Potential Rupert Giles Prompt Puppy (don't say "bunny" or Anya will freak, 'kay?)

[red_satin_doll]

ETA 10/08/13: Dead Things screencap

Has anyone ever written a Buffyverse fic in which Giles, not Willow, becomes the Big Bad? The idea occurred to me not long after reading  the episode notes for WTTH  by 2maggie2

In the Bronze, Buffy sees Giles up on the balcony, and he calls her attention to the others out there dancing -- she’s separate from them, with a duty to protect them.  (The scene gets called back in season six in Dead Things when Spike adds another layer to Buffy’s fundamental separation from others – but it starts here in the very first episode).

(Dead Things screencap courtesy of www.bloodqueen.com)

Maggie is talking specifically within the context of how Buffy is separated from her friends/family as the Slayer from the very first episode, but her comments brought back the memory of one of my first visceral reactions to the series.  There was something astonishingly creepy about the way Giles is suddenly "there", beside her, an older man next to a 16-year-old girl (foreshadowing Bangel), and I didn't have a "bead" on his character yet. The idea that he would turn out to be a villain who betrays Buffy and isn't what he seems, was as likely a notion as anything else.  All of which turns out to be true and false at the same time: he doesn't turn out to be a villain but he does have a dark past as the Ripper (as does Angel), he does betray Buffy at times (Helpless, LMPTM), he kills a man behind Buffy's back knowing she wouldn't approve (The Gift).

And when I watched the balcony scene in Dead Things ("Alone in dark with me") my mind was racing back to the parallel scene in WTTH, giving both scenes greater emotional power - foreshadowing squared to th nth egree. The writers surely could not have imagined any of these events when this was written and shot, bu bless* them for knowingly or unknowingly providing the bones right from the start for everything that was to come.

So if I'd had to guess which of the Core Four was most likely to become a Big Bad down the road at the time I was watching S1, I probably would have said Giles.  So it got me wondering if "Giles as the Big Bad" has been done as a fanfiction.  I can't imagine someone in the last 15 years hasn't played with the concept.  If Willow as the Big Bad was fraught with emotional turmoil, the drama and angst of Giles in that role could make LMPTM look like a Sunday cake-walk.

So, gentle flisters - point me the way to one that's already been written, or let that little puppy play around in your head for a while until you come up with something grand. FYI : I've decided to adopt the term plot puppy because: it's still a small, cute animal that you can stroke and love and huggle, and it won't upset Anya needlessly. In this case, a puppy with very sharp teeth that isn't nearly as harmless as it looks.

ETA: beer_good_foamy  and I both ended up rec'ing the same story in the convo thread below,  "All Set Down" desoto_hia873 , an AU take on The Gift (and as you know I seem to have a kink for those.)  Giles is forced to perform a terrible but necessary act.  It doesn't quite fit the "Giles as Big Bad" criteria but it really is quite good.

** (Yes, I know Joss is an atheist. So am I. Or maybe agnostic. Let's go with "undecided".)

Posted on Dreamwidth http://red-satin-doll.dreamwidth.org/11747.html

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Ooh, pretty fic, thank you! And there I was telling Spikesjojo upthread I don't ship Giles/Spike and I'm already eating my words:

"You're not *my* type."

"And you the product of the British public school system."

*hee*

BTW - I was inspired to make this icon from your scene with Buffy and VampWillow in the lingerie shop and Willow's line, but I'm not happy with it (I used to be good at making icons. *pouts*) I hope it's ok to borrow VampWillow's line?

[rahirah]

Of course!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *hug*

Your icon made me do a double-take *Dykes who like Spike* LMAO

[rahirah]

Heh, I made that ages ago - I had written an essay on S6 for a Spike and Spuffy-leaning mailing list which, naturally, focused on Spike and Buffy and their relationship, though it touched on the other characters as well. A guy on one of the other forums gave it a rather bad review (which, fine, you can't please everyone) he expressed the bizarre opinion that I could not possibly be a real lesbian because no real lesbian would be a Spike fan or a Spuffy shipper. Normally I never comment on reviews of my writing, but in this case I contacted him and offered to send him a picture of my unshaven legs as proof that I was a Real Lesbian (TM). He didn't take me up on it. *g* But there were several lesbians writing Spuffy fanfic at that point - me, Nautibitz, Mintwitch, a couple of others I can't remember off the top of my head - and I made the icon as a sort of club badge. :D

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

A guy on one of the other forums gave it a rather bad review (which, fine, you can't please everyone) he expressed the bizarre opinion that I could not possibly be a real lesbian because no real lesbian would be a Spike fan or a Spuffy shipper.

WTF??? *brain explodes*

Well, as I don't play softball or wear flannel, I guess I'm not a Real Lesbian and this 17-yr monogamous relationship I've been in with another woman is just a figment of my imagination? I mean come the FUCK on, that's just one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard in my life.

Did you bust out an essay on WHY lesbians ship straight 'ships or why straight women write m/m slash - because of the dearth of well-rounded, satisfying female characters of any orientation on tv, the preponderance of male and het characters and relationships, the sense of "equality" in m/m relationships (and I'd argue, the gender-bending aspects of Buffy/Spike); and oh, by the way, it is possible to identify deeply and totally with a character of a different gender/age/race/species etc?

Or did you just let him stew in his own stupid-juices?

[rahirah]

Well, some context - this was happening at the time of the Kitten Jihad. Basically, there was a Willow/Tara posting board called the Kitten, the Witch, and the Bad Wardrobe, or the Kitten Board for short. Lots of the members were gay, and it sort of had the reputation of the place where gay BtVS fans hung out. I checked them out when I first got into online fandom, but one of the mods was very anti-Spike for reasons I never found out, and her attitude kind of permeated the board, so I just lurked for a bit and then went to find more Spike-friendly premises.

ANYWAY, early in S6, one of the main spoiler sources was a Spuffy shipper. She found out that Joss planned to kill Tara off, and she thought that the Kitten Board might like to be prepared for such a devastating blow to their ship. So she let them know what she'd found out - but apparently, the anti-Spike mod flat-out refused to believe it, and accused the spoiler person of lying in order to stir up shit. They asked Steve DeKnight, who sometimes posted on the Bronze Beta, another general posting board, if Tara was going to be killed. DeKnight said something like "Tara will die over my dead body!" which the Kittens took as proof that the spoiler source had been lying to them. So, more bad blood between Spike fans and Willow/Tara shippers, albeit one-sided bad blood.

Then Tara died, and the Kitten Board went absolutely postal, and the Kitten Jihad against Mutant Enemy was born. They started a letter campaign accusing Joss of being homophobic, because Tara dying and Willow going evil was a textbook example of the Dead Lesbian cliche. They lobbyied for a boycott of the show, and other stuff I'm not recalling - maybe they were one of the groups that took out ads somewhere. Eventually the mods deleted the whole posting board in a sort of catastrophic implosion. They eventually brought it back, with super-strict membership criteria and rules that Tara's death was never to be mentioned, ever - you were literally not allowed to mention any BtVS episode past "Entropy" on the board, and they became fandom hermits.

Joss et al. claimed that they weren't familiar with the dead lesbian cliche, and they certainly weren't homophobic, but the violence of the fan reaction to "Seeing Red" across all factions really startled them, I think. (DeKnight even apologized for being misleading, sorta.) Rumor has it that the Kitten Jihad had enough impact on ME that they scrapped tentative plans to get Willow and Xander together in S7, and went with Willow/Kennedy instead, but there are all sorts of rumors about stuff that was supposed to happen in S7 and never did, so who knows.

So anyway, the Jihad was in full swing at this point, and a lot of gay fans were involved. And I had a line in my review to the effect that I was one lesbian in fandom who wasn't out for Steve DeKnight's head. (It probably makes me a Bad Gay, but the truth is, while I like Willow/Tara well enough, they don't have a dynamic that grabs me. If the show had ever gone Buffy/Faith, it would have been a different story. But I digress.) It was kinda-sorta understandable why the guy was under the impression that there were no gay Spike fans.

We actually had a good conversation and parted ways amicably - I think he was suitably embarrassed by his assumptions once he 'met' me, so to speak.

[spikesjojo.livejournal.com]

Squee - it's one of my favorites because it works to define which is Giles and which is the demon. For example both forms of Giles see killing Dawn as the best way to go...andf I will not spoiler more!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Spoilers are not of the good!