Win + drabble

[beer_good_foamy]

Thing ye firste: Yay!



Thank you so much! Make sure to check out the other winners here.

Thing ye seconde: A drabble for open_on_sunday and the prompt "Defend".

Wings In Water
Post-s6

Throughout a cold English summer, Giles waits for the coven to hold some sort of trial. They’re an ancient order, they must have rules. He’d speak in her defense, explain why Willow should be allowed to live, why she’s worth saving. He’d tell them of the girl waiting at the library doors on his first day at the hellmouth, six years ago. How he failed her. How he couldn’t keep her from becoming ever more powerful, more arrogant. How he couldn’t control her.

He keeps waiting, but the witches never ask his opinion. They just take care of their own.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Pretty much agreed with everything.

She also doesn't really HAVE to present arguments for moral truths that she knows exists, so that when she has to be put in the position of communicating the things she's internalized over the years, she often falls short (e.g. her speeches to the Potentials which can never really get to the central issue).

Oh yes.

I'd love to see a Joyce defense post. Joyce is disadvantaged by the story that essentially makes her an antagonist for the first two seasons, culminating in "Becoming" and early s3 up to "Band Candy" - not because she's against Buffy, but because Buffy is forced to hide secrets from her, and because Joyce's priorities of taking care of her teenage daughter actively clash with said daughter's of saving the world.

when she lets Buffy pack her bags for her in "Graduation Day" (and how wonderful is it that Buffy tries the same thing with Dawn and Dawn, The Next Generation, won't stand for it <3)

*icon*

Dawn was always very much Joyce's daughter.

I also really like the subtlety with which you dispense with Kennedy as a romantic threat to Willow/Fred ("all slayered out").

Thanks! As a member of the People Who Don't Hate Kennedy Club, I always feel a bit iffy about writing post-"Chosen" fic pairing Willow with someone else. It's not necessarily that I think Willow/Kennedy are a forever kind of love, but with all the fics I've read where Kennedy is either completely dismissed or turned evil, I want to treat her fairly. In this particular case, I couldn't really get into what happened between them, but I'd like to think it was just... one of those things that don't work, and part of the reason Willow's still upset about it is that she carries some of the blame for that.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, in a weird way, Joyce reminds me of Rita on Dexter -- who gets flak for not somehow guessing that the protagonist's weird behaviour that is being kept away from them happens to be the thing that the audience is tuning in for. Hating on Rita for daring to be annoyed that he had a secret apartment without telling her bothers me much more, for obvious reasons (Buffy is a hero, Joyce is a parent and thus the dynamic is not supposed to be necessarily equal), but in both cases audience reaction seems to expect the matriarchal figures to be all-forgiving of the protagonist's trespasses, and a lot of that is that they get in the way of the story people to see, the one with blood and fighting and stuff in it.

I would love to see Dawn - Joyce comparisons; they do seem to have a similar function in Buffy's life, where obviously the age dynamic is reversed.

I like your stance on W/K -- and I think I buy that.