As you may have guessed, you were one of the three people I mentioned in my MFW whose work I really really wanted to get back to and comment on. And here it is the feedback! It, uh, grew into a monster. Like, dragon-length. But I'm okay with that, because I truly think this fic deserves this kind of attention, and also because I think I failed to ever leave any crit for your piece in our concrit group, so this can make up for it, yeah? *g*
Since I've been thinking of this feedback as being something I'd write for our concrit group, I intended to it be less squee and more analysis. Only, that's hard, because there's so much to squee about in this fic. So let me get that out of the way first: I really, really love this fic. I think at least part of that love is irrational and due more to it having the kinds of things I like than to, you know, its objective quality. :)
For one thing, I really appreciate that by and large, these characters are each behaving towards the high end of their maturity range. Buffy's the center of the Scooby universe, so I think a lot of the mature choices made by various characters in this fic are the repercussions of choices Buffy makes her and in the last fic (which I didn't reread, so I have rather a dim memory of). Ripple effects, if you will. In particular, once Buffy manages to allay his insecurities, Spike is supportive and understanding and (hee!) gallant, but not unbelievably so. Xander and Willow each have a freak-out, but they get over them. Dawn doesn't throw any hissy fits, and clearly doesn't feel as abandoned as in canon, since she apparently doesn't make the wish to Halfrek. And Anya is the still-blunt but quite keen and capable money advisor, which part I adored to little bits, because I love Anya being competent and helpful and (for her) sweet and thoughtful.
Buffy herself is still depressed, and yet she is trying *so hard* in this fic: to be a good girlfriend for Spike, to take care of Dawn, to be the competent adult she feels she has to be. Every little thing has to be deliberate, because they don't come naturally to her yet, but still they're more possible than they were in canon. She's through the worst of the despair, I think, and slowly crawling up the other side.
In fact, I think you present Buffy as more mature, more thoughtful of others here than I usually see her portrayed in fic. I think partly that's *because* she has to think through her every action, which means we then get to read those thoughts, but also I think it's that a whole lot of authors really do buy her valley girl act. Even though they acknowledge that she's willing to die to save the world, she's often portrayed as being fundamentally self-centered in everyday life. (This is one of the reasons Killed by Death is one of my favorite episodes; it seems to me that investigating a monster while sick with the flu is much more relatable brand of heroism than jumping off a tower.) Anyway, I really enjoyed that aspect of the fic; I think you gave a layer to Buffy's characterization that she just doesn't get very often.
Another thing I love about the fic is how it's about reconstruction, which I think is much, much harder to write than deconstruction. (Certainly I don't think Joss has ever been very good at it.) Buffy's rebuilding her life, which has really been broken since Joyce died. Even if Buffy hadn't died, she'd still have had to face all these things; I'm not sure that being torn out of heaven made it that much harder than it would have been anyway. Anyway, now she's dealing with those life questions like, "Can we afford to move?" and "Can I get a better job?" and "How can I take care of my little sister?" and bit by bit, over the course of the fic, she answers them. I really appreciate that about the fic, the narrative evidence that life does get *better* as well as worse. I think we were meant to take that away from S6, or at least from the end of it – Buff and Dawn climbing out of that grave into the sunshine – but it felt like too cheap a hope to me, after too much angst. Here, rather than a single pretty image, you offer a more complicated but sturdier hope.
Plus, I'm just so *happy* for Buffy, that she's managing to rebuild her life without first having to go through all the awful angst of late S6. I'd much prefer this story for her to the one we got in canon.
(Also, random bit of meta: I've pretty much decided that Giles' comment in 5.03 - that if you split Buffy in half into Buffy and Slayer and then kill the Buffy half, the Slayer half also dies – is a key aspect of the emotional arc of the season. Once Buffy has lost Riley and Joyce and is threatened with losing Dawn, the "Buffy half" of her is just about dead; her plunge from the tower is just the logical conclusion. But if we take that as given, then we could say that really, the "Buffy half" has been dead longer than the "Slayer half," which maybe explains why the "Buffy half" takes longer to come back to life.)
It occurs to me as well that this fic shows Buffy in the process of really integrating the "Buffy half" and "Slayer half" of herself for the first time in who knows how long – S4, maybe. She integrating her vampire boyfriend with her (relatively) normal friends; she's considering a job that will combine her Slaying job and her real-life money-making job into one. I think this is all contrast to where Buffy's mind still is in the middle of the fic, when she thinks to herself, " It felt like an inevitability of being a slayer that she was becoming steadily stranger and stranger over the years."
Speaking of: KATE LOCKLEY. I loved her in Angel for the grounded outside perspective she brought, and in my opinion she's criminally underused in fic. I loved having her here. I appreciated the similarities between her and Buffy, particularly that moment of sharing when they each realize how intimately familiar the other is with death, but I also loved that she's offering Buffy a totally different perspective than Buffy's used to getting. Kate's very presence helps break through some of that stifling social and ideological claustrophobia that's hanging around the Scoobies by this point in the series, and I think that could be a very good thing for everyone.
Plus, frankly, I think Buffy really needs a friendship that doesn't carry all the Scooby baggage. Personally, I find the Scooby friendships weirdly shallow and kind of alien, for all that they fight in the Slaying trenches together. I think a friendship with Kate could be a really healthy thing for Buffy on lots of levels, not just the demon-slaying one.
I think you were saying more things here about death and life and the contrast between them than I fully grasped. There's a lot of discussion and internal monologue about why Buffy first started having sex with Spike and why she's suddenly grossed out by him now. I think possibly the basic gist is that at first she felt so dead emotionally that anything, even something undead like a vampire, was an improvement, but now that she's getting better (and he's still the same as he ever was), she's repulsed by him because he reminds her where she's come from. However, I'm not quite sure how that interacts with the rest of the themes of the fic, or how it resolves itself in the end.
That said, the sex scene was really, really hot, and I say this as someone who usually skips sex scenes because I find them boring. This one, though, was about four parts emotional stuff to one part actual sex, which brought me into it emotionally a lot more than I usually am, and meanwhile Buffy's tentativeness combined with Spike's willing spirit and weaker flesh was, well. Hot. And also really important for their relationship, obviously. So, good job. :)
Another strictly person that I really liked this fic is that it came across to me as more emotionally accessible than I sometimes find your fics. I tend to think of you as an author who writes fics that I'm meant to have thoughts about, but this is a fic that I also very much had feelings about. Lots and lots of feelings. Like, the bit where Buffy thinks Kate is going to arrest, and tearfully asks what Kate is going to do to her? My eyes were damp, too – on both reads, I think. Also, a lot of the more vulnerable conversations between Buffy and Spike had me feeling a bit tearful.
I wonder if this response I had to the fic is connected to the fact that I think this fic is much less about emotional distance than some of your other fics. I think we've talked before about how the characters in your fics tend to be trying to talk to each other over a chasm, but that's much less true here. The Buffy/Spike relationship here is all about Buffy learning to communicate her pleasure (like about the motorcycle ride) and regret (for "waking up bitchy") and fear (the dream) to Spike, and about Spike learning to trust her feelings for and commitment to him. Which, again, I like just as a matter of personal preference, if for no other reason. :)
One last major observation about this fic: as indicated by all my thoughts above, it's a really rich fic, of the kind that I don't think the fandom gets very often anymore (or possibly I just don't end up reading much anymore). There's some thematic depth here, I think, but also there's a ton of really rich characterization, and there's a bit of a plot, and there's the introduction of (to Buffy) a new character. Fic, even the best stuff, often shorthands a lot of these aspects; the story is sketched out with dialogue and some sparse description, and the reader fills in the rest. You don't do that hear. Yes, there are still plenty of references to previous events – the Trio's previous exploits, Willow's magic addiction, Joyce's death – but the emotional freight is all carried by the fic itself, and I think that gives it a particular richness and density that I appreciate.
no subject
Since I've been thinking of this feedback as being something I'd write for our concrit group, I intended to it be less squee and more analysis. Only, that's hard, because there's so much to squee about in this fic. So let me get that out of the way first: I really, really love this fic. I think at least part of that love is irrational and due more to it having the kinds of things I like than to, you know, its objective quality. :)
For one thing, I really appreciate that by and large, these characters are each behaving towards the high end of their maturity range. Buffy's the center of the Scooby universe, so I think a lot of the mature choices made by various characters in this fic are the repercussions of choices Buffy makes her and in the last fic (which I didn't reread, so I have rather a dim memory of). Ripple effects, if you will. In particular, once Buffy manages to allay his insecurities, Spike is supportive and understanding and (hee!) gallant, but not unbelievably so. Xander and Willow each have a freak-out, but they get over them. Dawn doesn't throw any hissy fits, and clearly doesn't feel as abandoned as in canon, since she apparently doesn't make the wish to Halfrek. And Anya is the still-blunt but quite keen and capable money advisor, which part I adored to little bits, because I love Anya being competent and helpful and (for her) sweet and thoughtful.
Buffy herself is still depressed, and yet she is trying *so hard* in this fic: to be a good girlfriend for Spike, to take care of Dawn, to be the competent adult she feels she has to be. Every little thing has to be deliberate, because they don't come naturally to her yet, but still they're more possible than they were in canon. She's through the worst of the despair, I think, and slowly crawling up the other side.
In fact, I think you present Buffy as more mature, more thoughtful of others here than I usually see her portrayed in fic. I think partly that's *because* she has to think through her every action, which means we then get to read those thoughts, but also I think it's that a whole lot of authors really do buy her valley girl act. Even though they acknowledge that she's willing to die to save the world, she's often portrayed as being fundamentally self-centered in everyday life. (This is one of the reasons Killed by Death is one of my favorite episodes; it seems to me that investigating a monster while sick with the flu is much more relatable brand of heroism than jumping off a tower.) Anyway, I really enjoyed that aspect of the fic; I think you gave a layer to Buffy's characterization that she just doesn't get very often.
Another thing I love about the fic is how it's about reconstruction, which I think is much, much harder to write than deconstruction. (Certainly I don't think Joss has ever been very good at it.) Buffy's rebuilding her life, which has really been broken since Joyce died. Even if Buffy hadn't died, she'd still have had to face all these things; I'm not sure that being torn out of heaven made it that much harder than it would have been anyway. Anyway, now she's dealing with those life questions like, "Can we afford to move?" and "Can I get a better job?" and "How can I take care of my little sister?" and bit by bit, over the course of the fic, she answers them. I really appreciate that about the fic, the narrative evidence that life does get *better* as well as worse. I think we were meant to take that away from S6, or at least from the end of it – Buff and Dawn climbing out of that grave into the sunshine – but it felt like too cheap a hope to me, after too much angst. Here, rather than a single pretty image, you offer a more complicated but sturdier hope.
Plus, I'm just so *happy* for Buffy, that she's managing to rebuild her life without first having to go through all the awful angst of late S6. I'd much prefer this story for her to the one we got in canon.
(Also, random bit of meta: I've pretty much decided that Giles' comment in 5.03 - that if you split Buffy in half into Buffy and Slayer and then kill the Buffy half, the Slayer half also dies – is a key aspect of the emotional arc of the season. Once Buffy has lost Riley and Joyce and is threatened with losing Dawn, the "Buffy half" of her is just about dead; her plunge from the tower is just the logical conclusion. But if we take that as given, then we could say that really, the "Buffy half" has been dead longer than the "Slayer half," which maybe explains why the "Buffy half" takes longer to come back to life.)
It occurs to me as well that this fic shows Buffy in the process of really integrating the "Buffy half" and "Slayer half" of herself for the first time in who knows how long – S4, maybe. She integrating her vampire boyfriend with her (relatively) normal friends; she's considering a job that will combine her Slaying job and her real-life money-making job into one. I think this is all contrast to where Buffy's mind still is in the middle of the fic, when she thinks to herself, " It felt like an inevitability of being a slayer that she was becoming steadily stranger and stranger over the years."
Speaking of: KATE LOCKLEY. I loved her in Angel for the grounded outside perspective she brought, and in my opinion she's criminally underused in fic. I loved having her here. I appreciated the similarities between her and Buffy, particularly that moment of sharing when they each realize how intimately familiar the other is with death, but I also loved that she's offering Buffy a totally different perspective than Buffy's used to getting. Kate's very presence helps break through some of that stifling social and ideological claustrophobia that's hanging around the Scoobies by this point in the series, and I think that could be a very good thing for everyone.
Plus, frankly, I think Buffy really needs a friendship that doesn't carry all the Scooby baggage. Personally, I find the Scooby friendships weirdly shallow and kind of alien, for all that they fight in the Slaying trenches together. I think a friendship with Kate could be a really healthy thing for Buffy on lots of levels, not just the demon-slaying one.
I think you were saying more things here about death and life and the contrast between them than I fully grasped. There's a lot of discussion and internal monologue about why Buffy first started having sex with Spike and why she's suddenly grossed out by him now. I think possibly the basic gist is that at first she felt so dead emotionally that anything, even something undead like a vampire, was an improvement, but now that she's getting better (and he's still the same as he ever was), she's repulsed by him because he reminds her where she's come from. However, I'm not quite sure how that interacts with the rest of the themes of the fic, or how it resolves itself in the end.
That said, the sex scene was really, really hot, and I say this as someone who usually skips sex scenes because I find them boring. This one, though, was about four parts emotional stuff to one part actual sex, which brought me into it emotionally a lot more than I usually am, and meanwhile Buffy's tentativeness combined with Spike's willing spirit and weaker flesh was, well. Hot. And also really important for their relationship, obviously. So, good job. :)
Another strictly person that I really liked this fic is that it came across to me as more emotionally accessible than I sometimes find your fics. I tend to think of you as an author who writes fics that I'm meant to have thoughts about, but this is a fic that I also very much had feelings about. Lots and lots of feelings. Like, the bit where Buffy thinks Kate is going to arrest, and tearfully asks what Kate is going to do to her? My eyes were damp, too – on both reads, I think. Also, a lot of the more vulnerable conversations between Buffy and Spike had me feeling a bit tearful.
I wonder if this response I had to the fic is connected to the fact that I think this fic is much less about emotional distance than some of your other fics. I think we've talked before about how the characters in your fics tend to be trying to talk to each other over a chasm, but that's much less true here. The Buffy/Spike relationship here is all about Buffy learning to communicate her pleasure (like about the motorcycle ride) and regret (for "waking up bitchy") and fear (the dream) to Spike, and about Spike learning to trust her feelings for and commitment to him. Which, again, I like just as a matter of personal preference, if for no other reason. :)
One last major observation about this fic: as indicated by all my thoughts above, it's a really rich fic, of the kind that I don't think the fandom gets very often anymore (or possibly I just don't end up reading much anymore). There's some thematic depth here, I think, but also there's a ton of really rich characterization, and there's a bit of a plot, and there's the introduction of (to Buffy) a new character. Fic, even the best stuff, often shorthands a lot of these aspects; the story is sketched out with dialogue and some sparse description, and the reader fills in the rest. You don't do that hear. Yes, there are still plenty of references to previous events – the Trio's previous exploits, Willow's magic addiction, Joyce's death – but the emotional freight is all carried by the fic itself, and I think that gives it a particular richness and density that I appreciate.