straws

Nina was pretty and blonde, and a stand in for Buffy & Darla, and she didn't need to be anything else I guess...

Did she even play a part in the theme of that season or Angel's character development at all (other than maybe to show how empty he was feeling b/c he was willing to settle for a relationship with no real emotional connection...were we supposed to see him as 'using' her b/c he was never in any danger of losing his soul as a good or bad thing? IDEK). I feel like she could be edited from the season and nothing would be lost and all the season arcs/themes would stay in place.

The writers just really had an obsession with Angel getting some naked action that season (Eve and Nina). A lot of it felt like an attempt to move the show away from C/A and more of JW being vindictive about his 'ruined' Season 4 plans...



I'd hope Fred, at least, wouldn't let anything happen to Dennis. I hope Dennis got a new tenant that was down with living with a friendly Casper.

Or maybe Angel kept it and kept making the payments cause he couldn't bare anyone else to ever live there.

I also feel like he would've been clinging onto hope that she'd wake up from her coma and might've kept it for her, thinking she could live there again one day. After YW, though, who knows.


https://therearenopeoplelikeus.tumbl...screencap-meme

Ashes Fall

Ugh! Yeah, JW seemed intent on writing over Cordy by bringing back Angel's season 1 Buffy hang-up as there was also the whole immature triangle-y thing between him and Spike (i.e TGIQ).

Well, Wesley and his UST with Fred pushed him into bed with Nina.
Before his stupid 'when you find someone who makes the world worth fighting for seize them/perfect happiness is 99.9999% impossible' speech (another of the missing Cordy reference areas), Angel was ignoring Nina's blatant advances.
If memory serves, she'd shown up for her monthly confinement dressed in a flirty outfit and asked him out and he straight up declined.

However, this is just another layer to the question at hand.
Is that Angel allowed this to persuade him to go the meaningless sex route, that he didn't defend his love for Cordelia (who had died no more than two weeks prior judging by 'Power Play's establishment of being two months subsequent to YW) a good or bad thing?

Oh absolutely.
All we'd have lost is an after-sex scene which was among those which represented Angel as hung up on Buffy rather than Cordy.

Now that you say that season 5 did have the most Angel nudity with no real substance as opposed to the one in 'Room with a Vu'.
Such as this strange scene where Eve barges into his penthouse while he's in the shower and he stands in front of her basically waving his **** in her face for a long 5 seconds before grabbing a towel to cover himself as though tempting her to tempt him.

I could see Dennis echoing your Angel sentiment and scaring away all potential new tenants even after YW.
Or if he found out she'd died and moved on, he would have been filled with such a need to follow her that it freed him to do so as well.

The second image in that set, the 'Tu Shanshu in LA' hand hold represents the entire spectrum of CA on its own.

straws

Yep. JW didn't even bother explaining how the memory spell that Angel had W&H cast over everyone effected the S4/show timeline either. Did the rain of fire still happen? Did the whole world just collectively forget Jasmine? S4 was such a dumpster fire he had to hit the reboot button, but then he also used it as a chance to write out Cordy's existence.

Maybe he was so broken up from Cordy's death that he used Nina as an unhealthy coping mechanism. Perfect happiness def wouldn't have been on the table for him at that time so Angelus wasn't a risk. We know Angel doesn't always cope in the best ways...

I love the idea of Dennis and Cordy being reunited in the afterlife. Very bittersweet.

Ashes Fall

I felt like 'Origins' established well enough that it was exclusively a memory wipe not an actual rewrite of the events, otherwise, Cordy should not have remained in a coma after it was implemented since Jasmine needed Connor.

Headcanon accepted though I still would have liked Wesley's 'when you find someone who makes the world worth fighting for' speech to get a Cordy acknowledgment.
"I did have someone like that, she's gone" or something to that effect rather than his idiotic "who are we talking about?"

I could totally see Cordy, Doyle, Dennis, and Wes all forming their own little mini PTB looking out for Angel and the rest of their family who still lived and fought.

fractured moonlight

Didn't watch S5 minus YW so can't really get involved in discussing things.

That graphic is super pretty.

straws

Yeah, but what did they believe happened in its place? What reason were the fang gang given for Cordy being in a coma? If the gang didn't even remember Connor being born so many gaps in their memory needed to be filled in and re-written with something else. Very confusing.

A bit like what Joss did with Dawn and the monks, but he pulled that off much better.

I admittedly haven't re-watched S5 much so maybe answers were provided and I just can't remember.

I can't comment on this scene as I don't remember it. But JW never would've allowed Angel to say that when he was busy trying to undo CA/Cordy from ever mattering to Angel or the show. It's not like the shiny new Buffy would've appreciated that reference.

ETA: I went to peak at the script for clarification.

Maybe the fact that Angel asked 'who are we talking about?' means that Nina and Buffy were 100% not on his mind bc he didn't consciously/unconsciously make a connection to them. In fact, the question makes it sound like happiness is off the table for him completely (bc Cordy is dead) and so nothing at all came to mind because that option was gone. I'm going to read it as him going "wait...who are you talking about here? Because surely you know Cordy is gone..." I make my own canon if I have to lol.

Hmm...maybe some of the gang's memories of Angel's romantic feelings for Cordy were also wiped, just to make the mind wipe 'neater' or easier.

There's something very beautiful but tragic about that. Their family was reunited but it was in death. They were all so damn young too.

If Angel died in NFA do we think his soul went to heaven or hell?

More of CA being married AF.





https://therearenopeoplelikeus.tumbl...cordelia-being

Ashes Fall

Ah, of course. My misunderstanding. Very valid point.
*sigh* Another testament that seasons 4 and 5 were all about convenience rather than plot and it had to be to make the Dawn plot look good because there's a giant hole in that as well.
Dawn was supposedly forged with Summers blood but where the hell did the monks get Summers blood?


If you've re-watched it at all, you're ahead of me. I've never re-watched it apart from YW.
Just once was too much for me and that one time was just to understand references to its events in discussions such as this--a year after I finished season 4.

Hell no, that notion never crossed my mind.
I was under the impression that the comment was inquiring as to whose feelings were being addressed Angel's or Wes' own.

Have you paid any attention to my posts in this thread? I make up my own canon all the time! Or adopt others' like this one.

Oh ****! How did THAT never occur to me?!
Its a good thought and would soften the blow of the absence of her memory but its established in 'Unleashed' that Fred does have some inkling at least:

NINA
So, you two are like a couple?

FRED
Uh, me and Angel? Oh, God, no. He—he was seeing someone, sort of... but she... Angel doesn't date much—at all. 'Cause of his circumstances.


There is no chance she was referencing Buffy because:

1. She doesn't know that saga beyond the few snippets she got from the hilarious little theater act Cordy and Wes put on for her nor does she know Buffy.

2. There was no 'sort of' about BA but admittedly it's an accurate phrase for CA.

Looking back on it now, I find that comment a bit endearing actually, how it illustrated that Angel wasn't the only one who had a hard time talking about Cordy and Fred was arguably defending Cordy's honor because it can be read as "He's grieving right now, back off".
While the rest of the team practically locked Angel and Nina a room together and filled it with romantic music.

ATF answers that.
Angel enters the astral plane in a dying state as Cordy had in 'Birthday' and Cordy appears to him as his Skip.
She, of course, convinces him to hold onto his life because his fight wasn't over but I'm sure she'd also intended to escort him to the afterlife had it come to that.

They're the embodiment of the famous Princess Bride quote "Death doesn't stop true love". Even in death, Cordy takes care of her man.

(side note: I don't feel it makes a difference that he was, in this instance, human).


They so DID NOT need to put a ring on it.

fractured moonlight

They were definitely married. Love that gifset.

Ashes Fall

I wouldn't be surprised if Angel had considered Cordy his wife in his mind.

straws

LOL.
TBH a lot of our fanon is better than canon re: certain seasons.
Agreed that I don't think Fred is talking about Buffy there. Fred always seemed like the #1 CA shipper, and I think it's possible she noticed Angel's romantic feelings for Cordy before anyone else (in fic, it's always Wes who notices first, but I think in the show he was too Fred distracted and obsessed to catch on right away). So if some of their memories of Angel's feelings for Cordy were removed (possibly as collateral in the memory wipe), then maybe Fred maintained the most of hers since she was pro CA from very early on?

But...Angel's repressing his pain re: Cordy and not talking about it also very much fits Wesley's own MO? Wes also used Lilah (I do think there was something real between them in the end, however, there is no denying part of it was him using Lilah; the Fred role-play scene couldn't be anymore clear, but that's getting off topic lol...) so him giving Angel advice to find what little happiness he can with Nina kinda makes sense when looking at it that way. It's what he did/what 'worked' for him...so he tells Angel to do the same thing? That being said, Angel/Nina never worked and that scene in relation to them is cringe. It's very 'if you can't have the one you want, try someone else.' Blech.

Cordy being his link to the Powers and his guide even after death. I can't.

More big married energy. "I gotta get home to Cordelia."
She represented home to him. The level of OTP is too much.




https://zoewashburne.tumblr.com/post/53964215213

Ashes Fall

Amen, fic fanon pwns as well.

She definitely did. She was the first before Lorne to have the 'Kyrumption' talk with Angel.
(It's quite strange how both Fred and Lorne tried to push Angel towards Cordelia but no one tried to push Cordelia towards Angel but I digress).

Perhaps I'm forgetting something but I don't recall Wes ever catching on at all.

Hmmm.
See the above comment. Wesley apparently doesn't even notice CA but pushes him towards the first woman who shows up after Cordy's gone?

I'm having a bit of trouble with that, however, in fan fiction, Wesley often plays the Giles role in that he openly discourages CA or responds to the relations they've already had with angry disapproval due to the curse which I find to be a fantastically realistic characterization.

Perhaps in the canon, Wesley did notice CA's growing feelings but rather than discourage it, he just ignored it to avoid involvement.
That would fit with his non-confrontational persona though he started growing into his authority after he chastised Gunn for the grave danger he brought upon them in 'That Old Gang of Mine'.

It's kind of a gray area really.

Head canon accepted. That Wesley intended for Angel to take Nina as a settlement is a comfort. That would make it indirectly endearing to Cordy and CA.

It was (on both men's parts) a douchebag thing to do to Nina who seemed to have a real thing for Angel even if it was just a Fred/Buffy hybrid hero/high school crush (and I'm not necessarily saying it was but it must be considered that she didn't know him any better than Buffy did) but since I don't like her or them as any type of couple, I can't bring myself to care that much.


I DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THAT HE'D SAID THAT! *DIES*

straws

I don't know if they were necessarily pushing him towards her or just picking up what he was putting down. Like them kind of teasingly calling out his crush? Cordy was behind in realizing her feelings (and not ready to acknowledge them yet) so maybe that's why they didn't bring it up with her as much.

Fred did try to talk about Angel's feelings for her in an indirect way in WITW when they were dress shopping, but Cordy brushed it off.

I thought Wes had picked up on it by Couplet because of the Wes and Angel parallels in that episode (the two jealous men on the sidelines), specifically the scene where Wesley is the one who notices Angel watching from the shadows...but I went to peak at the script and now I'm not sure. Angel's jealously and pinning in that episode was so obvious that I wanna believe Wes didn't miss it...but he was very distracted with Fred & the damn 'the father will kill the son' prophecy. Maybe he chalked it up to Angel being overly possessive and protective of Cordy (which wasn't really anything new for Angel) and didn't see how serious Angel's feelings actually were. After the baby snatching drama, I doubt Wes was thinking about Cordy/Angel's romantic relationship at all...so maybe you are right and he never thought CA were as involved/close romantically as they really were...

I mean, Lilah seemed down for their no strings relationship, and I think dressing up as Fred was her idea...(but I can't imagine, deep down, she liked the feeling of being second best, but I digress). Lilah was also very much aware of Wes's feelings for Fred...So I do think Wes/Lilah was different than Nina/Angel, in a way. Doesn't excuse how Wesley treated her ("I wasn't thinking about you when you were here." Asshat.)

Did Nina know Angel was only with her bc she didn't risk his soul? Ouch. I don't even like Nina, but no one wants to be second (or even third) best...yikes...

Same. But it seems canon Wesley was too distracted with his own soap opera.

If Wesley was legit that blind to C/A then him pushing Angel towards Nina after Cordy's death does look less insensitive to Wes's friendship with Cordy. Wes might've thought it'd help Angel cope with old, lingering Buffy feelings and his petty Spike jealousy, then. Still comes off as 'love the one your with, not the one you love' kinda thing. Was it supposed to be romantic? It was not.

I vote that quote for the next title.

Ashes Fall

TBH, I can't remember any specific dialogue from the Fred conversation but:
"You can't fight kyrumption Cinnamon Buns, it's written in the stars"
I'd say Lorne was a bit pushy though that isn't by any means a bad thing and he has the excuse of being able to foresee destiny.

I'm gonna have to watch that scene again, usually, I just watch the hot semi-porn stuff.

*sigh* Oh Cordy. She was in a whole nother universe of denial in that episode.

Like I said, I could have forgotten something.

I remember nothing of 'Couplet' except that heart-wrenching scene in which Angel has to watch Groosalug be the hero and get his special Cordy glomp hug because it was daytime but I agree that Wesley was in his own deep brood mode with that stupid false prophecy. He engrossed himself so deeply in the thing he probably wouldn't have noticed if Fred had broken up with Gunn and started hitting on him.

Right, I concur that there is nothing wrong with no strings attached relationships as long as both partners are agreed upon it and while that was the case for Wes/Lilah, I don't believe it was for Angel/Nina (I cringed just typing them in the couple format).

Admittedly, it's not specifically established what Nina wanted with Angel or what her knowledge of the curse was (was she completely unaware or just unaware of the condition or was she aware of both?) but I remember she was pretty hurt when he gave her those plane tickets to leave the country and clarified that he did not intend to use one. If I recall correctly she was excited before the latter. This suggests that she did want something serious.

I agree that while I don't like Nina she didn't deserve to be used/led on. She was an unnecessary character whose sole purpose was to put out Buffy hang up vibes but she wasn't a bad person. Kinda like Groo.

Good point.
JW himself can claim three ways to Sunday that it was supposed to be romantic but I'd still call BS.

Seconded!

fractured moonlight

That would make an amazing title. I love it so much.

straws

True.

It's too bad Lorne didn't foresee any of S4 or the horrors that were to come for Cordy.



https://starryeyesxx.tumblr.com/post/170080588313

Does this count as a BTVS CA moment?