Entry tags:

*giles/buffy, *giles/spike, *giles/wes, *giles/xander, my fic tributes, my graphics, my walls

Summer of Giles redux (post I - the fic tributes)
From my summer_of_giles posting day - the fic tributes, in their entirety (gushing included)...

Set I:
This is another open love letter.  I seem to be sending them out a lot lately, but that's because there's plenty of love in this fandom, and I couldn't leave Giles out of it.  For those of you who saw my spring_with_xan posts, you'll know what I'm talking about.

For those of you who didn't, I wanted to create graphics for my favorite Giles stories and for my favorite Giles authors.  It's going slowly, but this post today will hopefully reflect a little of the fangirl adoration I share for two radically different but equally amazing authors mireille719  and janedavitt.  Both of have a habit of writing the Giles I fell in love with, and yet both bring their own interpretations of his personality to the front so much so that I fall in love with him all over again after reading their fics.

Behind the cut you'll find links to wallpapers that include some of my favorite lines from each fic, so you can enjoy the memory of the fic even when you're not reading it!  And, of course, links to each fic in question so you can read them if you're so inclined!

One of the most wonderful things about Mir's fic is that every single chapter makes me smile (this is not to say she can't write darker, bittersweet stuff, because she can), but often there is something so elementary, so pure, so perfect in the way she hits Xander's voice, or the way she arranges the words in Giles' thoughts that it just amazes me.  And makes me grin, all unknowing.  And this particular fic, started several years ago (and on a little break right now, but still being worked on), is pretty much a smile-guarantee.  Xander decides, on a whim he doesn't even explain to himself, to invite Giles on his summer-of-self-discovery road-trip - and with Giles' help he manages to get past Oxnard.  Each chapter is a perfect little present, even when it's Xander taking issue with Giles not treating him like an adult, or Giles thinking Xander's going to get tired of him, or any of the other stuff.  Mir doesn't shy away from difficulties, but instead she lingers on them just as much as she lingers on the scortching hot idea of these two together - and in some ways it makes the entire fic happier to have something to balance it against.  When I reread this for the umpteenth time to pick out some of my favorite quotes for these graphics, I had the entire page covered with page long quotes.  I think that's part of what attracts me to Mir's writing style - her brilliance is in the way all the pieces fit together, in the way she comes up with entire paragraphs that cannot be understood in their fantastic power until you've read the last sentence of the chapter.  But don't take my word for it... go read yourself!



Jandavitt's fic don't always make me laugh - but I read her work for an entirely different reason - they draw me in, they wrap me up, and they make me forget that I ever doubted whatever pairing it is that she's writing.  Her work was the way I first got exposed to Giles/Xander, and I think Behind Closed Doors defines the Giles/Spike genre for me so deeply that it's almost hard to read fic from another perspective.  The fic starts in the summer after Season 5, when both Giles and Spike are grieving Buffy's loss - and on one dark night they make a deal.  Not only is it toe-curlingly hot, it is somehow one of the sweetest romances for two people who, as Jane writes them, have not a romantic bone in their bodies.  But they do find each other.  And while Janedavitt isn't actively writing the Buffy fandom any longer (but still writes!  in other fandoms!) I still think she's left us this wonderful legacy of an incredibly strong, dominant, beautiful Giles, and the fantastically stunning, proud, shining Spike. 


Set II:
There are some fics that stay with me, with sound or shape or form. Sometimes they're richly textured enough that they leave an indelible imprint on me.  Doesn't matter how long the fic.  Sometimes it just takes a couple of words. 

So below the cut you'll find my adoration for savoytruffle and lostgirlslair and glimmergirl expressed via images (paltry, but hey, it works), and a couple of fics that, if you haven't read them, you really really need to check them out.





Savoytruffle's style is hard to explain, while at the same time it imprints itself on me in a textured way that I cannot escape.  For about a month after I'd read Why Do You Breathe I felt as if I knew the sometimes lush, sometimes dusty, feel of Africa that invaded Xander's spirit.  For a fic that's all about how the soul tries to heal itself it's beautifully rich with places and sounds that make me feel as if I was sitting on the ground beside Xander and Giles.  Silly and sweet, profound and serious in turns, I think it's also one of the great examples of her wonderful style.




It's all Lostgirl's fault that I read slash.  I blame it entirely on her and elizabuffy, the wonderful corrupting influences that they are.  Although Second Glances is not LG's longest fic, nor perhaps her most poetic, the way she gets into Wesley's head in Season 3 of Btvs in this fic resonates so strongly with me that I look for similar characterizations of him to this day.  Besides that, this fic is sizzling, scortching, steaming hot in all of the very best and most wonderful ways.





Glim categorizes this fic as ... something else ...  not pwp, not character study, but something not often found.  Unique, the way it's phrases curl around and make one almost breathless.  And so wonderful in the exploration of what could be in the Watcher/Slayer relationship, which will always be my OTP, just as Glim is one of my OTP writers.  It's not long, but what she does say, and how she says it, are what make it a kind of thrilling and intensely beautiful work.