#anti Angel/Buffy

[lulu-honey]

sometimes the show is not self-aware. it does not understand what it is showing us. how else could you explain the near perfect parallel it gives us regarding angel and spike and their attitude toward buffy and dawn

like buffy asks soulless spike to protect a magically important nearly-fifteen-year-old dawn after she dies and his response is until the end of the world (not even until he dies but possibly longer) and he becomes her babysitter teaches her card games and they paint each other's nail

where as the ptb send word to a fully souled angel that he must protect a magically important freshly sixteen-year-old buffy and his first thought is wow she's clearly part of MY destiny this is a romance thing and it's gonna be so hard NOT TO FUCK HER

[littlenastieswewhispered]

[trealtox]

Angel after losing his soul: - Breaks Buffy's heart in the most humiliating way possible

- Treats even those whom he is close to like dirt under his fingernails

- Acts like a maniac

- Can only be fixed by spells

- Almost starts apocalypse

- An ancient evil guy literally says "nothing good in this guy. Absolutely hopeless case. Pure evil"

- Tries to kill Buffy

Scoobies: - "He's nice but lost! Sure, breaking Buffy's heart and torturing Giles wasn't nice, but we will quickly forgive him and call him to hang out with us"

Spike who had no soul from the very beginning (and wasn't even trying to hide that!!) : - speaks what he thinks without lying (which helps Scoobies most of the time)

- Acts like not the best, but still pretty decent man

- Grows as a person

- Helped to stop monsters countless times

- Genuinely grieved over Joyce when she died

- Protected Dawn just because he made a promise

Scoobies: -"He is an immoral person, who DARED to fall in love with Buffy! He should be hated for all eternity. We should've killed him a long time ago. Whatever good he does is just for gaining points in Buffy's eyes"

[musingsfromthelagoon]

The most upsetting moment in Buffy is when you think Angel is banished to a hell dimension and you are finally free of his moody brooding abusiveness and then he drops out of the sky completely unprompted and completely naked.

[raisedbythetv89]

ATS in their recap of Spike’s final moments on btvs in 5x2 very very intentionally showing Spike and Buffy in their final moments meaningful gazes, hands clasped but completely omitting Buffy telling Spike she loves him is actually so embarrassing of them 😹😭😹😭😹😭😹😭😹😭

It’s the pinnacle of angel and his relationship with Buffy. In order for him to be painted as the hero and him and Buffy as “doomed soulmates” (instead of what they actually are which is an abuser and his underage victim) large parts of both his and Buffy’s past and present have to be completely erased or rewritten and the audience has to be brain dead to all of the completely transparent and blatant manipulation tactics joss employs

I can’t imagine the experience of watching ATS first and going back watching BTVS and being like wait THAT’S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED??????

So you agree… Buffy does love Spike and her doing so completely undercuts everything you’re trying to do with this whole bullshit “rivalry”between the two vampires because if you told the audience everything that both Spike and Angel did in regards to their lives and Buffy herself with complete transparency it’s literally no contest so they have to play up Angel and minimize Spike

[thequeenofsastiel]

Angel should have fallen in love with Giles.

Think about it. Angel was WAY too old for Buffy, and the fact that he preyed on an underage girl damaged his character in an unnecessary way. Giles is age appropriate. Sure, he's not 200+, but he's in his forties, which is reasonably mature in human years. Giles had already grown up and had had other sexual and romantic relationships. I don't think that there would be an emotional power difference age wise. Angel should have been a mentor to Buffy, which would have given him something to connect with Giles over. They're both also highly intelligent bookworms(I'll fight anyone who calls Angel dumb; he has a photographic memory and knows several languages, the fact that he has blind spots and isn't always smart about every single thing doesn't take away from that), and I bet Giles would love to hear about all the historical events that Angel was there for, and all the things he knows about other cultures. Angel would be very intrigued to learn all the things Giles knows about Slayers and demons from the Watcher's archives, and whatever other knowledge Giles might have accrued in his life. I can also see them liking the same music.

Giles could have given Angel his moment of perfect happiness, and Buffy would still have had a hard time killing Angelus because of how much Angel meant to Giles, and because Angel had been a mentor to her that she admired and cared for like Giles. It could have been Giles who killed Angel at the end of s2. Buffy could have fought him until right before Angelus got his soul back, but she gets knocked out, and Giles intervenes right before Angelus kills her, but then he's reensouled. And it's Giles who has to make the heartbreaking choice of killing him.

Then when Angel comes back in s3, Buffy still keeps it from Giles because she's afraid of how much it would wreck him emotionally, and she's also afraid that Giles might accidentally give Angel his moment of perfect happiness again and she doesn't want that to happen. Angel still leaves at the end of s3 because he also doesn't want to risk somehow achieving a moment of perfect happiness without sex, just from a moment of deep love, and he can't bear the thought of all the pain Angelus would cause, especially to the man he loves.

It would have been an interesting romance is all I'm saying.

[dreamsuvivor]

How did we get from Cordy and Angel almost professing their love to each other, to Cordy having sex with Angel’s son within the span of like 7 ep 😭 J*ss Wh*don when I catch you

[thepunkmuppet]

I gagged him I fear

[greensaplinggrace]

unfortunately a large portion of the issue with spike's soul is that the decision was forced into the narrative for a number of shitty reasons, and i firmly believe that one of those reasons was angel. angel set a precedent of excusing one's actions if there's a soul tied to them. he set a precedent of separating the soulless personality from the souled one. the way he's idolized throughout the show leads to the writers attempting to keep forcing that black and white false dichotomy into future scenes where they are no longer applicable.

the reason spike was pushed over the moral event horizon to obtain his soul is because his existence without one put everything about angel's character into question - especially the way his soulless actions were excused. spike's very existence as a soulless creature that performed better than angel and who was developing positively in the story made people question our beloved star crossed angel's motives, and subsequently every theme surrounding soullessness and real love in a way that the writing team didn't want. because bringing that into question unfortunately brings the truth of buffy's romance with angel into stark clarity.

i think this is one of the biggest reasons for the sloppy and cheap way seeing red was handled. i think this is one of the biggest reasons for the way the show treats spike's soul and excuses his actions afterward (in the way that happens with angel). and i think it's the worst proponent for the way season seven goes down the fucking shitter.

[kpchrs]

I'm sorry but in that episode of Buffy trying to make Angel jealous by doing whatever dance is that with Xander? I can't take it seriously because

(1) I fucking hate Xander/Buffy.

(2) Angel is what, 200 years old? He should have been like "what are these whippersnappers doing" because they are, I think, 16 and cringe instead, cus BRO I know you have been out of action for a century but-- God, nevermind, this makes me cringe with dizziness lmao

[littlenastieswewhispered]

[destiel-wings]

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your thoughts on angel x buffy? :)

Hii i don't mind, thank you for asking 😊

So, I used to love bangel sooooo much when i first watched the show. I was 100% into it, (with a crush for Boreanaz too) and i cried so much for them in s2 and when Angel left the show in s3. And I truly, sincerely, unironically hated Spike too (I thought he was a great character but i just loved hating him, you know? Lol). When we saw Spike's dream of kissing Buffy I swear i felt nauseous.

... and then they aired Fool for love.

By the end of that episode I was left in utter existential crisis in front of my tv because i felt my whole world shift. There was a part of me that still liked Angel and Buffy, but there was also this new part that wanted her to be with Spike now.

So anyway, that's when i decided to switch teams and i became team spuffy, and for as much as i had been obsessed with bangel before, it was nothing compared to how deep i was caught into the Buffy and Spike relationship. I never looked back. They were just much more complex and real and compelling. And it made me reevaluate Angel and her relationship with him too. Angel never really knew Buffy, always treated her like a child, and let's be honest--and that's something that hit me only years later when I got older--she was a child when they were together. He was spying on her and falling in love with her when she was just fifteen years old and he was a 240-year-old vampire who had been sired at like 26 years old, and they got together when she was 16/17 and he broke up with her when she turned 18... I don't think that's something the writers did intentionally of course, because (as everything else in buffy) it's just meant to be taken as a metaphor for the ideals and struggles and the intensity of drama of a girl's first love, but it still comes off as icky.

And before anyone comes at me, I know spuffy isn't healthy either, but that's kinda the point and the appeal. First of all, it's fiction and a metaphor, and secondly, it's about two broken people that are supposed to be mortal enemies but are actually two sides of the same coin, so different and yet so much the same, who can understand each other as a whole, light and darkness, in a way that no one else ever could, who yes, hurt each other along the way, but whose love saved them from the deepest darkness, ultimately bringing them into the light.

This is what spuffy is to me, and this is why i think it's not only the superior ship, but one of the best ships of all time (thee best, until i saw destiel, now they're sharing the podium).

So anyway, to get back to your question, the moment i became obsessed with Buffy and Spike (and i have been ever since 2005, lmao, they've been my first real obsession, alongside btvs, until spn and destiel) Angel sort of became the enemy 😅. And I hated him so so so so so much when he appeared in 7x21 and kissed Buffy (pure fanservice, but okay) and brought the medallion that ultimately killed Spike. So i spent years very maturely holding my vendetta against Angel (like, rooting for every demon that fought against him when I watched Angel, lmaoo). In most recent years, I've (sort of) made my peace with the character, after rewatching Angel. I mean he's still the enemy (of course, duh!! Who am i if not eternally petty??) but i appreciate him in his own show.

So i don't ship Angel and Buffy anymore, but I can understand why someone would (as i myself used to), and more importantly, i respect other people's right to ship them.

If we're joking, I'm going to insult Angel and keep saying he's the enemy. But on a mature serious note, I think Buffy and Angel were a great first love (for Buffy), but they were supposed to be just that, the impossible teenage girl's dream of a first love, eternal but doomed to end and break your heart.

I think Angel was much more well paired with Cordelia (which is something I'd never think I'd say), and i found myself shipping them so much when I rewatched the show. It felt so much more mature and profound than what we saw with Buffy and Angel (and that's probably due to the fact that we got slow burn for them - as we did for Buffy and Spike- and could actually see the feelings growing, while Buffy crushed on Angel in the pilot and she was madly in love (as teenagers do) in 0.5 seconds for no apparent reason than the fact that he was hot and mysterious.

So when I say the kiss in btvs 7x21 makes zero sense, I'm not just talking about spuffy, but also about cangel. I feel like both characters parted ways and lived on in their own shows to grow and become their own persons, developing other relationships that were more adult and meaningful, and that kiss was just disrespectful for both (but anyways, it doesn't change anything).

I have so many thoughts about all this honestly, and I hope I haven't gone too much off the tangent with my reply, but i couldn't just give you a simple reply because that would've had to be something like "angel is the enemy and i don't like bangel" but as you can see my thoughts are a little more complex than that 😅

[phaeolepiotaaurea]

I am rewatching Buffy .. and Angel is.. sooo creepy??? Like our girl is 16, I watched this when I was 14 and thought he was so cool and now I want him put in jail

[raisedbythetv89]

Never not thinking about how Buffy has to beg and plead for Angel to not let the sun kill him when the first was tormenting him with what he’s done and that fact that soul or no soul he still wants to hurt Buffy and he concludes the only way he won’t is to kill himself….. and the only reason he didn’t dust was the storm and he was fully gonna let her watch him die again because he couldn’t face what a worthless piece of shit and a monster even with the soul he really is (and then suddenly they’re back together even though Buffy said they couldn’t be together anymore like RIGHT before all this so essentially Angel threatens to kill himself and then suddenly he and Buffy are back together 🙃 i hate it here)

Riley was gonna let himself die rather than become even weaker than Buffy while she again begs for him to stop being a whiny attention seeking toddler and grow the fuck up and do what he needs to do so he won’t DIE (my words not hers obviously lol) and when that doesn’t work and she still doesn’t “pay enough attention to him or need him enough” in his eyes while she’s ya know being the slayer, raising her sister and taking care of her sick mother…. He cheats on her in a way that again threatens his own life and the lives of everyone he could easily kill in her life if he were to be turned and when THAT doesn’t work he threatens to leave forever unless she forgives him IMMEDIATELY

And Spike who is the only one to actually die after she again is pleading you don’t have to do this “no there’s still time you’ve done enough” because Spike knows Buffy doesn’t deserve “good enough” Buffy deserves everything, she deserves to be free of the hellmouth even though that means they can’t be together and he’ll die

Two man-children who threaten to kill themselves because they can’t handle what they’ve done or that they’re not as strong as they think they are and drag an overburdened and traumatized young woman they had no business even dating in the first place along for their self-destructive ride vs a man who literally already sacrificed everything he was to become someone she could love without guilt, sacrificing everything he fought to become, for her and her beloved world she loves so much and fights so hard to protect.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO MEN WHO THREATEN DEATH VS THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY DIED AND THE VASTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THESE THREE EVENTS 😭😭😭

Spike dying BECAUSE he was worthy of Buffy’s love rather than because he wasn’t like the two who came before him

[angelofthe2000s]

Recommending Buffy and Angel to people in no small part because of the amazing relationships between characters and specifically my favorite versions of both the friends-to-lovers and enemies-to-lovers trope is so hard bc like…. There’s also Bangel ☹️.

[thequeenofsastiel]

Buffy- Hanging out with Spike is not cool, Dawn! Okay? It's dangerous, and icky.

Also Buffy- Dawn could be in danger. Must go to Spike for help.