It's all garbled and desperate and Buffy to my ears.
You're right. I think it hits a more personal peeve--the idea that (especially in young people, it seems) love is this terrible depressing thing that makes you feel like killing yourself. It drives me nuts when people feel that way, because love can be so happy.
he'd probably dislike himself for liking it so much,
I agree, and that's my peeve, really: most fics I've read that have "his girl" smattered all over the place don't have Angel chagrined of, ashamed of, or frustrated by that streak of possessiveness. He is possessive of Buffy. She'll always be his girl in his heart. But he also knows she's her own person you know?
Anyway, I don't mind it every once in a while, but all the time grates on my nerve. The thing that really peeves me, though, is when it's the narrator saying she's his girl, and not Angel thinking it. This happens a lot in some B/A fic.
I know what you mean, but I'm a tad bristly, only because in one fic I worked *very* hard to set up both why she *would* be able to remember and how she'd feel about it.
Oh! Which fic was it? I'd love to read it. When there's a plausible explanation, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish (for instance, I have this massive WIP that hinges--I think--on IWRY babies. But there're reasons and explanations for it, and a way to make it physically work. Just saying Buffy's pregnant and forgot why doesn't cut it).
I think mostly my problem with this dynamic in fic is that it feels alien to the relationship that B/A had onscreen and to their separate characters - in fact, it kind of feels, frequently, like importing assumptions about "good" het relationships and making B/A fit into it.
Or importing assumptions about the het relationships the writers themselves enjoy being a part of/get turned on by reading. I personally have a male!dom/female!sub kink. I like the big strong protective/needy weaker dynamic. I'm kind of ashamed of it sometimes, because the feminist roars in me THAT'S WRONG, but it doesn't change the fact that I get turned on by it. But it's still not what B/A canon is, or who Buffy and Angel are. And I find that while I have a kink for the dom!male gig it's not the only thing that turns me on--writing/reading B/A as it turly would be is hot stuff, man.
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You're right. I think it hits a more personal peeve--the idea that (especially in young people, it seems) love is this terrible depressing thing that makes you feel like killing yourself. It drives me nuts when people feel that way, because love can be so happy.
he'd probably dislike himself for liking it so much,
I agree, and that's my peeve, really: most fics I've read that have "his girl" smattered all over the place don't have Angel chagrined of, ashamed of, or frustrated by that streak of possessiveness. He is possessive of Buffy. She'll always be his girl in his heart. But he also knows she's her own person you know?
Anyway, I don't mind it every once in a while, but all the time grates on my nerve. The thing that really peeves me, though, is when it's the narrator saying she's his girl, and not Angel thinking it. This happens a lot in some B/A fic.
I know what you mean, but I'm a tad bristly, only because in one fic I worked *very* hard to set up both why she *would* be able to remember and how she'd feel about it.
Oh! Which fic was it? I'd love to read it. When there's a plausible explanation, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish (for instance, I have this massive WIP that hinges--I think--on IWRY babies. But there're reasons and explanations for it, and a way to make it physically work. Just saying Buffy's pregnant and forgot why doesn't cut it).
I think mostly my problem with this dynamic in fic is that it feels alien to the relationship that B/A had onscreen and to their separate characters - in fact, it kind of feels, frequently, like importing assumptions about "good" het relationships and making B/A fit into it.
Or importing assumptions about the het relationships the writers themselves enjoy being a part of/get turned on by reading. I personally have a male!dom/female!sub kink. I like the big strong protective/needy weaker dynamic. I'm kind of ashamed of it sometimes, because the feminist roars in me THAT'S WRONG, but it doesn't change the fact that I get turned on by it. But it's still not what B/A canon is, or who Buffy and Angel are. And I find that while I have a kink for the dom!male gig it's not the only thing that turns me on--writing/reading B/A as it turly would be is hot stuff, man.