And the appeal of Tumblr continues to bewilder....and the Buffy/Xander pairing raises it's ugly head

[shadowkat]

The appeal of Tumblr continues to bewilder me. I think if the only way you engage in social media is via a smartphone, in which case it must be very appealing. But it's wickedly hard to follow. Nor do they appear to say anything.

Example? Topic: "Why isn't the Buffy/Xander pairing more popular?"

Here's the insanely interesting and thoughtful responses:

nikiiwi likes this
mcgani reblogged this from luscious2 and added:
Oh, I think that was a miscommunication in my wording. He spies her kissing Angel, but I didn’t mean it in the sense...
tennyo-elf likes this
luscious2 reblogged this from mcgani and added:
Correction: Xander never spies on Buffy in Revelation. He noticed Angel walking inside his home and Xander peered...
transparently-uncreative likes this
electricsbananas reblogged this from restfield
buffydale likes this
katzenschlafs reblogged this from apprenticebard
ilikemyshipsnotyours reblogged this from thirteenthblackbird and added:
Lol, I’m not entirely sure if that’s true but I do know that season 7 was supposed to have Buffy/Xander but than the...
thirteenthblackbird reblogged this from restfield and added:
In a LiveJournal thread I recently read that Buffy/Xander was supposed to be the romance of season 1 but that Angel was...
azzthetix likes this
piggiesftw likes this
thatsnothowitworks likes this
protoneoromantic reblogged this from restfield and added:
Personally, I don’t ship them much because of how deeply I appreciate the beauty of their canon narrative which is so...
sweet-poisoning reblogged this from restfield
torrilin reblogged this from ilikemyshipsnotyours and added:
Keep in mind I didn’t say “Xander never treats Buffy like a person”. I think he doesn’t do a good job when he’s busy...
hndwrttn reblogged this from shutupthatswhy
antisocialit3 likes this
connivinglittleshit reblogged this from shutupthatswhy
hndwrttn likes this
mollymollymay likes this
uranussatellite likes this
shutupthatswhy reblogged this from spikeghost
spikeghost reblogged this from world-comes-to-an-end
world-comes-to-an-end reblogged this from teenageantichrist
teenageantichrist reblogged this from world-comes-to-an-end and added:
^^yesAnd not to mention the fact that Xander was overly controlling with all of his girlfriends. With both Cordelia and...
cyclops likes this
frelling-tralk reblogged this from ilikemyshipsnotyours and added:
To me Xander is a “nice guy” because high school Xander never got over Buffy turning him down. He didn’t handle it...
tinyspacekitty likes this
yusgi likes this
cosmic-moon-power likes this
butyoucanttaketheskyfromme reblogged this from drusillathekiller
parsnippletickle likes this
robotthatscreams likes this
magicboxprompts reblogged this from drusillathekiller and added:
Great post!
cloverover-dover likes this
liberiangirl85 reblogged this from ilikemyshipsnotyours and added:
I wish the show didn’t have such an open ending when it came to Buffy’s relationships, it would have been nice to see...

Or in summary: I love this post, reblog, reblog, I don't know why they didn't, reblog, reblog..

Now doesn't that just make you want to drop everything right now and go join Tumblr??? I do. Not like emails at work aren't head-ache inducing enough.

The most interesting bit? Not to mention creative? The names people have come up with to call themselves on tumblr. I'm particularly fond of robotthatscreams, parsnippletickle, cloverover-dover and cosmic-moon-power. (Oh I adore this sentence: robotthatscreams like this.) And ilikemyshipsnotyours is clever and honest. LOL!

My response to the question at hand?

Why isn't the Buffy/Xander pairing more popular?


1) Doyle Response:
Whedon nixed it because it was boring. (He wasn't wrong.) [That's actually a true story - they pushed it in S7, he nixed it. The rumor: He wanted to do a Wood/Buffy romance, but Gellar talked him out of it apparently...because he was planning on killing off Wood - which she also talked him out of. (I'm not sure I buy that one, Gellar had no clout the final season. If he wanted to do it, he would have.) But the Buffy/Xander bit was true.] Note - when you do a television series that has a superhero and two or three sidekicks, you never ever put the superhero with one of the sidekicks, because after a while its boring, there's no romantic tension. They never put the sidekick with the hero...you'd have to either kill off the sidekick or have some huge problem happen.
In Buffy they avoided it for three reasons, 1)boring. Happy relationships in teen horror drama soap operas are boring because the writers don't know how to create conflict that isn't melodramatic 2) what I mentioned above, and 3) the series writers loved doomed romantic relationships or romantic conflict. The heroine and her friends weren't permitted to be happy in love - their relationships were doomed to failure - because that's how the writers built conflict.

2) Watsonian Response:

The characters don't work together. They are too similar. Both are judgmental, with serious Daddy issues, and quippy. Opposites work better in drama.

I wrote a long essay about it - go here: http://www.oocities.org/shadowkatbtvs/bx_monsters.html

3.)Fandom wise? I was a Xander/Willow shipper until S4. Then I shifted to Willow/Tara, Xander/Anya.

Comments

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

True point. A friend might be an excellent match in real life, but in a story, you need differences and conflicts and challenges. None of that came with Buffy/Xander.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You can actually do that in a story. I've seen it done. Friday Night Lights, The West Wing, Grey's Anatomy, Poldark, Dowton Abbey, The Waltons, Happy Days, Friends, How I Met Your Mother...have all pulled it off.

But, if your show is structure to emphasize and play off of romantic conflict or angst, then it's not going to work. Television series like Buffy, Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Flash, Gotham, Daredevil, pretty much all the genre shows and a lot of the cop procedural dramas, although not all of them, and possibly the Good Wife, won't make that work.

Depends on the writers, the dramatic structure of the series, and the emphasis on romance not to mention sex. Sexual tension requires conflict in a story. (Not so much in real life - in fact you don't want that in real life.)

I remember being at a meetup once...and people were asking how I could like a romantic relationship -- all they did was fight each other. And I responded, because it's impossible - so I find it interesting to watch. It's compelling. Watching people make out on screen isn't all that interesting. Sort of boring actually. Nothing happens. (Boring for the actors too apparently, which is why they often play practical jokes.) When they fight - there's unpredictability - we don't know who will win, if they will both kill each other, have sex, talk, what? Interesting. Do I want that in reality? No. Of course not.

Now in a series like Friday Night Lights, the focus isn't one the Coach and his Wife's relationship, it's on their relationships with everyone else. Same deal with Firefly, the emphasis wasn't on Zoe and Wash, it was on their interactions with everyone else as a couple and as individuals. But if the focus is on the couple and the angst, then you need conflict.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what makes it so unlike the real world, where the goal is less conflict, not more!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Let's face it, reality tends to be boring to watch. That's why reality shows have people manipulating the story and contestants to create conflict. They aren't very good at it, it feels contrived, hence the reason I don't watch reality tv shows.

In reality, I hate conflict, and have little tolerance for melodrama and soap opera.
But I eat it up like candy on tv, books, and movies.

Sometimes I think fiction is heightened reality or exaggerated reality, playing out our fears, conflicts, dreams and worries in various what-if scenarios to see what works and what doesn't. And to ultimately provide a safe way of learning through others mistakes.
(ie. Dating the bad boy may result in great sex, but over the long term it doesn't have much staying power, or work out the way we'd hoped.)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, art is like dreams, where we have to make little things very big and obvious so we can see and understand them.