Buffy fandom is really a great place for enemy ships. Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike (basically Buffy/Anyone she dated.) Spike/Xander. Spike/Angel. Angel/Lindsey. Wesley (honestly every ship in AtS.) I may have to come back to Buffy fandom again if I run out of good ideas before I hit 100.

But there's one Buffy ship that I look to before all others. One where, if you ship it, I know we're on basically the same wavelength. Giles/Ethan. So canon. So good. Lovers-to-enemies-lovers.

I think what appeals to me most about Giles/Ethan is that we get to see them when they were lovers in their wild youth - living for danger and debauchery, careless of lives and law, theirs and others' - and then we see them again as middle-aged adults. And they've clearly never gotten over each other. But they've also grown and changed. And they grew apart, into very different and very opposed people. But then by the time they're back in canon/post-canon fic, they've started to come back full circle again? Giles gave himself over to the Watchers, to rules and expectations and propriety, but then, when it came down to it - he said fuck the watchers, and lived by his own rules. Ethan gave himself over to chaos, swore himself to powers beyond his control, but when he shows up in canon, he's kind of outgrown the whole dark powers thing; one gets the impression of someone with vast forces at his call who's decided that stuff's boring and he'd rather play juvenile pranks than fight God. And having both tried their way to the extreme and then walked back on their own, they can come back together and actually see each other for who they are again?

Also yes I admit it I'm as weak as Ethan is for early-80s-London-punk-occultist Ripper. But then who isn't?

• Like Dead Flowers by loneraven (one-shot)
  Ripper/Ethan
  Content: sleep deprivation, hallucinations, self-harm, drug use, unhealthy relationships
  I knew just enough about actual late 70s/early 80s British occultists the first time I read this to really appreciate the glimpse into young Ripper and Ethan. I know know just enough more to appreciate it even more.



• Masks (37229 words) by Wolfling, omphalos
  Chapters: 8/8
  Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Rupert Giles/Ethan Rayne
  Additional Tags: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Epic, Post-Canon, Drugs
  Series: Part 1 of Of Old Mystics
  
  This is the classic long post-Ethan's-imprisonment h/c fic that's the fandom bedrock, you should read it.



• Broken English (20821 words) by estepheia
  Chapters: 6/6
  Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comic)
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Rupert Giles/Ethan Rayne
  Additional Tags: Season/Series 08, Male Slash, Road Trips, Angst, Resurrection, Schmoop
  
  Ethan Rayne was dead, to begin with.