You are my favorite Willow/Faith OR Willow, Faith writer, no lie. Its interesting to see Faith dealing with the burden of responsibility now - different than the one Buffy's had in degree but not kind. Prison was in a sense another "luxury" that Faith had, not unlike someone who is depressed or suicidal checking themselves into a psyche ward to take a "time out", to lift some day to day burdens in order to be able to focus on the key internal problem. (I know it's weird to talk of prison as a luxury but hey, three squares a day, every day, workout room, no job to go to, no bills. Just sayin'.)

Of course it's a bit different in Faith's case than most people who are incarcerated - she chose to go to prison, rather than ordered to by the court system - but the metaphor still holds. In a bizarre way she got to be the little kid, taken care of, while Buffy tried to be an adult with little support system, now the tables are turned.

"Like, you could feel sorry for what you've done but never really... um... feeling sorry for what was done, because you can't make yourself think the done-tos didn't have it coming. A-and never being sure you wouldn't do the exact same thing again in the same situation. Because really, no matter how much you try to change, you can't tell yourself that the person who did that was someone completely different."

I had to read through that twice to really absorb it and then when I did - oh SHIT. Yeah. I've always felt that this very point calls into question my own complicity in the matter as a viewer. Was I shocked? Hell yes. Did I cheer just a little? Not out loud but, I didn't exactly feel sorry for him. the only difference is that I've not had the opportunity to act on it.Or rather the opportunities did that I didn't take, to be honest. (re: my Ted meta.) what if I had? I suspect I understand Willow's position a lot more than I want to admit to generally.