I recall him saying at somepoint that the groundwork was laid deliberately for either Willow or Xander, they just hadn't decided which one yet.

I think this is something Joss made up later. It seems to me that these were the factors that lead to lesbian!Willow: 1) SG left the show.
2) They had the idea for BigBad!Willow, and knew they needed to kill her lover for her to get there.
3) AH and AB had good chemistry, so they decided to go with a lesbian relationship rather than a straight one.

I mean, I agree there were moments that could be seen as foreshadowing of her gayness, but there pretty much are for all Jossverse people. If Tara/Willow hadn't happened I don't think we would have expected it, IYKWIM.

If B/X had happened, it would have been in S4. But me? I'm glad it didn't. It's nice to see a platonic relationship on TV.

3) AH and AB had good chemistry, so they decided to go with a lesbian relationship rather than a straight one.

But wasn't AB brought in for the purpose of being Willow's lover?

But wasn't AB brought in for the purpose of being Willow's lover?

No. I think initially, they cast her just to get Willow more into magicks. At any rate, I know they didn't write the chemistry into Hush; I remember reading either Joss or Marti say it surprised them when they saw it on film.

I think this is something Joss made up later.

I don't even think that. I think it's like that game Operator, you play when you're little. One person whispers a message to the next, and the last person tells what he heard, and the first tells what the message really was.

I think what Joss said is they'd contemplated a gay character (he may have even named X or W), but I know I've read/heard him say the kinda gay comments in Dopplegangland were a happy accident.

It seems to me that these were the factors that lead to lesbian!Willow: 1) SG left the show.

2) They had the idea for BigBad!Willow, and knew they needed to kill her lover for her to get there.

3) AH and AB had good chemistry, so they decided to go with a lesbian relationship rather than a straight one.

I mean, I agree there were moments that could be seen as foreshadowing of her gayness, but there pretty much are for all Jossverse people. If Tara/Willow hadn't happened I don't think we would have expected it, IYKWIM.

This all very lines up with anything I've ever read or heard.

Ah, right. So big flukey mcgay fluke then.

And if Xander had turned out to be gay, we'd be pointing to at least two foreshadowing moments.

(1) The line about handling the Oz full monty.

(2) OK, more than a moment, but Larry assuming that Xander was also gay. If you want a specific moment, maybe Larry's line about a tasteful coming-out announcement in "Earshot."

Probably more. But that's all I can come up with off the top of my head.

I think initially, they cast her just to get Willow more into magicks.

She was also supposed to be part-demon, wasn't she?

I think what Joss said is they'd contemplated a gay character (he may have even named X or W), but I know I've read/heard him say the kinda gay comments in Dopplegangland were a happy accident.

That sounds vaguely familiar to me, too.

I was shocked and appalled by how young the girlfriend of one of my friends in college was (although her family's approval of the pairing apparently cleared up any legal quandries).

Really? What state?

Also the whole "i'm not sleeping with Spike, but I'm beginning to think you are" line.

Last night I went home, flipped on the TV without paying attention to what channel I had it on, went into the kitchen to grab a drink and heard from the living room:

"the winter here's cold, and bitter
it's chilled us to the bone
we haven't seen the sun for weeks
to long too far from home
I feel just like I'm sinking
and I claw for solid ground"

Immediate allergies.

Also, sometimes the only thing that kept me liking Xander in his more uber self-righteous moments was my compassion for his unrequited Buffy -love. I thought that it was all that excused a lot of his holier-than-thouness. And I would not have wanted them to get together EXCEPT during Chosen when it would have been delicious to watch Angel and Spike go "What???" when she picked him instead of either of them.

Really? What state?

I'm not sure if it's a state thing, so much as that most police department have better things to do than bust 22-year-olds for having 15-year-old girlfriends. So typically, if a guy is charged with statutory rape, it's because the girl's parents told the police.

Or at least that's my understanding of how it works. I don't argue that it's squicky for someone over 20 to sleep with someone under 16.