A/N Sphygmus, you make a good point about the difference between mean girl and bullying. Cordelia engaged in mean girl tactics, being sarcastic to Willow and occasionally calling someone a loser. Whereas Willow actually engaged in bullying behavior, calling Cordelia a 'skanky ho' behind her back, telling Buffy that Cordelia made her life Hell for years. And the 'We Hate Cordelia Club'. Who actually thinks Xander would willingly be the Treasurer of any club? Willow attacked Cordelia's reputation. Willow's the one who hated Cordelia, not Xander and was written as manipulative from the first episode. She exaggerated for attention and sympathy, while enacting a smear campaign against Cordelia, an unsuccessful one because Cordelia just didn't care what Willow thought of her. I found a statement that Joss is credited as saying, although I could find no evidence of him saying it in an interview or in some other verifiable way, that the character of Willow Rosenberg was written to be a self-interested, greedy, (first with knowledge and then with power) and vindictive girl who hides her manipulation with false sincerity, overt vulnerability, and self pity. 😏

But like Xander, Willow was in desperate need of help and not getting it. The writers used the 'drama' of abusive parents for Xander and emotionally neglectful parents for Willow. I've found a lot of postings on discussion boards that the audience would've liked to have seen more of the parents and that would have given them a better understanding of why Willow and Xander's characters behaved the way they did and I agree, we should have had more then just references and I believe, a total of three episodes, two with Xander's family actually on screen, one being a nightmare and then the wedding episode and one with Willow's. Yes, Buffy was the star, the title character, but they were her two best friends and contributed heavily to her fight and her success. Like Giles never investigating any of the people he allowed to help her, on the chance that they might have had an agenda or could cause harm to her (Angel); it's one of those things that's logical, but never happened. 😗

I'm probably going to get dinged for my above comments on Willow. On another discussion board I saw a comment that Allyson Hannigan, the actress that played Willow, is a master at playing characters who are and do awful things and are loved by fans of whatever show she's on, mostly because she's cute and they'll forgive her anything. 😌

######

"Why Xander?" Willow asked Cordelia. "You can have any guy you want, why Xander?"

"Because he actually wants to know me, because he doesn't want a trophy girlfriend. Because he thinks there might be something special in me worth knowing." Cordelia answered. "He said so. He makes me feel like he actually cares about me."

"You've made my life Hell for years -."

"You're exaggerating. I've insulted your clothing choices and called you a loser, I admit that. You started a hate club against me and called me a whore behind my back."

"You are a whore!" Willow glared at the girl she'd hated for years, certain she was right.

"Less than two months ago I was nearly sacrificed as a virgin sacrifice to a demon." Cordelia reminded her. "What was it Giles said when he explained why we needed to be checked if we'd been thralled? Oh yes, challenge assumptions and seek facts. You made an assumption, demon worshipers proved that assumption was not a fact. How many more assumptions have you made, Willow, that can be overturned with facts?"

Willow was struck silent by both the response and the question. She could assume the demon worshippers had made a mistake in choosing Cordelia, but given that the demon in question would probably kill the worshippers if they didn't deliver what it wanted, that was unlikely. This was the third time since Halloween when an assumption had been challenged and proven false, once with Giles' assumption that he was observant and twice now where, she herself had an assumption proven wrong. Were there other assumptions she'd made that were wrong as well?

"Why treat me the way you have?" Willow asked, deciding to go all the way with this confrontation. "Why insult me and call me a loser?"

"Because it was the way I was expected to act as the Queen of the school. You don't know me, Willow, you never wanted to. You don't know what drives me to be the way I am, the way I don't want to be anymore. You don't have to forgive me, frankly I'm not sure I can forgive you for you calling me a whore behind my back for years. But we both care about Xander and for his sake, I'm calling a truce. I won't insult you or your odd clothing choices anymore. I expect the same courteousy in return, understood?"

"And when you break up with him, are you going to go right back to being a bitch to me?"

"Who says I plan to break up with him? And even if we did break up, the answer would be no, I would not. Because I don't like being that person. Do you like who you are?"

Again Willow was stunned into silence by a question she'd never considered before, did she like who she was?

######

A/N Just in case anyone questions how a demon would even know someone was a virgin, given the number of times virgin sacrifices were referred to on both Buffy and Angel and how many times they actually happened and one episode on Angel where a sacrifice actually was rejected because the demon in question sensed the girl wasn't virgin, I think there's enough evidence that demons had some kind of way of knowing that. 😜