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If fandom's written this already, I'd love to know.
Going through the first season on Buffering the Vampire Slayer is mostly reminding me how much better so many of those early episodes would've been if most of Xander and Willow's plots had been switched. I just listened to the episode on "The Pack" - and come on, hyenas are matriarchal animals to begin with, and Willow could take a moment of serious soul-searching over what she did while possessed. "I've never even eaten a cheeseburger, and now this."
Most of the rest of the series, come to think of it. Of course, to really get the most out of that, Xander and Willow would have had to be queer from the start, but I wouldn't complain about watching that version of the show. "Yes, little podunk Sunnydale High has a GSA, just like if you were back in Los Angeles," Xander says to Buffy. "It's me, Willow, and a bag of Funyuns behind the MPR."
"So the S in that..." Buffy asks.
"I guess now it stands for Slayer," Willow says.
Largely I like to imagine Willow and Xander preparing for big dates in formalware and dancing together with no sexual tension whatsoever, and the ways the show would've played out if the emotional 'heart' of the group had been a young gay man. He'd still have been something of a dick to Willow over her dating partners, like Oz ("I'm not experimenting! Why don't you go experiment!"), but it would've felt very different and might even have been easier to live with if it hadn't come from a misapplied 'nice guy' sense of romantic betrayal.
Keeping Anya around in the later seasons would take some doing, though they managed some reasonable justifications for Spike, so I'm sure they could've done something. Demonic and black magic consultation, for one - she was there, she met that one personally, things like that. Possibly becoming really good friends with Xander's boyfriend, because vengeance knows no gender or sexuality. "I generally wouldn't do it for scorned men unless it was another man doing the scorning...what? You thought the twentieth century invented these things?"
Most of the rest of the series, come to think of it. Of course, to really get the most out of that, Xander and Willow would have had to be queer from the start, but I wouldn't complain about watching that version of the show. "Yes, little podunk Sunnydale High has a GSA, just like if you were back in Los Angeles," Xander says to Buffy. "It's me, Willow, and a bag of Funyuns behind the MPR."
"So the S in that..." Buffy asks.
"I guess now it stands for Slayer," Willow says.
Largely I like to imagine Willow and Xander preparing for big dates in formalware and dancing together with no sexual tension whatsoever, and the ways the show would've played out if the emotional 'heart' of the group had been a young gay man. He'd still have been something of a dick to Willow over her dating partners, like Oz ("I'm not experimenting! Why don't you go experiment!"), but it would've felt very different and might even have been easier to live with if it hadn't come from a misapplied 'nice guy' sense of romantic betrayal.
Keeping Anya around in the later seasons would take some doing, though they managed some reasonable justifications for Spike, so I'm sure they could've done something. Demonic and black magic consultation, for one - she was there, she met that one personally, things like that. Possibly becoming really good friends with Xander's boyfriend, because vengeance knows no gender or sexuality. "I generally wouldn't do it for scorned men unless it was another man doing the scorning...what? You thought the twentieth century invented these things?"
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You shoukd send it to Kristin & Jenny
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Anya declaring, "Vengeance has no gender. Vengeance needs no gender." And I have no idea how Xander's boyfriend would deal with the reality of vampires and demons and whatnot, except I hope it wouldn't have lead to a break-up.