shadowscast

I spent all of today judging a high school debating tournament, and my brain is tired. So, I shall relax and soothe it by writing about my personal feelings on a bunch of possible Buffyverse pairings. Needless to say, these are only my personal impressions and I mean no offense to people who love what I hate and hate what I love!

I will talk about, in various levels of detail:
Buffy/Angel, Spike/Buffy, Xander/Cordelia, Willow/Oz, Willow/Tara, Giles/Olivia, Xander/Anya, Wesley/Lilah, Fred/Gunn, Cordelia/Groosalugg, Angel/Cordelia, Xander/Spike, Spike/Angel.

Let's start with canon...

Buffy/Angel Actually, it's

nihilistbear's recent post on this topic that made me start thinking about pairings in general. She posted a long, thoughtful essay about coming to understand the Buffy/Angel relationship, and her thoughts on it aren't too far off from mine, I think—in that she thinks it's believable as a high school relationship (looking at it from Buffy's point of view), but that it could never have worked in the long term. I agree.

The thing is, Bangel is my least favourite canonical pairing. It makes me either uncomfortable or bored, depending on whether we're talking borderline-pedophilia early Bangel or long, drawn out breakup late Bangel.

I guess people argue about whether, agewise, Angel with Buffy is more wrong than Spike with Buffy, or Spike with Dawn. To me, the actual ages of Angel and Spike don't matter too much, it's their apparent ages that I go by. I mean, does it matter that Angel's two centuries older than Buffy while Spike's only one century older than her? No, that's just silly! But both Angel and Spike come across, personality-wise, as guys in their mid-twenties. (Hooray for vampire arrested development!) And by the way, I think most people instinctively do this with other pairings; for instance I don't recall anyone calling thousand+ year-old Anya a pervert for dating high-school Xander, and I think that's because Anya comes across as the same age as Xander even though she really isn't.

When Angel started dating Buffy, she was sixteen and still very much a child. When Spike fell for her, she was only a couple years older, but those years made a big difference to her maturity. And when Spike and Buffy finally got together, it was wrong and unhealthy and all that stuff, but imho it was a wrong unhealthy relationship between adults.

I can appreciate why Buffy fell in love with Angel—hello, dark mysterious stranger! As for Angel, I guess I understand why he fell for Buffy, too (hello, idealized pedestal-girl!) but I really just think it's pathetic. And neither of them was in love with the real other, they were in love with their conceptions of the other, and they really didn't have much in common at all. And that's why I don't think it'd ever work.

There might be a Buffy/Angel fic out there somewhere that could make me love them together, at least for as long as I'm reading it. But I haven't found it yet, and honestly I'm not really looking for it.

Um, OK, now that I've got all that off my chest, I might as well talk Spuffy...

Spike/Buffy I've said it before: it's the slashiest het relationship I've ever seen onscreen. It's dark, twisted, dysfunctional, violent, transgressive and wrong. And that, my dears, is why I love it.

I don't think I'll ever write Spuffy, mostly because I don't think I can write Buffy herself. I just can't figure out what makes that girl tick. But anyway, I've read some really awesome Spuffy, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I can be convinced for the length of a fic that they're each others' perfect soulmates; I can be convinced they're each others' destruction.

Xander/Cordelia It was a high school thing. They learned, they grew, they broke up, she moved away. They never made a lot of sense together, but they made the kind of nonsense that makes sense. They were all about hormones, with a dash of learned affection that came a little too late. I've never read a X/C fic (Xandelia? Cornder? Hee!) and I can't imagine ever being interested enough to read a fic that actually focused on their relationship, but if I happened to read a fic set during their canonical dating time, I wouldn't mind seeing them together again.

Willow/Oz Actually, I loved Willow and Oz in canon. I've never read a fic with them together, as far as I can recall, but I loved their episodes. I cried when they broke up. I thought they were wonderfully sweet.

Willow/Tara I'm sad that I was spoiled for them getting together before I even started watching the series, because as a longtime slash fan it would've been so satisfying to read the subtext and say "Hey, those two are totally attracted to each other!" and then, for once in my life, have canon confirm my instincts! But, oh well. They were sweet together at times, but the Willow controlling/abusing Tara dynamic got pretty disturbing, especially since it was never dealt with per se.

Tara herself was never given much personality, and therefore the early Willow/Tara stuff was sadly boring other than the thrill of seeing a same-sex relationship actually played out in the open. Fanfic saved her for me; fan writers have taken the sparse canon and turned her into a complex, well-developed character, and I love that Tara.

Giles/Olivia Totally needed more screen time.

Xander/Anya Maybe it would have worked in the end if she hadn't died and the series hadn't ended; now we'll never know. They were sweet together. They probably should have got relationship counselling before the wedding, but who has time for that when there's always another apocalypse looming? They don't interest me that much, honestly, but I wish them well.

Wesley/Lilah This is the pairing that pushes Spuffy into second place in running for "darkest canonical pairing." (Well, at least until Connor/Cordelia comes along, but *shudder* let's just pretend that never happened). They were enemies, they were using each other, and damn they were hot together. And at the very end, there was something real between them... *sniff*

Oddly, I've never sought out Wesley/Lilah fic. The show gave me everything I needed from them. But yeah, I heart the dark side.

Fred/Gunn One of the more functional relationships in the Buffyverse—maybe that's why I'm not that interested in it.

In a normal, non-sci-fi show their differences might have been an issue—the white, middle-class geeky intellectual girl from rural Texas and the black guy who grew up on the streets of LA and spent time as the leader of a gang (albeit a vampire-fighting gang). Maybe the presence of vampires and demons made their differences seem less important, or maybe the very white Buffy writers just didn't want to go there with Gunn. I suppose a fanfic writer could explore this; I wonder whether anyone ever has? I don't think I've ever seen a good Gunn fic.

Cordelia/Groosalugg I totally wanted that one to work out. I thought they were good together. Too bad Cordy had secretly fallen for Angel already. Poor Groo.

Angel/Cordelia The arc was nicely developed over many seasons. But like I said, I was shippin' Cordy/Groo.

Hmm. That's enough canonical relationships. It's not all of them, of course, but it's enough for now.

My fave non-canon relationship is...drum roll please...

Xander/Spike! (That shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention.)

Honestly I'm not even sure why they're my favourite. When I'm watching them onscreen together I rarely pick up on chemistry between them (unlike, say, Spike/Angel!). So it's not that I think they're already in love with each other—it's just that I think it could happen, and if it did, it could be really good.

Maybe it's all

eliade's fault. The first Buffyverse fic I ever read was one of her Spike/Xander fics.

I'm in love with Spike beyond all reason; I admit that freely. I'm happy to see him paired with nearly anyone (including Joyce, yep, and also Dawn if it's post-series and the weirdness is somewhat acknowledged, and if that makes me twisted so be it). But Xander is my favourite and I really don't know why.

I particularly like my Spander to have a h/c dynamic, and it's Xander I want to be the strong one, the comforting one, the one who ultimately takes charge of the situation and takes care of the vampire. Damned if I know why.

So hey, speaking of which...

Spike/Angel In my opinion, this pairing is canonical, at least in a historical sense. They were intimate once, you know! But I'll keep it down here in the non-canon section since we never got to see them together in that way...

They have chemistry. Oh man, do they have chemistry. And history. Hooo boy.

I will be terribly disappointed if this doesn't come up in No Limits at some point. I mean, I can see that they're developing the Angel/Wesley angle, which I totally admit has plenty of canon support itself...but Spike doesn't just stick around snarking because he has nothing better to do, he's there for Angel! Or rather, he's there secretly, desperately hoping for acknowledgement from Angel.

I like to read Angel/Spike, and I like it to be fucked up. Actually, I like Angelus/Spike almost more than Angel/Spike.

Um, that was fun. There are so many more pairs I could talk about, but I think I need to go to bed now.