Indulging myself

[avrelia]

I wasn’t sure whether I should post it, and then I did it – filtered and all, because sometimes I need to see my thoughts written to clear them out of my brain. There were several (or one big) kerfuffles the last summer about constructive critiques vs. hate vs. being nice, and I was thinking about what I love and don’t love and why…

And sometimes my dislikes have nothing constructive in it – I just don’t like the author’s version of the Universe or the characters. And I see no good reason to write the author about it.

Ok, here it is. I strongly dislike herself_nyc’s Bittersweets series. I read all up to the “Buffy in Italy” story – I don’t remember its name precisely – and then I stopped. I realized two things: 1) I really don’t like it. 2) I don’t have to torture myself then.

Why did I read it so far? Well, it is an amazing story. I have a deep respect for the skills and craft, and I admire the style and plotting – in the abstract way. Besides, every new story is an event in fandom from the first chapter with all the revisions and discussions, and I, being a sheep, wanted to know how it is going. Plus, the sex scenes are good. ;)

Also, I quite liked Herself’s “What she deserves” and “Lovingkindness” Universe.

But I don’t like Spike and Buffy there, and I don’t like what is going on with them. It is not even all the babies… it is all the mental torture, and how they don’t change forever, and other characters are pale shadows without making sense to me. They never change. Spike is always a martyr of love; Buffy is always a broken girl who doesn’t really deserve him.
And even the Victorian story, that everyone loves and which was one of the first fics I read ever, apart from amazing period details doesn’t rub well with me.

I don’t like Herself’s Spike and Herself’s Buffy. They are not bad, but they feel utterly alien and wrong to me. Recently I understood why: they belong to high tragedy; or, since their story ends reasonably well, to classical moral drama. They are deadly serious – in bliss and sorrow, in trouble and everyday life. Humour doesn’t exist in their universe.
Now, my Spike and Buffy make fun of each other – from School hard to Chosen and beyond, more over, they make fun of themselves. They mock and tease and laugh; they could be cruel and gently, and they changed. They are still changing.

So, yeah… not much sense, but I feel better.

Comments

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

As quite a few people mentioned above, everything becomes so unbelievably bleak after that that reading is a chore rather than a pleasure. And what gets me is that Spike and Buffy stagnated in their S6 roles and pretty much stayed the same way (with minor variations) for something like the next thirty years.

Yeah, I find pretty much unbelievable. People change. Even vampires do (especially Spike). We stay recognizable and all, but we change – and married life do change people. I see it in myself. I don’t demand realism from fanfiction, but stagnation is supremely boring.

I become lost in them very easily, up until the point when I try to actually picture the Spike and Buffy I know on the shows saying the dialogue she writes. And at that point there's some kind of mental block.

Yeah, that’s what happens to me, too. That’s why this confusion. Ususally, when I read something I don’t like I just stop reading. Here I got sucked in, and along the way I understand that it feels wrong.