![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quinaraI've been putting off linking some fics I wrote for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sb_fag_ends, mostly because they ended up as a little series and really wanted to write a couple more to round them off, but haven't found the urge so far. Maybe in these last few days of April? Using the prompts of various magical creatures, they track a mid-A5 reunion and Spuffy setting up in London: Deep Sea Rescue, Tourist Trap, Dinner and a Movie and Slayage.
Also, I've been completely neglecting to mention thatconstance_b did a podfic of Microwave Meals (Quick, Easy and Sometimes Satisfying) (along with some other Spuffy fics) in her beautifully flowing story time voice; while ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misskittydu34 translated Breathing at Your Side into French, which (while I can't read it very well) I think really lifts the elegiac quality I was hoping for.
And just in case that wasn't enough chatting about myself,snickfic did a meme:
Talk about five of your favorite fics you've written, based on a category of your choosing: favorite fics for a certain ship, fics with your five favorite lines, fics set in a certain season, fics featuring a kumquat - anything you like! Just so long as you choose a category with five fics in it and you tell us why you like them.
I was going to do my five favourite fics I never thought I'd write, but strangely enough that seems to be most of them, so instead I'm going to go with another category that encompasses almost everything - my five favourite fics where Spuffy get thrown against a random concept:
The River Sisters
Buffy gets thrown into a fairy tale! (Not a Disney one.) I could almost certainly write this better now, but I love it as it exists in my head, and of coursestultiloquentia's beautiful drawings; it is supposed to read a little like a children's book. It was very fun to transform Sunnydale into a strange place of magical woodland, though my favourite part will always be Anya singing an Old Norse folksong (not that Buffy knows it's this) as she obliviously does her dusting.
Brand New Day
Spike gets thrown into an AU (and only just remembers)! If I didn't get annoyed with the idea of repeating myself, I would love to write fics like this all the time - where no one's quite sure what's going on and the dramatic irony's heavy enough that the reader is practically another character. Though in general I prefer my Spuffy to have a Buffy who's more knowable than she is in this fic. (And people may or may not remember that I always go on about having a sequel to this in the works; I still can't work out what its actual story is, all the content though I have.)
Positive Exposure
Spuffy are famous! This seems so out of date now, because I really did plot it (in the most part) when there was only a vague understanding of Buffy and Spike+Angel being famous in the comics-world. It was supposed to be a future AU from that point, but it possibly followed one twist too many that I didn't exposit well clearly enough to make it not just seem like a standard random!fic. As I always say about this fic, though, I've had certain bones of it forever and it was so lovely to let them finally slot into place. And I like to think my theme comes across reasonably OK, while so much about writing this amused me (it was asking myself what Spike would spend his money on if he were famous, and making up the wacky tabloid headlines).
Writing on the Wall (Or Is That Just Graffiti?)
Wishverse!Buffy meets Spike (and Dru)! I've always been rather chuffed about the title for this one, even though it's quite unwieldy and possibly not really worth writing home about anyway. But I do love Wishverse!Buffy, and there aren't enough fics set in the Wishverse generally, and definitely not enough fics where she meets up with Spike. I know that episode was very much about how much like Faith Buffy could have been, but to me (for longer?) it's always seemed more about what Buffy could have been - ie. what the limits of her character are. There is a lot of Wishverse!Buffy in how I understand S7!Buffy, for example, because she can and always could be hard/ruthless - Wishverse!Buffy after all only has two-and-a-half years to diverge from Hemery lollipop girl. Anyway, I think the point I'm gabbling towards is that I find the Spuffy dynamic possibly most interesting when Spike is the sillier one, if only because I can get impatient with certain qualities of Buffy being silly. And Wishverse!Buffy, I firmly believe (if she weren't fated to die by the Master's hand), kicks arse - even if she could do with some reason for living...
To Apprehend Air
S7!Spike loses his soul (but Buffy still depends on him)! I love S7 Spuffy, but I get tired of the soul get-out, so this was an exercise in seeing how Buffy dealt without the crutch. Like a lot of my 'conceptual' fics (believe it or not) this got away from me, and wasn't quite what I first envisaged. I wanted it to be more on the nose and ultimately leaving Buffy with a bigger problem than she was willing to deal with, but it sidled away into something different - Buffy-Anya, strangely but pleasingly - and a much easier Spuffy. I still like it though (sue me), because it was filled with everything I enjoy - Spike and Buffy building their relationship by talking and (hopefully) communicating; wacky forays into random magical worlds; pretentious titling and chapter-summarising that possibly only makes sense to me...
I think that may be my whole year's quotient for talking about myself. Whew!
sb_fag_ends, mostly because they ended up as a little series and really wanted to write a couple more to round them off, but haven't found the urge so far. Maybe in these last few days of April? Using the prompts of various magical creatures, they track a mid-A5 reunion and Spuffy setting up in London: Deep Sea Rescue, Tourist Trap, Dinner and a Movie and Slayage.Also, I've been completely neglecting to mention that
constance_b did a podfic of Microwave Meals (Quick, Easy and Sometimes Satisfying) (along with some other Spuffy fics) in her beautifully flowing story time voice; while misskittydu34 translated Breathing at Your Side into French, which (while I can't read it very well) I think really lifts the elegiac quality I was hoping for.And just in case that wasn't enough chatting about myself,
snickfic did a meme:Talk about five of your favorite fics you've written, based on a category of your choosing: favorite fics for a certain ship, fics with your five favorite lines, fics set in a certain season, fics featuring a kumquat - anything you like! Just so long as you choose a category with five fics in it and you tell us why you like them.
I was going to do my five favourite fics I never thought I'd write, but strangely enough that seems to be most of them, so instead I'm going to go with another category that encompasses almost everything - my five favourite fics where Spuffy get thrown against a random concept:
The River Sisters
Buffy gets thrown into a fairy tale! (Not a Disney one.) I could almost certainly write this better now, but I love it as it exists in my head, and of course
stultiloquentia's beautiful drawings; it is supposed to read a little like a children's book. It was very fun to transform Sunnydale into a strange place of magical woodland, though my favourite part will always be Anya singing an Old Norse folksong (not that Buffy knows it's this) as she obliviously does her dusting.Brand New Day
Spike gets thrown into an AU (and only just remembers)! If I didn't get annoyed with the idea of repeating myself, I would love to write fics like this all the time - where no one's quite sure what's going on and the dramatic irony's heavy enough that the reader is practically another character. Though in general I prefer my Spuffy to have a Buffy who's more knowable than she is in this fic. (And people may or may not remember that I always go on about having a sequel to this in the works; I still can't work out what its actual story is, all the content though I have.)
Positive Exposure
Spuffy are famous! This seems so out of date now, because I really did plot it (in the most part) when there was only a vague understanding of Buffy and Spike+Angel being famous in the comics-world. It was supposed to be a future AU from that point, but it possibly followed one twist too many that I didn't exposit well clearly enough to make it not just seem like a standard random!fic. As I always say about this fic, though, I've had certain bones of it forever and it was so lovely to let them finally slot into place. And I like to think my theme comes across reasonably OK, while so much about writing this amused me (it was asking myself what Spike would spend his money on if he were famous, and making up the wacky tabloid headlines).
Writing on the Wall (Or Is That Just Graffiti?)
Wishverse!Buffy meets Spike (and Dru)! I've always been rather chuffed about the title for this one, even though it's quite unwieldy and possibly not really worth writing home about anyway. But I do love Wishverse!Buffy, and there aren't enough fics set in the Wishverse generally, and definitely not enough fics where she meets up with Spike. I know that episode was very much about how much like Faith Buffy could have been, but to me (for longer?) it's always seemed more about what Buffy could have been - ie. what the limits of her character are. There is a lot of Wishverse!Buffy in how I understand S7!Buffy, for example, because she can and always could be hard/ruthless - Wishverse!Buffy after all only has two-and-a-half years to diverge from Hemery lollipop girl. Anyway, I think the point I'm gabbling towards is that I find the Spuffy dynamic possibly most interesting when Spike is the sillier one, if only because I can get impatient with certain qualities of Buffy being silly. And Wishverse!Buffy, I firmly believe (if she weren't fated to die by the Master's hand), kicks arse - even if she could do with some reason for living...
To Apprehend Air
S7!Spike loses his soul (but Buffy still depends on him)! I love S7 Spuffy, but I get tired of the soul get-out, so this was an exercise in seeing how Buffy dealt without the crutch. Like a lot of my 'conceptual' fics (believe it or not) this got away from me, and wasn't quite what I first envisaged. I wanted it to be more on the nose and ultimately leaving Buffy with a bigger problem than she was willing to deal with, but it sidled away into something different - Buffy-Anya, strangely but pleasingly - and a much easier Spuffy. I still like it though (sue me), because it was filled with everything I enjoy - Spike and Buffy building their relationship by talking and (hopefully) communicating; wacky forays into random magical worlds; pretentious titling and chapter-summarising that possibly only makes sense to me...
I think that may be my whole year's quotient for talking about myself. Whew!
(no subject)
Date: 25/04/2011 00:58 (UTC)Oh! The last one! That was great! There! :D
(no subject)
Date: 25/04/2011 11:11 (UTC)Anyway, hee! Cheers. :D
(no subject)
Date: 25/04/2011 23:53 (UTC)*drops your latest in the reading queue*
(no subject)
Date: 26/04/2011 09:04 (UTC)*gets a thrill*
(no subject)
Date: 27/04/2011 00:17 (UTC)I AM SO UP FOR THAT. :D
I've got a bunch of manga volumes coming from the library; maybe I'll spend part of this weekend seeing if I can't teach myself to sketch the characters....or we could just go with geeklet-style.... *points up*
ANYWAY ANYWAY, FINISH THE ANIME AND THEN TELL ME ALL YOUR FEEEEELINGS ABOUT IT. :D
*twirls*
(no subject)
Date: 27/04/2011 08:24 (UTC)*determines to finish the anime - even if I am playing the viola this evening and have just volunteered to beta someone's Latin RemixRedux fic...*
*twirls you back*
(no subject)
Date: 28/04/2011 00:08 (UTC)hair of heroism).
Almost exactly. What is baffling is that, in spite of this, the manga is about five times better. Even the stupid chibi jokes, which grate on screen, suddenly become adorably weird and charming. Arakawa-as-storyteller has a very strong presence; she has a way of building a connection with her reader that's quite remarkable.
Even if I can't read it, I find it beyond wonderful that such a thing exists.
(no subject)
Date: 28/04/2011 14:58 (UTC)If I hadn't had bad experiences with nearly every form of graphic novel, I would possibly track it down... I can imagine, though, because I've been finding myself thinking that the anime is in some ways 'flatter' than I like my television - ie. I think it would be next to impossible (for me) to vid, because the vast majority of the shots have got a static 'camera', and then sharp interchanges and close ups when particular motions happen. It isn't very fluid, in that sense (almost certainly because it is a cartoon), so I can imagine fewer images (say, just the epic ones :D) would build a much stronger visual impression.
The chibi jokes, though... I don't have a problem with them, but dear god do I get annoyed with Ed's random fits of yelling. Alas!
Hee, on the Latin; although the person hasn't emailed me yet, so it's possible I'll just have to read it along with everyone else. (And try and remember what goes on/has gone on in Doctor Who...)
(no subject)
Date: 05/05/2011 00:35 (UTC)You're exactly right about the manga. The flashback chapter about Ishbal was okay in the anime, but in the manga it went in like a bayonet.
Out of curiosity, why don't you and graphic novels get along?
Yeah, me too. Shonen. *shrug*
(no subject)
Date: 05/05/2011 15:35 (UTC)I've never quite worked out why graphic novels and I don't get along - I think it's something to do with my processing of pictures, in that I don't spend enough time looking at them, or I don't know how to get enough information out of them, or I synthesise that information quicker than I'm expected to (I don't think it's this) - because I am generally always left thinking that graphic novels are too short and too shallow. Certainly I like words and discussion and debate, and I find speech bubbles leave very little room for much more than grandstanding pronouncements. I think the art is supposed to pick up slack in telling a story with more nuance than the speech provides, but I've never managed to see something tie knotty problems together and tease out the solutions the way extended text can. A friend tried to get me into Sandman, for example, but all I found myself reading was stuff on a page.
(no subject)
Date: 07/05/2011 13:46 (UTC)Okay, this I admit I find fascinating and kind of hilarious, coming from you, because the single biggest problem I have with your vids is that I feel like you expect me to pull more out of each image than I'm capable of. You create elaborate narratives and theses in your mind, and then you illustrate them with a vid, but the vid doesn't pass along the narrative clearly enough; I can't follow it. I, er, require more anvils.
Hrm. I think you're probably right. The GNs I've read can do wonderful things that prose can't, IMO, but I think there's no denying they're just blunter instruments than, oh, you know, Ulysses.
But I haven't read many. Sandman is one of the only graphic novels I've picked up—and I've only read the first few volumes. It was, urgh, ten years ago, so my memory's fuzzy, but I think I remember wanting to love it more than I did. I keep meaning to pick up some of the ones that have won big prizes—Maus, Persepolis...wasn't there one that retold the story of Troy or somesuch, that got a lot of attention a few years ago?
FMA is mostly A Ripping Yarn, though I kept being surprised by how nuanced the characters' moral codes are. Everybody has their own forcefully expressed opinions, and they're all a few degrees different from each other, and Arakawa makes you make your own decisions about who's right. And nobody's right all the time. So, it's aimed at kids, and it's mostly an adventure story plowing noisily along, but it finds time to pose interesting questions along the way, even if it's less invested in hashing them all out. I admit the end is waaaay too tidy and trite. Oh well; that's what fic is for: messing them up again! :D
(no subject)
Date: 07/05/2011 14:36 (UTC)*coughs* You know, I'm actually beginning to think that I don't want to pass all my mad little theses along, because my response to the first bit of this comment is 'oh, but I don't expect you to do anything! Or at least not get exactly what I'm getting'. Heh. I like crashing things together and then letting them be - hell, I like Rothko. I have a feeling that when I'm talking about tangling together knotty problems and teasing them out that I'm actually more interested in the problem than the solution; I construct everything I ever construct with reason and intent, but I think it would make me sad if someone could then come along and deconstruct it perfectly into its component parts. When someone watches a vid of mine (maybe less my fic because my experimentalism has died down as my essay technique has grown) I want it to feel like something is being shared, with thrust and momentum and reason to progress the way it does, but I'd rather that on analysis understanding of what the vid 'means' comes out as complex rather than simple, with ellipses and question marks. (My FFVIII is quite possibly meta beyond belief, since, heh, it's a vid about someone being unknowable, but never mind...)
Or I could just be lazy. :D
On GN I really don't know/keep up with enough news... But are you thinking of Age of Bronze? I haven't read that either, but I've heard it mentioned.
FMA is mostly A Ripping Yarn, though I kept being surprised by how nuanced the characters' moral codes are. Everybody has their own forcefully expressed opinions, and they're all a few degrees different from each other, and Arakawa makes you make your own decisions about who's right. And nobody's right all the time. So, it's aimed at kids, and it's mostly an adventure story plowing noisily along, but it finds time to pose interesting questions along the way, even if it's less invested in hashing them all out. I admit the end is waaaay too tidy and trite. Oh well; that's what fic is for: messing them up again! :D
I do love my adventure stories, and I think that one criticism I would put towards FMA:B is that it had lost that to some extent by the end, or at least became disjointed and static a little too far before its climax. I ended with the feeling that everything was to tidy, that everything from Episode 1 built exactly to where this was going - and it's always good to have foreshadowing, but to me it left the world feeling small, like it was hard to get a sense of what Amestris meant beyond the way it had to be for the homunculi and their plan. In terms of triteness, though, I thought it was at least in-keeping with the tone - and certainly not on HP levels! :D