phryne/giles: i am fairly certain that they would have a really incredible and passionate one night stand that transitions into a friends with benefits situation. giles does not strike me as someone who requires a monogamous relationship in the same way that jack does, and i think he would be totally ok with being as close to phryne as she wants, ESPECIALLY since he does not have jack’s gritted teeth restraint when phryne is doing absolutely unhinged bullshit. tl;dr i think they could totally hook up but phryne goes a LITTLE too hard for giles to actually fall in love — he loves insane intelligent women, BUT they also have to have their heart on their sleeve, and phryne is legitimately guarded & not as bad at it as jenny!!!

jenny/jack: she would flirt a little and he would go …. :) about it and that would be as far as it went. sorta a lite version of phrack where they’re just friends. god this is so funny that both of these scenarios end up really reflecting various permutations of what phryne and jack think their relationship with their favorite person ever is going to look like long term.

angel/spike: for me, the intimacy of their relationship is overshadowed by the power struggle, so it’s really hard to watch them and imagine them being authentically in love when so much of their dynamic is about angel/angelus dominating and eviscerating spike. it is definitely a dynamic that involves deep intimacy and they have absolutely fucked, but it is so angsty in my eyes. not my cup of tea but i respect it.

angel/riley: have never once considered this but now i wanna lock them in a room until it happens. i think someone should inflict them on each other. terrible boyfriend squad.

riley/spike: i cannot see a world where this would happen, which is always the kinda ship where i wanna read a really really good fic that would convince me it could!!!! i love it when fic writers go nuts and craft something i never considered before.

wesley/fred: man, i CANNOT have an opinion on them that is disconnected from how mad i am about fred/gunn being treated like a cosmic tragedy that kept the real soulmates apart! there is truly no way for me to enjoy them when my very favorite ship after calendiles that makes me feel the shrimp emotions has always been fred/gunn. am rlly scared to watch ats again bc i know it’ll make me wanna flip a table over when it goes into how fred is wesley’s prize to be won and he’s the one who Really Understands Her. i want to like them but i’m a fredgunn stan for life. it’s a curse

buffy/angel: if fanon knew what canon was actually selling i would love it. i am eating them up with a spoon when they’re being toxic older man/teenage girl realness and i do think there is real love there but the power dynamic & what they metaphorically represent to each other gets sanded down in fanfic. i wanna read about them being MESSY AS FUCK. they are fundamentally important to each other and pretending that angel is a footnote in buffy’s life or a stepping stone to spike does him a great disservice.

buffy/riley: idk man i honestly forget they exist. whenever i reach them in my dragging on watch i am sure i will have opinions, but rn i’m just like “man that boy really did compound buffy’s abandonment issues.”

chris/ann: fine. it’s fine. they’re fine. that show had no idea what to do with ann though and it does honestly feel like they just put her with chris to put her with someone. i so feel that the only path forward for ann is to be with leslie—that’s her true love!!!! leslie has two hands…..

brutally honest opinion: i am always gonna be more attached to ships that no one is talking about, because then that means there is a dearth of content and i don’t just get to consume + have to write and think about things. but with spuffy there is so much stuff that everyone has already dissected long before i showed up, and because of the way i interact with fandom i am just like…. okay. sure. u guys have fun. i wanna play with the rarepairs. so i have vague fondness but no brainworms.

i will say though that they are the most fun to watch out of buffy’s canon love interests and their relationship is fascinating and fluid! i think my quiet enmity towards them stems from how many spuffy fans hate buffy for not loving poor baby spike enough, how often spike is prioritized in spuffy content at the expense of buffy’s well being, and how often drusilla is diminished or referred to in a derogatory manner within spuffy fic. soooo tl;dr love the ship but not so sure about some of the fans.

i alluded to it in the tags but in my heart jenny occupies a unique scooby liminal space. is she a scooby? yes. but no. but yes. but also no. but