this is really gorgeous work :) buffy + giles = love

thank you so much!! i *completely* agree with you about the B/G love! :D

Do we really need a reason to have B/G goodness?

Took the first wall, may be back for some icons.

never!

and yay! glad you liked lady - these were fun and i really liked how the colors came out on the first one.

Oh, these are very pretty.

I rarely read Buffy/Giles -- and I'm sort of curious to hear if "Helpless" is one of those touchstone episodes for the pairing. It does have so many textured and complicated moments/interactions between the two.

Thank you darling!

And honestly? there's a ton of dreck in the Buffy/Giles pairing. it does not seem to attract great writers. You're not missing much. I love it nonetheless. If you ever decide you want to read anything, let me know and i'll direct you to my favs so you can miss some of the worst :D

But yes, Helpless is often seen as a pivotal episode - when Travers says that Giles is distracted by a father's love, often it's fannoned out that Giles' look is a gut rejection of that categorization... and either he realizes then that he cares for her in a less than familial way, or he rejects it because he's known for a while he loves her strength, and this just proved it to him (and was also why he was so vehement against the test). Or Buffy realizes Travers' perceptions are all wrong when it comes to her - and it glosses why she's so hurt when he betrays her - because he means more to her than that. Definitely one of the cannon moments B/Gers flock around... You're right, though, there are soooo many emotions going on in that particular end scene, and the entire ep is so layered, that it's just too tempting not to do something with.

if you'll pardon the self pimp, i've actually written something that happens in the last minute of that episode about buffy's mindset in that moment (it's only about 10 paragraphs long, but it's one of the only things i've written that i'm actually proud of). There's no b/g in it, but maybe you can see the grains of it in there between the lines.

Oh, thanks so much for elaborating on why that episode is important to 'shippers. How intriguing. His behavior to her in earlier scenes, too, when he's going ahead with the crystals and seems almost menacing or taking advantage -- I could see how that might also fuel some dark fic.

Is much of it fluffy, the B/G? Or, if fluffy is wrong, more...true love, so it works out in the end, even if there's angst?

a2zmom recently rec'd a list of B/G fics, and I bookmarked her entry only because I really feel like I should one day try more stories featuring the pairing. I don't know if you'd echo any of those recs, or point me in other directions entirely.

At any rate, I did read one B/G soon after I got into fandom, and it didn't really work for me. For some reason they were training, suddenly had sex, and then because of that formed a special Watcher/Slayer bond where they could read one another's thoughts. O_o

But it could be interesting to try more, especially with recs given on basis of good premises/well-written prose. After all, I was dead set against Giles/Xander until I dove in with one of the best G/X fics ever (realmitzvah's Hands Clean series), and now I adore the pairing.

Actually, it strikes me that the pairing could have a great capacity to produce dark-fics. Not sure if it has, though.

I'm glad you've rec'd me something of yours! I actually like those sorts of stories for easing into or exploring a pairing, in which the pairing is suggested more than unfolded, both to write and to read. So I'll be happy to check it out. :)

My pleasure! I actually cut myself short because I could go on and on about it.

And for the most part B/G is incredibly fluffy, and seems to draw people who want to write them into a marriage and then having kids kind of situation. To which I often go WTF?? Or they're hopelessly sappy (and I'm totally guilty of this, unfortunately, but then again, i do not consider myself a real fic writer, so ... i kinda let myself off the hook) Sadly, the potential in the relationship - the fact that although Giles is older and more knowledgeable, Buffy really in many ways *is* the leader and so it can be a relationship of equals - doesn't often get explored. Maybe I'll put together a "so, why's b/g so great?" kind of post to give you ideas. Although looking at a2zmom's list, they're definitely fics that actually *do* look at b/g in ways 90% of b/g writers don't, so yeah, it's a damn fine list of things to read. It's interesting that she's coming at it from the perspective of "this pairing squicks me, but here..." because I know that's how so many people feel, and yet it's totally not what I think when I think of them. :D

And as far as producing dark fics - it does produce some, and I'll be honest, I've stayed away from them because I tend to read fics for escape and it's harder for me to escape when I'm feeling emotionally torn apart by a story. You're right though, about the capacity being there, for some really emotionally fucked up things (Rough Replacements - from the list above - is totally one of those. It kind of guts me everytime I've read it)