Thank you for your eloquent message.
I've never read Mercedes Lackey but I plan on doing so now.
I saw WttHM when it first aired and I was hooked by the scenes with Buffy and Willow. I must have gotten my glasses the same place you did.
And thanks for the scene pointer, I'll rewatch it tonight.
At 45, I'm guessing that I'm older than most of the people here. Why is this relevant? Only because my initiation to fan fiction occurred well before the internet. The television show that first put fan fiction on the map was "Star Trek". And, as all things seem to do, much of the fan fic turned towards the sexual aspects of the show. My first exposure to 'slash' fic were the numerous Kirk/Spock stories, a pairing that I still don't really "get".
My next television obsession, many years later, was "Beauty and the Beast". This was still, for the most part, pre-internet so fan fic, much like it was done with "Star Trek", was sold at conventions and by mail where you paid the author, mostly to cover printing costs. Unlike "Star Trek", though, there really weren't any 'slash' fic since the series revolved entirely around the love between Catherine and Vincent. I did read a few fics that included some minor characters in same sex relationships but the central theme was non-slash.
Through my involvement in the BatB fandom, I met a girl who introduced me to the author Mercedes Lackey and her wonderful trilogy featuring Vanyel Ashkevron and his life-bonded mates, Tylendel and Stefen. Even though I'd had gay acquaintances and co-workers before, these novels opened my eyes. It's all just about one person loving another person, gender (and my Baptist upbringing) be damned. I'd believed this on an intellectual level but Mercedes caused me to feel it on an emotional level.
All this is just to put you into where my head was at when I started watching Buffy. The first ep I ever saw was "The Pack" but the episode that got me hooked was "Becoming, Pt. 2". I hadn't seen many season 2 eps but Sarah's portrayal of Buffy, having to kill Angel snared me even though I didn't even know much about their relationship. As I caught some of the missed eps in rerun that summer and then the new eps in season 3 it wasn't Buffy's relationship with Angel that intrigued me - it was her relationship with Willow. Of course with Oz dating Willow and Buffy still in love with Angel, B/W hadn't entered my thoughts ... and then I bought the first set of videotapes and got to see "Welcome to the Hellmouth" for the first time and suddenly I knew. Buffy and Willow were soulmates whether they realized it or not (see the scenes that mike pointed out in his post).
And so I started looking for fan fic, but not just any fan fic. I already knew what I wanted and that was B/W fanfic and that led me to this group. Since that time I've read many other pairings and, outside of Spuffy, can deal with pretty much anything as long as it's reasonably well written but nothing has ever supplanted my loyalty to B/W and nothing ever will. If I'm pondering story ideas for stories I'll never write - they're always B/W. When I'm re-watching an episode, I'm always looking at it through B/W colored glasses. For whatever reason, that pairing speaks to me, makes sense to me in a way that no other pairing does. For others, it may be a different pairing, and that's alright because who we are and our life experiences color our interpretations.
It's impossible to know if I would have picked up on it right away if WttH had been the first ep I'd seen but I feel confident that I would've eventually gravitated to B/W, no matter what order I viewed the eps.
And to mike, go back and watch the scene in the quad. At one point Willow looks down and is totally checking out Buffy's cleavage (not that I blame her 'cause Buffy was looking pretty hot in her outfit that day).
Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy: "I kinda love you."
—'Choices'
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