Game of Choice

The cyberpunk game (Elysium Cypher) was Buffy’s idea, though Jesse might’ve been the one who first mentioned it as a possibility to her. Xander pouted and didn’t put too much effort into his first character, a Merc he basically flipped a coin to make and randomly generated costume. Or basically any of it, really. Willow yelled at him for not trying, and he made a joke that that wasn’t any different than normal. When he got into the story, though, he got more into it than anyone. It’s clear they’d thought out their story and had story arcs going on in the background of just average everyday events. He also got attached to the characters. Val is his Epic Tryhard character. He often comes off as a goof in between actual fight scenes. Basically, when he’s trying to impress, he makes a fool of himself. When he’s just acting on instinct, he is terrifying. And he’s an expert on the game, but he lets Willow be the expert, even when she’s wrong.

Val actually has a slight anti-human bias. He knows that they pretend everything’s fine, but even before the Tear it was obvious Xander knew that sometimes that hid the worst of humanity underneath (his remark about abusive coaches), and since his opinion’s gotten a whole lot worse. He’s met good ones, or he’d dislike them entirely. He’s not superior. It’s just…complicated. Because he was human, and he still feels some weird kinship only a half-human in this new world would, but how does he keep ahold of his humanity if he’s not even sure if he wants it? Should he even do that? It’s not like he’s less of a person without; plenty of others in that world manage without a drop of human blood.

He hasn’t told everyone, but given the choice he would send them all back and stay himself. He’d miss them terribly but he doesn’t think he has anything to live for in that world. Everyone else could manage, he thinks, but he’s just a loser out there. Here, he’s Valichar the “Blue Oni” (despite not even being an oni). He knows they wouldn’t want to leave him, and knows if he told anyone they’d be really upset and worry for him. Willow might actually agree with him, but he can’t imagine a world in which that’s true, particularly since she started dating Buffy. He’s single right now and not entirely happy about that, but he’s trying to stay positive. He wants to do sappy gestures, bringing a bunch of flowers while blushing (and trying not to shred them using his claws). He’s been pushing that outlet into taking care of stray cats and orphans instead, being the “big brother” to almost anybody and everybody. He really wants the romantic connection. He had a “friends with benefits” situation with ‘Faith’, and while it went a whole lot better than canon, Xander broke it off. (Part of it also had to do with the fact that Faith was trying to swipe him from Buffy’s Kith.)

He feels even guiltier because when it happened he was actually kind of happy about it. He’s more important, more useful, more loved than he’s ever been. Willow had a big panic attack when it first happened. They haven’t talked about it since, but he’d been pretty sure she’s just putting on a brave face.