Self-advertising, self-indulgence, self...

[quinara]

I've been putting off linking some fics I wrote for 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!