Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 7

[aadler]

 
Continuing the meme/challenge begun and tracked here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 7

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs. Leave a comment in this [the assignment] post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Okay, this one isn’t going to be easy for me. Trope, cliché, kink … no interest there. Motif, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean in this context. And theme is just a bit too general for me to figure out what’s being asked.

The truth is, I don’t have an active hostility to labels, but labels don’t work for me in fanfic. Or rather, they work only in the sense of telling me what I don’t want to see. When I’m writing, I try to come up with a decent story and tell it effectively. When I’m reading, I want something that will interest and entertain me. Generally speaking, if something can be fit with a label — anything other than “gen” — it’s probably not for me.

Having said that, there are three general types of approach that I find myself liking.

The first could be described as AU, but not the way many people use the term. Not all-human (I don’t even dislike those, I’d have had to read one first to go that far, and I never saw the point in reading any such thing), nor even the same characters but with a full re-working of the universe they inhabit … more a matter of seeing how small changes could make bigger changes. Instances:

• Someone once posited a story in which it was Wesley, rather than Fred, who was infected and then occupied by Illyria. It was just a quick glimpse, but the idea was intriguing.
• valyssia did a very brief piece, “Possession”, about an encounter with a hyena-possessed Willow (not Xander). The thing is, even though the story is labeled Buffy/Willow, it could just as easily be Buffy/Xander, because the language is skillfully, carefully unrevealing of the narrator’s gender. Also, lush with sensual imagery.
• “Older”, by KairosImprimatur. This is one I’m still reading — partly because, warning, it’s a WIP — but is based on the simple premise of Buffy having shown up in Sunnydale a year later than she actually did, and how things would have proceeded as a result of that difference.

The second is more like an addition to canon, or (as I’ve done in my Backstage Series) an exploration of things that could be there but aren’t shown by canon. Best examples:

• “Not Even Jimmy Olsen”, by blairprovence. I’ve mentioned this in many other posts, and there’s a reason for that. This story of a non-Scooby encountering the Scoobies’ world — and realizing that she’ll always be an outsider there — was one of my formative influences regarding the kind of Buffyfic I would choose to write.
• “Her Fault”, by selenak. Cordelia in all her glory: whiny and courageous, confident and full of doubt, self-centered and determined to do the right thing. And, as usual, caught up in a scenario that should be too much for her to handle. The bad guys are doomed!
• “One Day Like This”, by il_mio_capitano. A post-finale look at Giles and various others at the new Watcher-Slayer school, set primarily around a cricket match. Just fun, but with nice characterization as well.

Finally, crossovers. I love Buffy, and Buffy lends itself extremely well to crossovers. Some don’t work as well as others, but some work extremely well indeed. Those that come immediately to mind:

• “Father Goose and the Black Knight”, by Litmouse. BtVS/Law & Order: SVU crossover, not always the most comfortable match but extremely effective when it’s done right. And this one definitely is. I re-read it on a regular basis, and there’s just so much good there. A long read, but rewarding.
• “Far Beyond Normal” and “Return to Normal”, by jAkL. Together these comprise a long, long crossover of BtVS with SG-1. Seriously, nearly 700,000 words altogether. All of it, however, treats both fandoms seriously, and eventually makes for an epic.
• Finally, my own “Seeking the Woman”, a mix of BtVS/La Femme Nikita. Yes, I’m mainly throwing it in because it’s NOT a blockbuster, just a short, sharp story about what happens when you throw two apex predators into the same arena.

All of the preceding have one thing in common: they treat the characters and the Buffyverse with respect. They take what I already liked, and show me more of it, or more with a twist, or more from a different angle. They’re there to entertain, and they do the job.

Those aren’t the only kinds of things I like, this is just the best I can do when I try to describe types. I read for pleasure, and these are the basic type of things that please me.
 

Comments

[analise010.livejournal.com]

CROSSOVERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it when people blend two worlds in a way that makes sense and still fits the characters. (I'm still waiting on a Sleepy Hollow/Superntural AU where it's the Mills sisters vs the Winchesters and who is better at demon hunting.) Treating characters with respect is so important.

[aadler]

Respect is the biggest part of it. This can be tricky for someone who is partisan to a particular fandom, or who doesn’t know the ‘second’ fandom well enough to proceed 1) with confidence and 2) with appropriate treatment. I wouldn’t DO a BtVS/Supernatural crossover myself, simply because I know only the basic outline of SPN, less yet about the personalities, and next to nothing about the characters’ in-show histories. I’d either show the Winchesters inaccurately/2-dimensionally, or make them secondary characters … which I would hate if anyone turned around and did that to Buffy, so that means I don’t get to do it either.

(Of course, one way around that is to do a fic that’s either a parody or so wacky that it approaches parody. Then, drawing in broad strokes for comic effect can mask less-than-adequate familiarity.)

As for the Winchester brothers and the Mills sisters … I think that would be uncomfortable for the boys. They have more experience, but the girls have intensity.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I love Older! The subtlety of the changes is so effective!


Gabrielle

[aadler]

Still working my way through that, wanting to give it the proper attention.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

"Fill in the blanks" are my kryptonite. Love 'em.

I like crossovers, too, but I'm often not really familiar with the other fandom, so that makes them tricky. I've read some Buffy/Stargate crossovers that seemed really good, but I have no knowledge of Stargate, so I'm just guessing it's been done justice. I've done crossovers of Buffy with Star Trek, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Pushing Daisies, and Love & Rockets. Not many of are of wide-ranging interest, alas.

[aadler]

The biggest and most fun set of crossovers I’ve ever seen is Phouka’s series “Oh, the Places He Goes”. Nearly thirty stories, all ingenious and all but one of them funny, and they tell a cumulative tale that builds to a satisfying quasi-conclusion. None touch any of the fandoms you named, however; you clearly are an original and subversive thinker.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. How can I resist a Buffy/The Love Bug crossover?

My littlest crossover wasn't even Buffyverse, though it was Jossverse, if you squint: A Transitional Period (http://archiveofourown.org/works/554150), an ever-so-prescient Avengers/Pulp Fiction crossover drabble. Heh.