—and have devoured every lore available for him to come up with pretty solid headcanons for the guy, if I do say so myself. Erestor, on the other hand, is pretty much a result of my by now life-long quest to give Glorfindel the most delicious happy ending an absolute Best Boy™ can deserve. These two characters on their own are individually compelling. Glorfindel easily just is, because how good must a person be to be returned from death, to be released from Mandos early, to become an emissary of the Valar, to be reborn better than before, equal to the Maiar? And Erestor—who even is he? What does it take to become the chief counsellor of one of the wisest Elves of the Third Age, in Imladris where Elves who have seen the light of the Trees still dwelt? I even read in a forum (lol omg remember forums) once where people wondered who even had the higher rank: Glorfindel or Erestor. Imagine being at a level where one could potentially be Glorfindel's superior—it blows the mind. But also personally for me, I love the idea that someone like Glorfindel could get quite lonely returning to an unfamiliar world—not only is Gondolin gone, but it's not even Beleriand anymore. I also imagine that returning from Mandos comes with its own grandeur that would set him apart from younger Elves in Middle-earth. It comforts me to know he would still have equals in a world like that, who would not be intimidated by him and with whom he could forge a trusting friendship.

The other thing that works for this ship is the setting with which they could meet. I have said in the Russingon post that the First Age is a painful age to me. Not only that, it's comparatively short; Glorfindel was “Glorfindel of Gondolin” for a mere 400 years (even less) before he died. Meanwhile, assuming he returned to Middle-earth c.a. 1600 in the Second Age (which is the most likely among all “canon” possibilities), the Second Age spanned for a good 3,000+ years; the Third Age, another 3,000+. Lindon under Ereinion Gil-galad’s reign saw the longest peacetime, and Rivendell once made and ruled by Elrond is arguably the most comforting Elven realm ever made. There is simply much more one can do in a setting like this, with characters like this who have so much history—or, in the case of Erestor, potential history. It's that ✨ potential ✨ that I find most compelling, and honestly I have been writing for these two for years and I feel there is still so much one can do and unearth with them.

[somanypetals]

ok ok ok. are you a spuffy fan? i feel like i've seen spuffy on yr blog and if that's not true then please ignore but i've been thinkin recently and i'm very interested in what you think/how you reconcile spike's attempted rape?? bc as a spuffy fan i love them together but i also can't ignore this part of their history in good conscience. was it ooc? was their relationship building to a horrible climax? i'm just very interested in what people think abt that writing decision

omg I’m sorry for taking so long to answer this, I wrote like half an essayand then firefox crashed and I got grumpy about it for a few days lol ;___;

anyway in short: do I ship it? yes. is my relationship with the shipcomplicated? fuck yes. can I reconcile the attempted rape? on a base level, no.on a character level, I am able to move past it but not look past it. on awriting level, I don’t reconcile it at all. was it ooc? yes and no,which is the interesting part

this got really long and I’m hoping that I can remember everything I wassaying before I had to start all over again (rip) but I’m sorry it got so longunder the cut

so I do still ship spuffy, but I have a really complicatedrelationship with it. I’ve shipped it since I was a tween, before I reallyunderstood the unhealthy parts of it (rape scene aside, which I was very clearon), and I’ve come to see those in a new light the past five or so years, butI’m still also someone who is very adamant about people being allowed to shipwhatever the fuck they want in fiction whether it’s unhealthy or not becauseit’s fiction, and at the end of the day I’m shipping something because I findit entertaining or interesting, not because it’s the paradigm of relationshipexamples. in fact most of the time it’s not, because I find most of thoserelationships boring on screen. so like, I do still ship it, but not the way Iused to?

 anyway, was it ooc? in terms of mythology canon I don’tthink it was ooc at all. spike had no soul, he was at a base level evil. I don’t think this excuses theattempted rape at all, nothing excuses it or forgives it, but it does explain abit how the spike who dressed buffy’s hand wounds at the start of the seasonwas the same spike who flipped a switch and attempted to rape her near the endof the season. spike never became “good” when he had no soul, he was like aferal animal on a leash. he learnt to play relatively nice with others andbecame fond of some of his owners, but he still wasn’t cured and if you tookthe leash off at the end of the day he would have bitten them. yes, spike lovedbuffy in his own soulless way, but he still had a literal, animalistic demoninside him (we even see in angel in over the rainbow etc. what the actual demoninside vampires is like at its base level) and no soul to control it—only theintellectual knowledge that some actions would get him in buffy’s good booksand some would get him in buffy’s bad books and so he kept it under controlbecause he wanted her and he also wanted to not be killed by the scooby gang.again: this does not excuse the attempted rape at all. nothing forgives it. butlike, it does explain why buffy and many viewers are able to move past it. Idon’t think that on a mythology canon level it was ooc at all, I think thatpeople just forget that spike was stillevil when he was being nice to buffy or dawn or joyce. I think that’s partof the reason it’s so hard to piece together whether spuffy really could workor be good as a ship, because the show never separates spike with a soul fromspike without a soul the way they did with angel. with angel it’s so clearlytwo different people, but with spike it’s a muddy mess of the same thing and ifyou don’t write spike with a soul differently to how you wrote him withoutone—how are viewers supposed to forgive him for what he did?

 was it ooc on a character level though? that’s a wholedifferent thing because that opens the can of worms of spike being ooc ingeneral. the spike we see in season four onwards is drastically different fromthe spike we see in season two, and I do think part of that is just plain oldcharacter development but I also think that part of that is due to them wantinga slightly different character when he became a regular? spike was almost woobified by his own writing team? I don’t thinkit’s anything like the character assassination of britta for example, and Iwouldn’t even call it character assassination, but I do think that at somepoint late during season three or early season four they decided they wanted aspike who was funnier, a bit more sympathetic, and a bit more worthy of being afan fave. it's less like character assassination and more like characteradaptation? I feel like they saw that james had this excellent comedicpotential and wanted to use that, and I’ve seen that with other characters onshows too. I think they had to bend spike a bit along the way to get the spikethey wanted and who they could have fun with. he went from spike the genuinelychilling villain, to spike the comedic relief, to spike the stalker, to spikethe coping mechanism, to spike the love interest…and it definitely wasn’t astraight line of development. they definitelyhad to bend the character along the way and lose some of what was thereoriginally and add some of what wasn’t there. and like, it’s not necessarily abad thing, like I fuckin love comic relief spike and I can totally understandwhy they might’ve been like “fuck this james guy is good we want more of that”,but I do think that on a character level they ended up with something that wasquite frequently messy. if you’ve taken this villain and woobified himyourself, then even if he is still evilit’s not surprising that people are surprised or find it ooc for him to attemptto rape buffy because they made him a puppy with a temper instead of a wolfwith a playful streak, and then suddenly his fangs come out again. andobviously to a degree that was the point of it, to remind viewers that he wasevil and he wasn’t good and buffy forgot that, the scoobies forgot that, everyoneforgot that, but at the same time if you woobify a character that much doesthat point land? or does it just become ooc? I think a spike in love with buffyand protecting dawn and getting flowers after joyce died could be consideredjust as ooc as a spike who attempted to rape buffy. he became a bit of a messycharacter if you really think about it for too long, and they never separatedhis soulless state from his soul-having state enough to keep track of it

 so anyway, on a character level I’m able to move past itbecause I think at the end of the day…spike didn’t have a soul when it happenedand he was written kind of weirdly over the course of the show but I still likehim. I move past it as a viewer because I wantto move past it, and because I find the spuffy relationship interesting (yet Istill want more/better for buffy always? man, I said it was complicated hahah)

 NOW, FROM A WRITING STANDPOINT

 bullshit bullshit utter fucking bullshit.

 why though? well apart from the reasons I’ve already mentionedabout kind of messy character writing and it being impossible to tell whichparts of spike are ooc or not…………the attempted rape scene was not about buffy,before during or after it happened

 they wrote it as a gateway to spike’s redemption arc. theytraumatised their main character, this beautiful female character and one of mytop favourite characters of all time, to boost a man’s redemption arc, andthat’s just fucking awful and we’ve seen it too many times and buffy doesn’t deserver that bullshit.

 now I don’t know whether there’s a solid answer on whetheror not spike went to that demon at the end of season six to get his soul or toget his chip removed, but it also like…doesn’t matter, lol? I personally alwaysread that scene as he went to get his chip removed so he could kill her, andthen the demon was like lol psych herehave a soul! which I think also makes it easier for me to move past theattempted rape, because then it didn’t literally lead to him choosing to go have a redemption arc andbecome a better man for her, but like a lot of people do read it the secondway. and either way!! it’s a crock of shit!!

 not only did they put in this scene so they could kickstartspike’s redemption, instead of picking some other non-rape or non-violence againstbuffy related plot point to lead to him getting a soul, but then they sort ofmade it all about spike in season seven too?

 they do address bits and pieces of buffy’s trauma afterwardsand how it impacted her, but way way too much of the focus was placed onspike’s guilt and spike’s wanting to fix it and how it impacted spike etc., sonot only did they have buffy almost raped to kickstart a man’s storyline, butthey barely focused on her trauma over the “trauma” of spike and that’sjust…fucking awful. like it makes me so mad and it makes me feel so gross.

 as a writing decision I think it’s sexist, disgusting, lazyand unforgivable and the biggest fault with what is literally my favourite tvshow of all time lol (you wouldn’t think it is from this rant?? but it is?? andI like spike and ship spuffy??? god this is a mess) and I think it was probablythe worst fucking writing decision on all of buffy (and this is the show thatkilled tara, a literal lesbian angel)

 and honestly……the fact that I am aware of and think it’s theworst writing decision possible almost makes it easier to move past from acharacter standpoint? because it was a bad writing decision, it takes some ofthe weight off of spike’s actions for me and I’m aware that it was stupid and grossand it would’ve been better if spike tripped and accidentally fell into a gravethat had a stray soul in it that he inhaled.

 I don’t know if that makes sense, in fact I don’t know ifany of this makes sense…but it’s like: spuffy is interesting. to me they havechemistry, they have narrative and trope appeal (even though it wasn’tfulfilled, or wasn’t fulfilled right), they are two characters I likeindividually, and so…I continue to ship it and enjoy it despite the horriblefucking bad writing decisions that went down in season six. I know that evenwithout the attempted rape season or even without season six it’s still anunhealthy ship and it’s problematic (and I want better for buffy at the end ofthe day), but it is at a base level to me entertaining, and that’s what I likefrom my ships

 god this is almost two thousand words I’m so sorry I have alot of thoughts and I had to rewrite half of this so it’s really, really scattered and confusing butlike…yes I ship it, no I don’t think the attempted rape was a good writingdecision, no I don’t excuse or forgive it but I do move past it

 and in answer to what other people feel about the scene andship….it’s really divided lol, a lot of people feel like I do, a lot of peopleprefer bangel, a lot of people prefer spuffy, a lot of people can’t look pastthe rape at all, a lot of people look past the rape too easily, and a lot of people probably don’t know what to thinkor have no strong opinions lol

 god

this is two thousand words I’m sorry