Paul Gadzikowski

I'm reading a discussion of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 'ship wars of the early 00s that was linked from su_herald. Most of the commenters seem to be Buffy/Spike 'shippers, particularly the person providing most of the history of the 'ship wars. She describes Buffy/Angel 'shippers disparagingly as feeling they've been "promised" a happy ending even though Angel went off to another city and has pursued two other women and has his longterm hopes pinned on a prophecy of a souled vampire's redemption whose properties vary every time it's alluded to. But I've figured out something about Buffy/Spike.

In a previous LJ post* I wondered why, when T.H. White has given me a tendency to turn fannish love triangles into happy threesomes (usually in Star Trek: Archer/T'Pol/Trip, Troi/Riker/Worf, Pike/Number One/Colt, and of course Kirk/Uhura/Spock), I never considered Buffy/Angel/Spike.

It's because I never believed in Buffy/Spike. When they started sleeping together I said that she was only using him, and soon enough she said it to him. Buffy and Angel, however, get genuine emotional sustenance from each other, especially Buffy, who continues to turn to Angel in the face of her greatest traumas - when Joyce died, when Buffy died, ... The threesomes I write come from seeing equal feeling along all three sides of the triangle (even if I don't see sexual attraction on all three sides), and I don't see Buffy/Spike or Angel/Spike equalling Buffy/Angel.

* Which I will link to from here the next time I happen across it, instead of linking to it right now, because I didn't tag it adequately to be able to find it right now.