Also because flawed does not equal bitch. :)

PREACH IT!

No idea who Kelsey is. ;)

OOPS! I should have said kwritten. She wrote the (justly award-winning) metas on Dawn last year. She is - EVERYTHING - when it comes to Dawn Summers.

I ship Buffy/Spike, both before and during S7.

Oh, I thought you said you didn't ship them after SR. I misunderstood?

I don't understand Angel/Buffy (and never will)

I'm just bored by it, mostly. When I'm not intensely irritated. I mean, I shipped them while I watched them in S2 because I wanted Buffy to be happy, period. (And because I think Sarah and David have more chemistry than Spuffies give credit.) But in S3? Forget it. My reaction when he came back from Hell was "Oh for the love of God let the poor girl alone!" The whole can we or can't we, dumping her in a sewer and then showing up at the prom - please just make up your freaking mind and don't let the screen door hit ya on the ass on your way out, 'kay? And btw, when the heck did "moment of perfect happiness" automatically = "orgasm"? (And we had this REALLY interesting character in the person of Faith just going to waste until Bad Girls....)

Not that I'm bitter or anything. *lol*

And on the subject of Buffy, we agree to disagree. YMMV

His family life did suck, but it's not like Jsos ever really explored that, or explored how that makes him so fragile or anything

You really have to read between the lines - Restless is great but Hell's Bells is horrible; and we have NO idea of what kind of relationship we have with his mom. There must be some love there, for him to be able to like and love women to begin with, despite what he's learned watching his father. I can "read between those lines" because I've lived that story, so it's easy for me.

But they could have done so much more with it, with Willow's parents, with Hank Summers. etc

This, please. :)

Your wish is my command - or at least my fantasy.

I do tend to love my ships. :)

I think the longer I'm in fandom the less of a shipper I become - or rather, I can read almost any ship as long as the writing is good, the characterization is true and the situation is plausible. And it doesn't squick me: Tara/any male, and Dawn/Xander are no-nos (except for Eurydice's "A Stone's Throw From Yesterday" - Spuffy with Xander/Dawn side story, and she writes it so it's believable.) And Buffy/GIles is a HUGE DNW for me.

The thing for me is that a lot of times "shipping" seems to mean "love and almost total focus on Character X - and oh, yeah, that bitch Buffy". It also means a lot of times, a set of beliefs about canon and the characters that I can't sign up with. Maybe I'm just not a joiner; and it irritates me when male characters steal all the air out of the room the minute they walk in. I didn't expect a show with a female protagonist and important female characters who have relationships to ONE ANOTHER would be so male-oriented in fandom.

But then I don't read much in the way of Willow/Tara fic either. But I'm more interested in Willow, Oz and Tara by themselves than I am in them as ships.

OTOH - I've written Faith/Dawn post-series. I can completely ship those two.