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Post by Rachael on Mar 4, 2005 0:22:03 GMT -5
Ah, we need to spend more time with her, just hang out. Maybe have ... weekly dinners over here, or, uh ... a book club. Short books. Videos. This is the place to discuss fanfic, of whatever stripe. If you've got a recommendation to make, please wander on over to the appropriate rec thread and post the link.
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Mar 10, 2005 19:31:51 GMT -5
Um...
I really need to talk about herself's Spuffy Kinkficathon carnival of misery, especially as a post in her LJ yesterday suggests that it isn't going to be over any time soon.
It's getting harder and harder to deal with the sheer sadness of this story, especially since I'm not one of those who thinks Buffy needs punished for her behavior in s6&7, which I see, in retrospect, as a perfectly understandable reaction to perfectly incomprehensible life events.
Besides the sharpness of the writing, what are people getting from this story? Is it way too emotionally manipulative, or is that just me? I'm getting ready to bail on it as a WIP, and wait for it to finish, just because I'm terribly averse to having my tears jerked and heartstrings tugged over the long haul; I want to be able to read it all at once, if I can't have any remission of pain.
Convince me that it's worth it; convince me that a master storyteller like Herself is not going to violate the laws of dramatic structure by going for many more chapters without a bit more surcease from pain than we've been given in 13 chapters.
Julia, just read the last bit: it's great, and I don't know if I can do it anymore.
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Mar 10, 2005 19:48:10 GMT -5
Um... I really need to talk about herself's Spuffy Kinkficathon carnival of misery, especially as a post in her LJ yesterday suggests that it isn't going to be over any time soon. It's getting harder and harder to deal with the sheer sadness of this story, especially since I'm not one of those who thinks Buffy needs punished for her behavior in s6&7, which I see, in retrospect, as a perfectly understandable reaction to perfectly incomprehensible life events. Besides the sharpness of the writing, what are people getting from this story? Is it way too emotionally manipulative, or is that just me? I'm getting ready to bail on it as a WIP, and wait for it to finish, just because I'm terribly averse to having my tears jerked and heartstrings tugged over the long haul; I want to be able to read it all at once, if I can't have any remission of pain. Convince me that it's worth it; convince me that a master storyteller like Herself is not going to violate the laws of dramatic structure by going for many more chapters without a bit more surcease from pain than we've been given in 13 chapters. Julia, just read the last bit: it's great, and I don't know if I can do it anymore. I've been reading it, and it's just too intense. I understand your concern - it could too easily turn into an exercise in pain and nothing else. Back away from it for a while. I haven't read any of her other work; just going by this one, she's about to go right over the edge of my personal agony limits, if she hasn't already. Anne, also, right with you on Buffy, and Spike wasn't exactly innocent or without malice in S6, either
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Post by Nan-S'cubie Mascot on Mar 10, 2005 19:49:06 GMT -5
If we're allowed to be negative here (are we?), wanting to have a baby to mend a collapsing relationship is so unusual and is guaranteed to work.... [/sarcasm]
There's also the factor that the sadness and frustration are overwhelming. There seems, not only no solution, but no battle. Spike is going down for the third time, and all we seem to have to look forward to is a final "Glub."
However, it must be said that in the most brutally violent and downright miserable of Herself's tales, it all comes out OK in the end. Buffy, trapped in the past with prig William and infected with a sexually transmitted disease from her time as a Victorian prostitute, is returned to the present for healing...and pregnant. When she feels compelled to abort the fetus, somehow...she doesn't. When she cheats on Spike, and Spike is bitterly angry, and Dru turns their adult (barely) son and he's ultimately dusted, despite all these travails Buffy's relationship with Spike ends up stronger and more resilient than ever. When Herself's Buffy loses a leg, or takes a brutal "dom" role, sexually, with Spike, or does any of a number of acutely painful things, there's reconciliation at the end.
Herself has never been about fluffy, or sweetness and light. It's down and dirty--she takes the irresistable force and hurls it at the immovable object, full speed, screeching as it goes. Her stories, as I've said elsewhere and (unfortunately) to her, may lack linear plot and thus be a bit claustrophobic, being contained within their principal characters' psyches, with no "outside" or cool perspective possible. But she more than makes up for that with intensity, as in this present WIP. The intensity--and the gemlike writing and word choice--are what give her stories power, which I think it's pretty unarguable that they DO have.
I shall stay with this Kinkathon opus of hers to the bitter end in confidence that she'll find some credible way to pull something positive, loving, and hopeful out of this volcano of angst and futility.
Because she always has.
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Mar 10, 2005 20:23:53 GMT -5
I've been reading it, and it's just too intense. I understand your concern - it could too easily turn into an exercise in pain and nothing else. Back away from it for a while. I haven't read any of her other work; just going by this one, she's about to go right over the edge of my personal agony limits, if she hasn't already. Anne, also, right with you on Buffy, and Spike wasn't exactly innocent or without malice in S6, either She's best known for the "Bittersweets" series, but I like "What She Deserves" and its sequal much better: www.allaboutspike.com/fic.html?id=221Part of this is just resistance to the lack of remission in the dramatic structure of this piece; it has two moods, Black, and Charcoal. No highlights; the closest to a moment of release of tension was Spike's suicide not taking. No emotion which is not negative. It's wearing, and thirteen chapters of it is just ridiculous. It makes the first thirty chapters of "Reposession" look like a joy ride by comparison. Julia, ARGH, in other words
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Mar 10, 2005 20:32:31 GMT -5
If we're allowed to be negative here (are we?), wanting to have a baby to mend a collapsing relationship is so unusual and is guaranteed to work.... [/sarcasm] There's also the factor that the sadness and frustration are overwhelming. There seems, not only no solution, but no battle. Spike is going down for the third time, and all we seem to have to look forward to is a final "Glub." However, it must be said that in the most brutally violent and downright miserable of Herself's tales, it all comes out OK in the end. Buffy, trapped in the past with prig William and infected with a sexually transmitted disease from her time as a Victorian prostitute, is returned to the present for healing...and pregnant. When she feels compelled to abort the fetus, somehow...she doesn't. When she cheats on Spike, and Spike is bitterly angry, and Dru turns their adult (barely) son and he's ultimately dusted, despite all these travails Buffy's relationship with Spike ends up stronger and more resilient than ever. When Herself's Buffy loses a leg, or takes a brutal "dom" role, sexually, with Spike, or does any of a number of acutely painful things, there's reconciliation at the end. Herself has never been about fluffy, or sweetness and light. It's down and dirty--she takes the irresistable force and hurls it at the immovable object, full speed, screeching as it goes. Her stories, as I've said elsewhere and (unfortunately) to her, may lack linear plot and thus be a bit claustrophobic, being contained within their principal characters' psyches, with no "outside" or cool perspective possible. But she more than makes up for that with intensity, as in this present WIP. The intensity--and the gemlike writing and word choice--are what give her stories power, which I think it's pretty unarguable that they DO have. I shall stay with this Kinkathon opus of hers to the bitter end in confidence that she'll find some credible way to pull something positive, loving, and hopeful out of this volcano of angst and futility. Because she always has. Which is why I'm considering dropping it as a WIP, and coming back to it when it's finished, and not staying away from it forever- although in truth, I still find the middle bits of the last of the Bittersweets series too unremittingly unpleasant to actually read, although I've skimmed them enough to appreciate the last ten or so chapters. However, she has been, even in that story, more skilled at breaking up the misery with periods of small comfort- and the most brutal of her past tortures, like the disasterous rough sex you refer to, has a short duration relative to this fic. It gets to a point where a writer fails to produce the effect they're seeking if there is no contrast which puts things into sharp relief; the geographic setting of this fic doesn't allow for any comfort zones, for the charactors or the reader, and for me, it's transcended mere claustrophobia and is heading to one of the lower circles of hell. Julia, it's one of those "bottomed out and started to dig" kinds of things for me
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Post by Rachael on Mar 10, 2005 20:35:36 GMT -5
If we're allowed to be negative here (are we?) Absolutely, IMO. And MO is the one that counts, apparently, in these parts. The usual politeness rules - it'd be nice not to say personally insulting things about authors, but criticism of their writing is entirely appropriate. And YAY! For using the thread.
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Post by Cal on Mar 10, 2005 20:52:58 GMT -5
If we're allowed to be negative here (are we?), wanting to have a baby to mend a collapsing relationship is so unusual and is guaranteed to work.... [/sarcasm] There's also the factor that the sadness and frustration are overwhelming. There seems, not only no solution, but no battle. Spike is going down for the third time, and all we seem to have to look forward to is a final "Glub." However, it must be said that in the most brutally violent and downright miserable of Herself's tales, it all comes out OK in the end. Buffy, trapped in the past with prig William and infected with a sexually transmitted disease from her time as a Victorian prostitute, is returned to the present for healing...and pregnant. When she feels compelled to abort the fetus, somehow...she doesn't. When she cheats on Spike, and Spike is bitterly angry, and Dru turns their adult (barely) son and he's ultimately dusted, despite all these travails Buffy's relationship with Spike ends up stronger and more resilient than ever. When Herself's Buffy loses a leg, or takes a brutal "dom" role, sexually, with Spike, or does any of a number of acutely painful things, there's reconciliation at the end. Herself has never been about fluffy, or sweetness and light. It's down and dirty--she takes the irresistable force and hurls it at the immovable object, full speed, screeching as it goes. Her stories, as I've said elsewhere and (unfortunately) to her, may lack linear plot and thus be a bit claustrophobic, being contained within their principal characters' psyches, with no "outside" or cool perspective possible. But she more than makes up for that with intensity, as in this present WIP. The intensity--and the gemlike writing and word choice--are what give her stories power, which I think it's pretty unarguable that they DO have. I shall stay with this Kinkathon opus of hers to the bitter end in confidence that she'll find some credible way to pull something positive, loving, and hopeful out of this volcano of angst and futility. Because she always has. I'm in complete agreement with you, Nan. I've read all of Herself's stories and I've loved them all. The Spuffykinkathon fic is heartbreaking to read, but I have faith that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. I'm sure of it. She's never let me down before.
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Post by Nan-S'cubie Mascot on Mar 10, 2005 21:23:44 GMT -5
Julia, I'll just add that if the suspense is killing you, more or less literally, I think you're wise to back off and wait till it's done and a positive end (possibly) achieved. Your reaction is perfectly valid and understandable in the face of such unmitigated misery. Reading it in progress has a lot in common with picking a scab. I'm not involved to that extent, so I'm not upset by it as much as you evidently are. If I were, I'd quit torturing myself too.
{{{Julia}}}
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Mar 10, 2005 23:28:19 GMT -5
Julia, I'll just add that if the suspense is killing you, more or less literally, I think you're wise to back off and wait till it's done and a positive end (possibly) achieved. Your reaction is perfectly valid and understandable in the face of such unmitigated misery. Reading it in progress has a lot in common with picking a scab. I'm not involved to that extent, so I'm not upset by it as much as you evidently are. If I were, I'd quit torturing myself too. {{{Julia}}} There's a whole lot of real-life sore places it's hitting, especially because of the issue of alcoholism, and the Vietnamese setting. I do believe I'm backing off- I was doing mostly OK until yesterday's announcement that it's going to be a long ride. Not like I don't have a bunch of other stuff I could be reading, including Speaker's mediaeval stuff and a couple of archives I just discovered recently. Julia, not to mention the whole doing-my-own-writing thing
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Post by Rachael on Mar 12, 2005 0:21:55 GMT -5
Okay, everything has been unstickied, except for the updates thread, the archives thread, and this discussion thread. It's an experiment, with me hoping that having the more recently updated of the other threads near the top will be helpful to people trying to find their fics.
If it doesn't work, I'll fix it.
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Post by Speaker-to-Customers on Mar 12, 2005 18:00:38 GMT -5
Um... I really need to talk about herself's Spuffy Kinkficathon carnival of misery, especially as a post in her LJ yesterday suggests that it isn't going to be over any time soon. It's getting harder and harder to deal with the sheer sadness of this story, especially since I'm not one of those who thinks Buffy needs punished for her behavior in s6&7, which I see, in retrospect, as a perfectly understandable reaction to perfectly incomprehensible life events. Besides the sharpness of the writing, what are people getting from this story? Is it way too emotionally manipulative, or is that just me? I'm getting ready to bail on it as a WIP, and wait for it to finish, just because I'm terribly averse to having my tears jerked and heartstrings tugged over the long haul; I want to be able to read it all at once, if I can't have any remission of pain. Convince me that it's worth it; convince me that a master storyteller like Herself is not going to violate the laws of dramatic structure by going for many more chapters without a bit more surcease from pain than we've been given in 13 chapters. Julia, just read the last bit: it's great, and I don't know if I can do it anymore. I'm glad to find it's not just me who has this problem. Herself is a writer of almost incomparable skill; and yet I can't bear to read twice anything that she's written and am finding it harder and harder to read her works for the first time. I find myself reminded of my thoughts after I saw the film "Se7en". Magnificent, gripping, superbly told - and yet I'd much rather I hadn't ever seen it. S-2-C
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Mar 12, 2005 18:19:03 GMT -5
I'm glad to find it's not just me who has this problem. Herself is a writer of almost incomparable skill; and yet I can't bear to read twice anything that she's written and am finding it harder and harder to read her works for the first time. I find myself reminded of my thoughts after I saw the film "Se7en". Magnificent, gripping, superbly told - and yet I'd much rather I hadn't ever seen it. S-2-C Much the way I feel about the film "Dressed to kill"- saw it, enjoyed it when I was watching it, but the passage of time has rendered it increasingly painful; I remember some scenes (notably Illeana Douglass ice skating) and I shudder. Powerful art, no doubt, but also an image I find perpetually uncomfortable. Julia, can only reread "What She Deserves" and the sequal, of late
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Post by Rachael on Mar 15, 2005 23:21:07 GMT -5
Okedoke...I have locked the "Three Fathers" thread, as it's complete and has been noted and linked as such at least twice now. Didn't delete it, 'cause that'd mean deleting several posts from at least two S'cubies.
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Post by Julia, wrought iron-y on Apr 30, 2005 19:33:24 GMT -5
This isn't discussion so much as gossip, but I wanted to put it out where people might see it without annoying the non-fic readers on the main thread.
First, when last we left "Tea and Biscuits" by Byrne, Wesleysgirl and Magpie, that maddening and occassionally wonderful S/G/We, S/A/We, G/E and in a strange case of bilateral near-noncon, G/A, Spike was standing over Giles' silent form and demanding explanations. That was a year ago. Byrne has a line in a recent post in her lj that "Tea and Biscuits is almost finished."
Second, a less well known and very promising X/O, "Dark of the Moon", by Moosesal, will be finshed, someday, she promises.
OH- Wesleysgirl and JaneDavitt will have a sequal to "Saturation" coming up very soon, it is in beta now.
Julia, hoping all this stuff will happen soon
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