have you thought about anyiles because I have Thought About Anyiles. strap the fuck in guys
first question. why does anya like xander?? like obviously anybody can be attracted to anybody, that makes perfect sense and is fine, but WHY does she love him and pursue a relationship with him?? she’s not actually a teenager, they have literally nothing in common! he makes it very very clear that he doesn’t understand her at all, not to mention constantly belittling and undermining her. when he tries to be “helpful” and teach her social skills and cues, he only does it because it embarrasses him, not to actually help her understand, and is just so fucking condescending and rude!!!! (can you tell that autistic/neurodivergent-coded anya in relation to the way xander treats her makes me mad??)
basically, regardless of how much I just don’t really like it, I genuinely never understood why that relationship ever even happened.
anya and giles however. it’s not necessarily my favourite ship in the fandom as it is, but the idea of what the show would have been had it been canon instead of xanya makes me love it more and more by the second.
let’s talk about canon moments. they have a connection! when they bicker, buffy compares them to her divorced parents, he calls her “dear” at one point for literally no reason, and the biggest one is of course tabula rasa. sure they pieced together the context that they ran the shop together and then just ran with it, assuming they were a couple, but tara and willow were fully attracted to each other and seemed to somehow know that they had a connection, as did xander and willow. xander and anya barely even speak to each other, while anya and giles fall into the role of a couple so easily, kissing passionately without even breaking a sweat
so just think about an alternate version of the show, where instead of liking xander for absolutely no reason, anya pursues giles.
they are both incredibly knowledgeable on demons and history, they both have crazy evil pasts, they both have dry senses of humour, they’re both way more powerful than they come across. and just the poetry of it - giles was the one to destroy her necklace and essentially curse her with humanity. him being the one to make her fall in love with humanity and want to be human again is so FUCKING BEAUTIFUL! and just the idea of exploring his trauma around jenny, unwillingness to love again, etc.
also ik it makes perfect sense for xander’s character so I don’t have beef with it from a writers perspective, but it needs to be said. GILES WOULD NEVER LEAVE HER AT THE ALTAR
