nice essay. says clearly what the appeal is. Tea & Biscuits is one of my fav fics. Whenever I think about G/S, it is as you say quite crowded, so I like the fic where its more than memories, specially because everyone is still around at least some of the time.
only bit I'd quibble is It’s canon, it can’t be ignored and, looked at objectively, with Spike refusing to cooperate in sharing the details of the trigger, it’s the sort of difficult decision Giles is trained to make – but, like Buffy’s decision to kill Anya in ‘Selfless’ 7.5, it’s made hastily and it seems out of character.
I don't see the hasty or the out of character. It seems to me more like Spike trips an if-then Giles has already got figured. Like I have lots of plans for various disasters all set out, with knowing where the fire extinguishers are and everything. I'm sure Giles has a much wider range of disasters planned for but knows the metaphorical fire extinguisher locations for all of them. After what happened with Willow he must have put time into thinking what if someone else went bad. So he knows what has to be done. He tries the plan that could get Spike through it alive but when that doesnt work, time for the other option. Not hasty, just necessarily follows. Must have hurt more if he had G/S feelings, but he was hurt so bad that year he'd gone all ghosty anyway. Closed in. So it seemed quite in character to me.
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Tea & Biscuits is one of my fav fics. Whenever I think about G/S, it is as you say quite crowded, so I like the fic where its more than memories, specially because everyone is still around at least some of the time.
only bit I'd quibble is
It’s canon, it can’t be ignored and, looked at objectively, with Spike refusing to cooperate in sharing the details of the trigger, it’s the sort of difficult decision Giles is trained to make – but, like Buffy’s decision to kill Anya in ‘Selfless’ 7.5, it’s made hastily and it seems out of character.
I don't see the hasty or the out of character. It seems to me more like Spike trips an if-then Giles has already got figured. Like I have lots of plans for various disasters all set out, with knowing where the fire extinguishers are and everything. I'm sure Giles has a much wider range of disasters planned for but knows the metaphorical fire extinguisher locations for all of them. After what happened with Willow he must have put time into thinking what if someone else went bad. So he knows what has to be done. He tries the plan that could get Spike through it alive but when that doesnt work, time for the other option. Not hasty, just necessarily follows.
Must have hurt more if he had G/S feelings, but he was hurt so bad that year he'd gone all ghosty anyway. Closed in. So it seemed quite in character to me.