Re: Shipping at length, now completely OT

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

>I'm probably biased, in that X/An is the only Xandership that I've
liked much.

Entirely opposite for me, it's the only one I haven't liked, basically
because they took intelligent, bitter, funny Season 3 Anya and turned
her into OneJoke, who got tiring after about "Hush". (Joss at least got
points for doing the OneJoke visually rather than having her say it
again [and again and again and again]) I have large objections to how
they've handled Anya on this show (absolutely none of them, pre-"Hell's
Bells", having to do with her demonic past), and her "relationship" with
Xander, in which she acts "funny" and he groans, has never seemed to be
within a county of love to me. Not to mention that it seriously dulled
Xander up, both with him playing the "parent" to her (squick!) and the
fact that he doesn't get to do anything but wince at
OhThatAnyaSheDoesn'tKnowHowToBeHumanIsn'tSheWacky? (Short answer: no.)

Well, I'd go for pages on Anya, but anyway, trust me, I couldn't stand
the two of them together looooong before she sold her soul and became a
Fishwife.

>When it comes to "Vampire love", you seem to have a lot in common with
the early Xander scowling at Angel.

Well, they are **evil**, you know. (Premise of the show, and all.) And
I really don't have a lot of sympathy for the poor, tortured murderers
(except for Dru, the only one who didn't ask for it).

Plus, I think it's seriously twisted the priorities of the show. The
villains are supposed to be a device to explore the choices of the
**human** characters--this isn't Anne Rice, as Joss made explicit in
"School Hard" AND "Lie To Me". The implacable evilness of the unsouled
gives necessary impetus to the need to oppose them, and thus the actions
the characters take. Angel wanting to suck the world into hell moves
the plot--Spike bitching about why Buffy doesn't wuv him kills it dead
[npi].

Now Angel is obviously an exception, but I think his "greater purpose"
has been pretty well defined as something larger than "getting his tires
rotated". I'm really not much of an Angel-'shipper, but I was willing
to enjoy the A/C possibilities (even if I couldn't see the slightest
reason for him to prefer her to Buffy, or why A/C would work where B/A
didn't) up until "Offspring" and the mass launching of
"kyrumption"/"champion" anvils.  

That said, my line about Xander going to LA and winning Cordy back was
90% about my love of C/X, the only 'ship I've ever seen on the show that
I liked and where I got to enjoy happy moments (Giles and Jenny were
already busted up when I came in, my retroactive awwws aside, and much
as I love W/X, Joss in his Oz-worshipping stupidity turned it into one
big, angsty "mistake".) The fact that Xander would get to make the Big
Brood feel like dirt is just an extra bonus for him, and thus me <eg>.

Dan

("speciesist"?? <rolls eyes>)