snowsister

I've recently been sucked into the wonderful world of Jenny Trout's Big Damn Buffy Rewatch thanks to a related link from goldenusagi. If you're at all a fan of episode recaps or commentary, Jenny's are highly entertaining and worth a read. Honest to Gawd, she wrote a Season 1 bit with Darla, the Master and a McDonalds Shamrock shake that had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to choke. This happened days ago and I'm laughing again just thinking about it.

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One of the things I enjoy most about BTVS is how well it interweaves a wide variety of dramatic elements. Every episode brings a good solid helping of suspense, romance, drama, horror and action, and skillfully executes all of them, oftentimes simultaneously. When it comes to fanfic, it's interesting to see how different authors will favor certain dramatic elements in their reinterpretations of the Buffyverse. What's also become clear to me as I read is that the written medium supports some of these elements more readily than others.

For example, I can think of dozens, if not hundreds of fics that incorporate romance very effectively, with heartbreakingly tender description and poignant dialogue. Much rarer in my reading experience are stories that really excel in their treatment of action and combat, which is especially interesting given the importance of these elements in BTVS. I have the utmost respect for how challenging it must be to write an action scene. As I try to envision what the process must be like for a writer, I clearly see my fingers typing "and then they fought..." carriage return, carriage return.

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One of the most difficult things to negotiate in a Spuffy fic is the problem of Spike's past crimes, especially in the context of a love story. This is an issue for vampire fiction in general, much of which is built on the tension between attraction and horror. I have tremendous respect for writers in this genre who are faced with the task of fleshing out characters wicked enough to be interesting, but not so evil that the reader stops rooting for them. There are also pitfalls in how much attention to give morality problems in a fic, as glossing them over can be as offputting as dwelling on them excessively.

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As I said in my bio, I'm not generally a fan of all-human fics. My main issue with the few that I've read is that several sought to replace the vampire and slayer dynamics with non-supernatural equivalents: something to make the vampire-like characters dangerous and morally reprehensible while giving the slayer-like characters a moral edge and the power to wield it. And those were the better fics; I've also read others that only drew on one side of that dynamic while leaving the other flat. Ultimately it seems like a lot of work to construct a brand new premise that will feel right for the BTVS characters when such a great one already exists. Or maybe it's that I just really like vampires.

Before diving into goldenusagi's much rec'd and award-winning Sideways, I knew absolutely nothing about it. Because I am an impulsive and impatient person, I didn't read past the first sentence in the summary before deciding this was an all-human fic. ( Collapse )

Hi.

There, that wasn't so difficult. People post journal entries all the time, right? Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

It's been about a year since I became a silent member of the Buffy fandom, after Chosen left me nearly catatonic. My mind simply could not process the valiant but heartbreaking "ending" to the series. Likewise, my Gen 1 Kindle simply could not process anything in comic format, so that was the end of the story. OR WAS IT?( Collapse )