[Honestly Spike is a gift. Alisaie frowns, then sighs.]
Logically, I understand. If Rochalizo and Susato were as close as they seemed, he would have known that she killed Rex and that she was still carrying with her that guilt. In selecting her as his victim, he treated her the same as the other killers we've found--a fight to the death. I know how it infuriated her that she was never considered a suspect during Rex's trial.
But I'm still angry. We'd... [She scowls down at the table self-consciously.] We'd finally cleared the air between us.
...Yeah, I've never seen someone so angry to be told they seem like they wouldn't kill someone in cold blood. I know it wasn't done out of any malice, I've killed people I like before.
Still have no idea why everyone was giving him a sodding pat on the head for it, though. I don't even think he wanted that.
[It certainly explains a lot of things.]
You'll just have to yell at her about it when we get her back, yeah?
[She smiles, but her focus is in the middle distance (not that... that's any different from how her eyesight has been this week buT!!).]
There are other things I'll need to impress upon her when she returns. The letter she wrote me... [Sighs.] I don't understand how she can be so clever, yet so blind to her own own qualities.
She masked her murder of Rex by making us believe she were a second intended victim. But when we used that to reason she could not be the murderer, Susato believed it was because we thought her "useless" and a helpless young girl in need of rescue.
Yet had we found one of the others in a similar situation, speaking the same story--Nero, perhaps, my brother, Kim--I would like to think we would have treated them in the same manner. It was not the personal slight against her she took it as.
It is... difficult to fathom, I confess. By her own words, it sounds as though she expects people to live in a state of constant suspicion and doubt with regard to those around them until proven otherwise. But to live like that... [She shakes her head.] 'Tis folly.
[The bartender puts down a pitcher of a coloured vodka cocktail and Spike goes ahead and pours himself a full wine glass of it, he will also offer to pour for Alisaie.]
Nobody with eyes could've seen her as helpless. [He takes a big sip of his glass and puts it down. It takes a lot to get him drunk, he's not going to pace himself.] Naive? Maybe a bit. I thought her and Zieks' insistence on treating the trials like an actual legal court was a bit ridiculous.
But even from the start, you could tell that the niceties were an act, at least to an extent. That was one of my first conversations with her. And besides, she planted evidence that more or less entirely took her off the table as far as any of us could really afford to assume.
She has this awful habit of wanting something but then never speaking up about it, then resenting the fact she didn't get it. Whether it's to be treated a certain way or to even be seen as what she is and not what she presents, or even just to assuage her doubts... Her commitment to being polite just got in her way, really. [He shakes his head.]
I don't think she really understood that a lot of the people who cared for her didn't care for a version they made up in their own head. They just would've cared about her regardless of what she was, ruthless killer or Mother Theresa or just a regular girl. [...] Buffy used to do the same thing. Drove me fucking insane.
[Yes please. She's calmed down some since she yelled at Rochalizo in the chapel (and thrown a lot of ice into the frozen wastes) but she's still upset and angry and dealing with a lot of different emotions all screaming for attention at once. Spike gets a grateful look while he pours, thank u.]
It sounds exhausting. I can't imagine putting so much effort into maintaining such a charade.
But I think you are more correct than you realize. I will have to ask her about it when we see them again, but the wording of her letter suggested to me that she doesn't believe she can be both the person she sought to be and the person she believes she truly is. But both parts are facets of who she is; she need only resolve them.
We are all of us more complex than that.
[Look at her for a perfect example, honestly! She's not trying to pretend to be anyone or anything she isn't.]
[Spike, a metaphorical Shadow Self of both Buffy and Angel's repressed bloodlust and sexual frustration....
Regardless, he pours her drink with a small smile. He himself is still more than a little pissed at Kaeya. And Yuri and Xie Lian. But mostly Kaeya. However, alcohol helps.]
Sure are.
In my opinion, it's as simple as just accepting to reach for what you want. Doesn't mean you gotta lie about what you are. [He has an... extremely complicated relationship with his "real self" vs his "projected self". But he'd consider himself more self aware about it than Susato, and he doesn't lie about it.] None of us can be a paper thin caricature of what we think other people need or want, but nor can we just be reduced to our darkest impulses or deepest insecurities. We're all too messy for either basic distinction.
[He considers that question, sipping the drink with a fairly solemn expression.]
...Couldn't actually tell you that. I... think she accepted that the people who loved her knew she was complicated. She knew I loved her, by the end, even if at the start she was convinced it was just some deluded fantasy I'd made up 'cuz without a soul, how could I ever love her?
Looking back on it, I think a lot of it had to do with our mutual ex and the ways he messed her up. Prick. But I think Buffy learned to accept what she wanted, and stopped valuing what she was just expected to do.
[Unfortunately, Spike's only in Season 6 and hasn't seen Buffy's entire trauma-based regression into deep shame about having desires and flaws. Rip him.]
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no subject
Logically, I understand. If Rochalizo and Susato were as close as they seemed, he would have known that she killed Rex and that she was still carrying with her that guilt. In selecting her as his victim, he treated her the same as the other killers we've found--a fight to the death. I know how it infuriated her that she was never considered a suspect during Rex's trial.
But I'm still angry. We'd... [She scowls down at the table self-consciously.] We'd finally cleared the air between us.
[And then she'd died that very night.]
no subject
Still have no idea why everyone was giving him a sodding pat on the head for it, though. I don't even think he wanted that.
[It certainly explains a lot of things.]
You'll just have to yell at her about it when we get her back, yeah?
no subject
There are other things I'll need to impress upon her when she returns. The letter she wrote me... [Sighs.] I don't understand how she can be so clever, yet so blind to her own own qualities.
She masked her murder of Rex by making us believe she were a second intended victim. But when we used that to reason she could not be the murderer, Susato believed it was because we thought her "useless" and a helpless young girl in need of rescue.
Yet had we found one of the others in a similar situation, speaking the same story--Nero, perhaps, my brother, Kim--I would like to think we would have treated them in the same manner. It was not the personal slight against her she took it as.
It is... difficult to fathom, I confess. By her own words, it sounds as though she expects people to live in a state of constant suspicion and doubt with regard to those around them until proven otherwise. But to live like that... [She shakes her head.] 'Tis folly.
no subject
Nobody with eyes could've seen her as helpless. [He takes a big sip of his glass and puts it down. It takes a lot to get him drunk, he's not going to pace himself.] Naive? Maybe a bit. I thought her and Zieks' insistence on treating the trials like an actual legal court was a bit ridiculous.
But even from the start, you could tell that the niceties were an act, at least to an extent. That was one of my first conversations with her. And besides, she planted evidence that more or less entirely took her off the table as far as any of us could really afford to assume.
She has this awful habit of wanting something but then never speaking up about it, then resenting the fact she didn't get it. Whether it's to be treated a certain way or to even be seen as what she is and not what she presents, or even just to assuage her doubts... Her commitment to being polite just got in her way, really. [He shakes his head.]
I don't think she really understood that a lot of the people who cared for her didn't care for a version they made up in their own head. They just would've cared about her regardless of what she was, ruthless killer or Mother Theresa or just a regular girl. [...] Buffy used to do the same thing. Drove me fucking insane.
no subject
It sounds exhausting. I can't imagine putting so much effort into maintaining such a charade.
But I think you are more correct than you realize. I will have to ask her about it when we see them again, but the wording of her letter suggested to me that she doesn't believe she can be both the person she sought to be and the person she believes she truly is. But both parts are facets of who she is; she need only resolve them.
We are all of us more complex than that.
[Look at her for a perfect example, honestly! She's not trying to pretend to be anyone or anything she isn't.]
Did Buffy ever realize and stop pretending?
no subject
Regardless, he pours her drink with a small smile. He himself is still more than a little pissed at Kaeya. And Yuri and Xie Lian. But mostly Kaeya. However, alcohol helps.]
Sure are.
In my opinion, it's as simple as just accepting to reach for what you want. Doesn't mean you gotta lie about what you are. [He has an... extremely complicated relationship with his "real self" vs his "projected self". But he'd consider himself more self aware about it than Susato, and he doesn't lie about it.] None of us can be a paper thin caricature of what we think other people need or want, but nor can we just be reduced to our darkest impulses or deepest insecurities. We're all too messy for either basic distinction.
[He considers that question, sipping the drink with a fairly solemn expression.]
...Couldn't actually tell you that. I... think she accepted that the people who loved her knew she was complicated. She knew I loved her, by the end, even if at the start she was convinced it was just some deluded fantasy I'd made up 'cuz without a soul, how could I ever love her?
Looking back on it, I think a lot of it had to do with our mutual ex and the ways he messed her up. Prick. But I think Buffy learned to accept what she wanted, and stopped valuing what she was just expected to do.
[Unfortunately, Spike's only in Season 6 and hasn't seen Buffy's entire trauma-based regression into deep shame about having desires and flaws. Rip him.]