Apologies for the lack of LJ cut on the last post. My cuts and coding haven't been quite right since last September, and I have no idea why they sometimes act up. It only seems to get funky when I include LJ usernames, but not links. Any ideas what may be going on?

I've been pretty quiet the last two weeks, but I have been silently puttering around in my own way. I just overhauled my memories, so all of my fics and certain types of related fandom posts should be nicely categorized now. All of this was already on my sidebar, but I thought I'd cover myself twice over, especially my past recs from buffyversetop5. Classic recs week is October 29th - November 1st this year and I hope fandom comes out to participate. I've been working on a few lists and hope to have some really interesting ones up for your viewing pleasure.

Although it's outlined, I'm going to hold off finishing up and posting my menstruation in the Buffyverse meta until after seasonal_spuffy and iwry_marathon are done. I had a long discussion with eowyn_315 last night about what I'd like to accomplish with my SS entry and I think we got to a really good place with it. My posting date is in 2.5 weeks and, as usual, I'm quite behind since I only have time to do this on the weekends, but I'm hoping I knock out at least 2000 words today. I'm feeling pretty doubtful about being able to produce a contribution to shapinglight's Darla ficathon at the end of the month though. Between the other ficathon entries and recs, I just don't have time to dedicate it. I'll also be doing beta work for only_passenger around that time for her IWRY fic so, yes, stretched rather thin. 

Speaking of betaing, I just worked with rebcake for the first time on her SS fic and it was a really positive experience. For those of you who haven't seen it and are in the mood for wedding fluff, go check out Under My Skin.  

The sky is grey when he opens his eyes, the first rays of sun pressing through the blinds. He watches the triangle of light against the wall grow minutely. It means the world hasn’t ended. 

A finger prods the corner of his mouth, tip pressed to tooth until he reluctantly opens. His gums itch, eyes widen, brow furrows.

“Not like you haven’t had it before,” she says. 

When Faith withdraws, brushing his lip with her pinky, he balls his fists. Her hand gleams with clotted blood.

His world is ash, but tastes like heaven. Tears fall unbidden with the irony.

hello_spikey

I think it’s no secret that I’m a big Lilah fan, so her odd disappearance from the S5 Angel landscape didn’t sit well with me and, honestly, didn’t make much sense. Eve was a poor replacement, someone who seemed like an unlikely choice as her successor, and I wanted to play with that idea. How did she get to fill those shoes as the liaison to the Senior Partners? I’ve wanted to expand into the lesser characters of AtS, so this fic was going to be that first experiment with Eve as the person who actually orchestrated Lilah’s downfall in S4 as part of Lindsey’s master plan. Angel is a show that has a large scope. The actions in later seasons are shown to have deep roots in seeds that were sewn earlier in the series. Just as Cordy was part of the big, good vs. evil power play, I thought it’d be really interesting to explore if Lilah had been one of those unfortunate casualties, too.  

A problem that I had writing this fic was how I wanted to deal with the structure of Eve and Lilah’s conversations. Ultimately, I had them all take place in the Wolfram & Hart elevator as a nod to the Holland Manners/Angel convo from S2. The idea that Wolfram & Hart is this massive, unending entity was great, and I liked including the small details of what was housed on each floor whenever Lilah and/or Eve stepped off.

I was originally going to have Gavin be a bigger player in the story. I thought it’d be hilarious if zombie!Gavin were the elevator operator and got to witness Lilah’s downfall by bits and degrees, but he eventually took a back seat in the fic, and I only included him in the conference room scene.

snickfic

One problem that I had, among many, with S7 was that Whedon & Co. never utilized the history that Buffy had with the First from S3. The Bringers are what make her realize who she’s dealing with, but the First never appears as Jenny and, from what we gather, doesn’t try and approach Giles to probe him for weaknesses. In this fic I wanted to take the idea that Giles, as the authority and father figure to Buffy, was viewed as an excellent pawn for manipulation. The fresh doubt that the First as Jenny generates in Giles is a hard blow to his character and cripples the early stages of building the Council after the battle is over. The First may have been defeated, but it definitely left its mark. After his sabotage and unwitting compromise of Buffy’s safety, as well as the Potentials, his doubt in himself not only stymies their future, but the success of the group as the Scooby’s backpedal on their allegiance to him.

I chose Faith as the character to try to shore him up because of her unique history with Watchers. Her determination not to see him fail stemmed directly from her own failures with Wesley. As much as Buffy and Faith are alike, we never really see Buffy dedicate herself to Giles and really understand the choices he had to make as an adult. She’s his world, but he’s not hers, and I think Faith would be in a unique position to have a lot of empathy with him. She’s not always made good choices either, and that moral ambiguity has put them on a level playing field.

And I’m really glad you brought up the title. I like clever word plays and this one, of course, has connotations about BDSM, but the cat o’nine tails was also used as a weapon for severe physical punishment in the Royal Navy and Army. Giles’ own doubt is this multi-pronged attack on himself, one of self-loathing that we’ve never seen before. Penalties of hundreds of lashes were imposed for the gravest offenses, including sedition and mutiny, which Giles inadvertently commits. The weapon also inflicts parallel wounds, which was supposed to loosely be a metaphor for Giles and Faith’s parallel journey together of acceptance of self and reintegration to the mission they were born to do.

Tomorrow will mark two weeks that I've been sick and it's getting old. First my throat hurt, then my nose became stuffed and then I developed this wet cough that's persisted the longest of any of the other symptoms. I haven't seen the doctor because I figured that the cold would clear up by itself, but the lingering cough has me a bit worried. I started thinking about all these outrageous possibilities - swine flu, pneumonia, bronchitis!? It's probably none of those things, but if I'm still hacking after Labor Day an appointment is definately in store. 

After cycling through a number of ideas for both IWRY and seasonal_spuffy, I think I've finally settled on two that I'd genuinely like to write. Awhile back, I wrote a Spawn one shot called Truth Discovered and had loosely drafted a longer sequel to it set 10 years post-NFA. I'd still love to write the Spawn version of the concept I'd come up with, but I think I can reasonably adapt it so that it takes on more of a Spuffy spin instead. I'm excited about this idea because it's a) not heavily canon based, b) more of an ensemble fic than a shipper fic, c) has a plot and a mystery component to it that both unfolds through the present happenings and in flashback. It's pretty different than what I usually write and I'm excited about trying it. I haven't written a fic from Spike's POV in a long time, so that will also be different and fun. There will also be an OC or two - I'm not much in the habit of incorporating them into my fic, so again with the different. Some of the plot points are still a little sketchy to me, but if I can pull all of this off, I think it'll be great. 

Two things common to both ficathon entries is the idea of multiple relationships. This seems like an important thing for me to explore. Love in the Buffyverse is not narrow. There are many different types of love - romantic, familial, platonic-friendship - and these inter relationships define and drive much of the drama of the show. Love is often at stake. But, unlike fandom, love is not represented as OTP, at least that's not how I see it. Buffy loves Angel. Buffy loves Spike. She also had meaningful relationships with Faith and Riley. Love is not mutually exclusive. And I want to explore those points of intersect in these stories. The SS fic will be Buffy/Spike, but it will also touch on Buffy/OC, Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Faith. They are part of this emotional web together and each of these relationships can exist simultaneously, if perhaps at different degrees. 

My IWRY idea takes my Buffy/Faith fic Severed and Sewn as a jumping off point. That fic is as much about Buffy/Faith as it is about Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, and Faith/Angel. And I think continuing the Faith/Angel/Buffy dynamic is an interesting one because Angel meant different things to each of them, and sometimes it takes a third party to make you realize the deep connection you have with someone else. In that story, I briefly mention that Buffy has disturbing dreams following Chosen and I want to use dreams as the avenue where a lot of action unfolds. Also win since I can get very surreal and Salvidor Dali-ish. Hooray for abstract imagery!

Anyway, points of intersection, multiple relationships. That's where I'm going with my ficathon ideas and I'm excited about it. Hopefully all the shippers won't flat out reject the idea. *worries*