your stitches are all out but your scars are healing wrong;

[ever_neutral]

06 | the ship where fandom is DOING IT WRONG

What about me? I love you so much. And I tried to make you go away. I
killed you and it didn't help. And I hate it. I hate that it's so hard,
and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did because
you did it to me. Oh God, I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I
can't.

I dallied on this "day", but then I figured that in the realm of "fandom IS DOING IT WRONG" ships, there is no formative contender than Buffy/Angel. I mean "formative" in the sense that the Buffyverse was my first fandom and I'd never before seen such incorrect shipping in my life. There are no scars like Buffy fandom scars, &c. &c. Obviously, the wrong shipping (as in, WRONG WRONG WRONG, not wrong!shipping which is in fact what we're here for) surrounds the idea of B/A as a straightforward pure epic starcrossed forever love, when clearly at its best it's pretty deliberately a horror story. I do think the show(s) had a tendency to romanticize the story (... a lot), but in some ways I also think that was a somewhat necessary part of the story -- it's the epitome of that heady, destructive (understatement) first love, the kind you feel like you "can't breathe" without, the kind that scars you for life. And Buffy really is emotionally scarred by Angel -- and all of the bad related to Angel -- for years into her adulthood.

In a word, it's trainwreck syndrome. I don't care for the fluff/schmoop; I don't buy into their pure forever love; I'm not sure they'd even work together in the long-term or are even particularly compatible as people aside from their damage (though I do see the potential in their friendship). But dude, watching this shit growing up, I all but threw myself before the altar of Joss Whedon's sadism.

Also, Buffy/Angelus is the kind of thing that makes one scared to walk around their house, do u feel.

Comments

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

"Beauty and the Beasts" - that's where I went over the edge and shipped these two. It's hard to talk about them in fandom because the party line seems to be that Buffy/Angel were the True Wuv couple while Buffy/Spike loved each other, but I do. Ship them. I don't think I would if there wasn't that underbelly (outerskeleton?) of scars that the relationship leaves on Buffy, and what it means about her ~childhood. Oh well. I'll just be here in my corner, alone.

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

THEY'RE SO GOOD IN "BATB"! The scene at the end when Angel falls to his knees before Buffy is one of my favorite Buffy/Angel scenes ever. :o

I don't think I would if there wasn't that underbelly (outerskeleton?) of scars that the relationship leaves on Buffy, and what it means about her ~childhood.
Indeed.

There there.