Why are the italics absolutely refusing to format correctly?

You need to put the underscores before any full stops and whathaveyou. For instance:
To get the line italicised the way you want it to, write it like this:

“_ You will always be mine _. _ I will _ never _ let you go _.”

Once you do that, it’ll work fine.

=))

Disturbing and weird. Feels like what would happen if reality were run by women with borderlin personality disorder?

Not sure about the italics, except that maybe there are just too many, and the thing is in italics overload.