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Meta: Kaleidoscope: Part I
I've never done a meta about any of my own fics before, but in light of an extremely interesting discussion on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snickfic's journal, I was inspired to really explore what I wanted to accomplish with Kaleidoscope. It's the fic that is the most read (or at least most-reviewed) and most-awarded of my Buffy fics, and it was also my first fic in the fandom, so it seems a decent place to start.
snickfic was commenting on how off-putting it can be in fic "when the purpose of one or more secondary characters is to have Insights about the main character, independent of their own character development." I think this is a very true statement (we in particular talked about how this sort of device mistreats Tara so horribly), and--of course--it made me think of my fanfic that is the story of Buffy and Spike through the lenses of all the other characters. I think the story works, but why? I'm going to ramble about that for a while, if anyone's interested.
There are two things to keep in mind here: I actually love seeing a character/couple/friendship/place that I love through the eyes of another character when that character doesn't suffer because of it. The character can't be the mouthpiece of the fangirly writer (as I note below, I sometimes fail in this regard), nor can the character act out of character--for example, thinking more about another character/pairing than he or she actually would. In this meta, I'll explore whether I think if I succeeded in sticking to those two rules.
Second, most of my writing is extremely intuitive. I don't often think, "I'm going to add this as a metaphor or a motif or for this reason or that." I write something, feel that it's right and move on, or I feel that it's wrong, and I fix it--without taking much time to figure out why it was wrong and the edit is right. Because of this, I hadn't thought of a lot of things on a conscious level until this moment. It'll be interesting to see what I find.
There are two ways to read this story. The first is the more straightforward way, the one you do without really thinking too deeply: read it straight as a Spuffy story that just happens to be told from the points of view of different characters either for variety's sake or as a gimmick. There's nothing wrong, of course, with reading it that way, and honestly, that was how my conscious mind wrote it. But there's another way, one that I think is better and richer, and besides: this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Who doesn't want to be subversive?
This second way is this: what do the ways in which each character approaches the Buffy/Spike relationship say about that character? By reading it in this way, the story then becomes a collection of character-studies instead of a straight romance.
Let me summarize the two approaches:
1. Are you reading a story about Buffy/Spike as seen through the lens of various other characters?
-or-
2. Are you reading a story about each one of these characters through the lens of the Buffy/Spike relationship?
I'm going to examine each section in order and talk about A) what I wanted to say about the narrator, and B) whether I succeeded or not, and C) what I wanted to say about Buffy and Spike.
Fred:
A) Fred's section is actually, in retrospect, the weakest. I'm kind of disappointed that she's the character who starts out the fic because of this weakness--even if it's entirely necessary because 1) she's dead for the rest of the time covered in the fic, and 2) I really like the bookends of having Fred open the fic and Illyria end it, even if that was more of a subconscious thing.
In this section, Fred fangirls. She really, really does. She's noticing how wonderful Spike is and how in love he is and how awesome Buffy must be...and this doesn't do great things for her character. Part of this might be my lack of enthusiasm for her as a character. Not to go too deeply into it, but I loved Fred while she was first on the show, but by the time S5 comes around, she no longer has any flaws, and I can only see her as a Mary Sue (compare the characters' reactions to her death with their reactions to Cordy's. See what I mean?). I don't have a ton that I want to explore with her as I do with nearly every other character here. I touch on the fact that she's well aware of Wes's feelings for her and that she hasn't forgotten about Gunn entirely. I also mention Pylea really changing her worldview, and I think that's a strong point, but other than that, I don't have any real insights into her character.
Major fail on my part. If I had the chance to rewrite this fic, hers is the section that would have the biggest overhaul.
B). There are a couple of things about her section that I'm proud of, though.
She has to make adjustments in her own mind, because half the time Spike is morose and repentant, making himself out as the villain of the story and taking the blame for things even she knows couldn’t possibly be his fault, and the other half he’s ranting about the blindness, selfishness, insensitivity of everyone else, especially Buffy. I like this a lot, because, yes, Spike is a really bad liar and, yes, Spike is the character who speaks the truth the other characters can't or won't see, and yes, Spike is kind of an open book--we all know that and harp on it in fic a lot. However. He can skew things, mostly without meaning to, and he's not a totally reliable narrator, especially when it comes to his own story (the contrast between what we can infer he's telling Buffy and what we know really happened in his flashbacks in "Fool for Love" tell us this). I imagine that if he was talking about his relationship with Buffy at all he would do it with a woman, as Spike is always much closer to women--and in this case, it would have to be Fred since no one else is around (BOO, JOSS! WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO CORDY?)--and he would do it in just the way I described here.
The other part I really like is the part where she's wondering about what kind of woman Buffy must be. This isn't something I would typically have Fred thinking about, as I imagine Buffy wouldn't often be on her mind (except for this particular moment). However, we have the line in "A Hole in the World" where she says that she walks with heroes. Fred is brilliant (and, honestly, something of a Mary Sue), but she is a normal woman. It isn't too much of a stretch, when she has two super-powered vampires in love with the same woman standing right in front of her, to think that she might consider what kind of a superhero a woman like Buffy Summers must be.
In those two areas, I think it works.
C) This section was important in establishing a kind of continuity between the end of "Chosen" and the moment Buffy and Spike are reunited. Buffy's name pops up several times in AtS S5, often in relation with Spike's, but I don't think we really see much of what he's feeling about her or why he decides he's going to stay in L.A. That's...okay within the context of the show, and honestly, that's how it has to be because the show is about Angel, not Spike, and especially not Spike-and-Buffy--except, say, in "Destiny" and "The Girl in Question" when how Spike relates to Buffy also affects Angel by extension.
However, that won't work in this Spike-centric story. Instead, I have to say: "Look, Spike's been thinking about Buffy, he still loves her, and someone noticed." It comes across, honestly, as pretty sappy, but it does get accomplished.
Dawn:
A) Ah, Dawnie. How I love you. An entirely underrated character, though this section is mostly noticing Buffy. But I think that's in character for Dawn: like it or not (and I'm sure the girl feels some bitterness sometimes), Buffy is far and away the most important person in her life. Plus, Dawn is all about the keen observeyness, as Xander notes in "Potential" (*sob*). In this section, I'm contrasting Dawn noticing her sister's grief with the fact that no one else does. She also notices a few other things--in particular, the way everyone treats their memories of S6 and also the fact that Buffy's never had time to mourn.
In addition to the powers of observation which I find vital to Dawn's character, I also throw in a few other tidbits about her: that she still thinks about Spike through the lines about his vocabulary, that she definitely has an opinion on Buffy's boyfriend, and that she's much more comfortable with the idea of comforting her sister than Buffy probably would be. Dawn has always seemed to me like the kind of person who's going to face things head-on and not ignore them. It's just that here she wants to help but isn't exactly sure how.
B) Since I wrote this fic, I've come to appreciate Dawn far more than I did the first time around. If I was writing it now, I'd have lots more insight into who I think Dawn is. This section serves its purpose (see below), but it isn't as interesting and nuanced as I'd like. Dawn deserves better.
C) This section is supposed to parallel the first: Fred was thinking about Spike thinking about Buffy; now Dawn is thinking about Buffy thinking about Spike. This section establishes that what we saw in "The Girl in Question" is canon--Buffy is in Rome, dating the Immortal--but there's more going on with her--she's mourning and bonding with her sister--than we'd have known. Check.
Gunn:
A) I love Gunn. But of nearly all the major characters in the Buffyverse, he's the one I feel like I don't know very well (there's an entire post about this floating around in my mind somewhere, but I'll save it for another day). Suffice it to say that we don't know a whole lot about his life, either outward or inward, and because of this, he's kind of hard to write.
However, I feel that Gunn can fill the same type of role that Dawn or Xander can (once again, I'm referencing that powerful final scene in "Potential"): the normal person that no one's ever looking at who can watch everyone else. So in this section, he's noticing the brittleness, the mounting tension between Angel and Spike, and it still takes him a couple of days to notice that what they're so worked up about is Buffy, which feels much more in character than if I'd had him immediately leap to that conclusion.
Gunn is also filled with regret: his thoughts are with his sister, with Fred, with Wes, with Cordy. He's lost a lot, poor guy.
The most important line for me, the one that is very, very Gunn is this one: and no matter how long he lives, he still won’t ever reach the point where he can see that [a vampire slipping into game face] and not feel the need to reach for the nearest weapon). He may have allied himself with Angel, but Gunn doesn't trust vamps. In NFA, he's back with his ax, taking out the vampires, because that's who he is, that's what he does. That's what this line is for me.
Also, Gunn doesn't put up with any b.s.: his fault for going after the dragon when he’s flammable is one of my favorite lines, because Gunn's much more of a pragmatist than anyone else in the room at the moment. And he has no patience for Angel's brooding, either.
B) Gunn is obviously not going to spend much time--if any at all--thinking about Spike and Buffy. That's entirely out of character. However, at this moment he's in an enclosed space with three other people. Illyria's not a great conversationalist, and Angel and Spike are all focused on each other (and, by extension, Buffy). And like I said, it takes him a while to even think about it.
There's nothing here that's out of character, I don't think, but I'd love to rewatch Angel all the way through paying close attention to Gunn and then come back and add a little bit more nuance to this scene.
C) I needed a catalyst for Spike--something to send him back to Buffy when he hasn't gone back to her or communicated with her in about a year. Being in an enclosed space with Angel for days on end without being able to escape each other's company should do nicely, right? Thus, this section isn't about Spike's fluffy feelings for Buffy...so I don't include any.
Willow:
A) My post-Chosen Willow is still trying to pick up the pieces. She's always been the one who wants everything to be right between the people she cares about, wants everyone she loves to be happy, and they aren't, not really. So this Willow is torn between pain at seeing how much healing everyone still has to do and joy at having them all--everyone who counts--together again.
We have some more Willow characteristics in the second half of the section--cataloging the expressions on Buffy's face, a little bit of that Scooby expectation that Buffy will always be strong, and a bit more poetry than has shown up in any of the other characters' sections--Willow is very book smart, after all, and I don't have any sort of problem with imagining her seeing the motifs in the world around her.
B) Yeah. I think it works. No major regrets with the Willow section.
C) Buffy and Spike need to be reuinted. How? The typical choices either seem to be Buffy crying, Buffy punching Spike, Buffy kissing him, or some combination of all three. None of these seemed right for me--for one thing, they're in the sight of others, and Buffy's not a huge one for PDA, the balcony in "Dead Things" aside. The drama isn't the point of this story, either, and I wanted them to take their time in getting together again.
Still, these two have always been about body language, about touch. A kiss was too strong for what I wanted to accomplish, so Buffy just lays her hand on his chest and they stare at each other. It works for me.
Angel:
Let's just get this out of the way: Angel is hard for me to write.
Now that we've got that covered, we can move on. I wanted an Angel who still cares about Buffy deeply, who still has a lot of regrets and might-have-beens...but who isn't that jealous, overprotective ex who keeps popping up in fic. Even though I think Buffy and Angel have both changed a tremendous amount since they parted ways in S3, I also wanted to say, "You know what? He does know her pretty well, and there are a lot of things he appreciates about her." He gets short shrift in Spuffy fic, where we get told that he puts her on a pedestal and never really saw her for who she is. And while there are a lot of changes in her that he missed and I do think his perception of her doesn't quite line up with reality's (but then again, no one's does), in this story he does appreciate her righteous fury, and he does notice her weariness.
Aside from Buffy, I also wanted him to really ask important questions about life and death: why do some get a second chance while others don't? Angel is obviously a vampire, an immortal, and he's going to think about the nature of life and death a lot. He's lost most of the people he cares about during the last year, and I had to acknowledge that.
B) If I had to do this over again, I would have mentioned Connor more. Because I can't imagine Angel not relating everything back to his son. Also, I'd have him thinking more about Spike, because I love Angel and Spike's interactions. Other than that, it works.
C) There's a mini-character arc for Buffy here: from fury at the beginning of the section to defeat, to acceptance, to laughter. The fury and the defeat are tied to Angel, since he's the one she's talking to at the beginning; the acceptance and laughter have more to do with Spike, and he enters the room then. He can give her that laughter, while Angel can't anymore. Poor guy.
More to come: the last five characters and and some wrapping-it-up thoughts.
snickfic's journal, I was inspired to really explore what I wanted to accomplish with Kaleidoscope. It's the fic that is the most read (or at least most-reviewed) and most-awarded of my Buffy fics, and it was also my first fic in the fandom, so it seems a decent place to start.snickfic was commenting on how off-putting it can be in fic "when the purpose of one or more secondary characters is to have Insights about the main character, independent of their own character development." I think this is a very true statement (we in particular talked about how this sort of device mistreats Tara so horribly), and--of course--it made me think of my fanfic that is the story of Buffy and Spike through the lenses of all the other characters. I think the story works, but why? I'm going to ramble about that for a while, if anyone's interested.There are two things to keep in mind here: I actually love seeing a character/couple/friendship/place that I love through the eyes of another character when that character doesn't suffer because of it. The character can't be the mouthpiece of the fangirly writer (as I note below, I sometimes fail in this regard), nor can the character act out of character--for example, thinking more about another character/pairing than he or she actually would. In this meta, I'll explore whether I think if I succeeded in sticking to those two rules.
Second, most of my writing is extremely intuitive. I don't often think, "I'm going to add this as a metaphor or a motif or for this reason or that." I write something, feel that it's right and move on, or I feel that it's wrong, and I fix it--without taking much time to figure out why it was wrong and the edit is right. Because of this, I hadn't thought of a lot of things on a conscious level until this moment. It'll be interesting to see what I find.
There are two ways to read this story. The first is the more straightforward way, the one you do without really thinking too deeply: read it straight as a Spuffy story that just happens to be told from the points of view of different characters either for variety's sake or as a gimmick. There's nothing wrong, of course, with reading it that way, and honestly, that was how my conscious mind wrote it. But there's another way, one that I think is better and richer, and besides: this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Who doesn't want to be subversive?
This second way is this: what do the ways in which each character approaches the Buffy/Spike relationship say about that character? By reading it in this way, the story then becomes a collection of character-studies instead of a straight romance.
Let me summarize the two approaches:
1. Are you reading a story about Buffy/Spike as seen through the lens of various other characters?
-or-
2. Are you reading a story about each one of these characters through the lens of the Buffy/Spike relationship?
I'm going to examine each section in order and talk about A) what I wanted to say about the narrator, and B) whether I succeeded or not, and C) what I wanted to say about Buffy and Spike.
Fred:
A) Fred's section is actually, in retrospect, the weakest. I'm kind of disappointed that she's the character who starts out the fic because of this weakness--even if it's entirely necessary because 1) she's dead for the rest of the time covered in the fic, and 2) I really like the bookends of having Fred open the fic and Illyria end it, even if that was more of a subconscious thing.
In this section, Fred fangirls. She really, really does. She's noticing how wonderful Spike is and how in love he is and how awesome Buffy must be...and this doesn't do great things for her character. Part of this might be my lack of enthusiasm for her as a character. Not to go too deeply into it, but I loved Fred while she was first on the show, but by the time S5 comes around, she no longer has any flaws, and I can only see her as a Mary Sue (compare the characters' reactions to her death with their reactions to Cordy's. See what I mean?). I don't have a ton that I want to explore with her as I do with nearly every other character here. I touch on the fact that she's well aware of Wes's feelings for her and that she hasn't forgotten about Gunn entirely. I also mention Pylea really changing her worldview, and I think that's a strong point, but other than that, I don't have any real insights into her character.
Major fail on my part. If I had the chance to rewrite this fic, hers is the section that would have the biggest overhaul.
B). There are a couple of things about her section that I'm proud of, though.
She has to make adjustments in her own mind, because half the time Spike is morose and repentant, making himself out as the villain of the story and taking the blame for things even she knows couldn’t possibly be his fault, and the other half he’s ranting about the blindness, selfishness, insensitivity of everyone else, especially Buffy. I like this a lot, because, yes, Spike is a really bad liar and, yes, Spike is the character who speaks the truth the other characters can't or won't see, and yes, Spike is kind of an open book--we all know that and harp on it in fic a lot. However. He can skew things, mostly without meaning to, and he's not a totally reliable narrator, especially when it comes to his own story (the contrast between what we can infer he's telling Buffy and what we know really happened in his flashbacks in "Fool for Love" tell us this). I imagine that if he was talking about his relationship with Buffy at all he would do it with a woman, as Spike is always much closer to women--and in this case, it would have to be Fred since no one else is around (BOO, JOSS! WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO CORDY?)--and he would do it in just the way I described here.
The other part I really like is the part where she's wondering about what kind of woman Buffy must be. This isn't something I would typically have Fred thinking about, as I imagine Buffy wouldn't often be on her mind (except for this particular moment). However, we have the line in "A Hole in the World" where she says that she walks with heroes. Fred is brilliant (and, honestly, something of a Mary Sue), but she is a normal woman. It isn't too much of a stretch, when she has two super-powered vampires in love with the same woman standing right in front of her, to think that she might consider what kind of a superhero a woman like Buffy Summers must be.
In those two areas, I think it works.
C) This section was important in establishing a kind of continuity between the end of "Chosen" and the moment Buffy and Spike are reunited. Buffy's name pops up several times in AtS S5, often in relation with Spike's, but I don't think we really see much of what he's feeling about her or why he decides he's going to stay in L.A. That's...okay within the context of the show, and honestly, that's how it has to be because the show is about Angel, not Spike, and especially not Spike-and-Buffy--except, say, in "Destiny" and "The Girl in Question" when how Spike relates to Buffy also affects Angel by extension.
However, that won't work in this Spike-centric story. Instead, I have to say: "Look, Spike's been thinking about Buffy, he still loves her, and someone noticed." It comes across, honestly, as pretty sappy, but it does get accomplished.
Dawn:
A) Ah, Dawnie. How I love you. An entirely underrated character, though this section is mostly noticing Buffy. But I think that's in character for Dawn: like it or not (and I'm sure the girl feels some bitterness sometimes), Buffy is far and away the most important person in her life. Plus, Dawn is all about the keen observeyness, as Xander notes in "Potential" (*sob*). In this section, I'm contrasting Dawn noticing her sister's grief with the fact that no one else does. She also notices a few other things--in particular, the way everyone treats their memories of S6 and also the fact that Buffy's never had time to mourn.
In addition to the powers of observation which I find vital to Dawn's character, I also throw in a few other tidbits about her: that she still thinks about Spike through the lines about his vocabulary, that she definitely has an opinion on Buffy's boyfriend, and that she's much more comfortable with the idea of comforting her sister than Buffy probably would be. Dawn has always seemed to me like the kind of person who's going to face things head-on and not ignore them. It's just that here she wants to help but isn't exactly sure how.
B) Since I wrote this fic, I've come to appreciate Dawn far more than I did the first time around. If I was writing it now, I'd have lots more insight into who I think Dawn is. This section serves its purpose (see below), but it isn't as interesting and nuanced as I'd like. Dawn deserves better.
C) This section is supposed to parallel the first: Fred was thinking about Spike thinking about Buffy; now Dawn is thinking about Buffy thinking about Spike. This section establishes that what we saw in "The Girl in Question" is canon--Buffy is in Rome, dating the Immortal--but there's more going on with her--she's mourning and bonding with her sister--than we'd have known. Check.
Gunn:
A) I love Gunn. But of nearly all the major characters in the Buffyverse, he's the one I feel like I don't know very well (there's an entire post about this floating around in my mind somewhere, but I'll save it for another day). Suffice it to say that we don't know a whole lot about his life, either outward or inward, and because of this, he's kind of hard to write.
However, I feel that Gunn can fill the same type of role that Dawn or Xander can (once again, I'm referencing that powerful final scene in "Potential"): the normal person that no one's ever looking at who can watch everyone else. So in this section, he's noticing the brittleness, the mounting tension between Angel and Spike, and it still takes him a couple of days to notice that what they're so worked up about is Buffy, which feels much more in character than if I'd had him immediately leap to that conclusion.
Gunn is also filled with regret: his thoughts are with his sister, with Fred, with Wes, with Cordy. He's lost a lot, poor guy.
The most important line for me, the one that is very, very Gunn is this one: and no matter how long he lives, he still won’t ever reach the point where he can see that [a vampire slipping into game face] and not feel the need to reach for the nearest weapon). He may have allied himself with Angel, but Gunn doesn't trust vamps. In NFA, he's back with his ax, taking out the vampires, because that's who he is, that's what he does. That's what this line is for me.
Also, Gunn doesn't put up with any b.s.: his fault for going after the dragon when he’s flammable is one of my favorite lines, because Gunn's much more of a pragmatist than anyone else in the room at the moment. And he has no patience for Angel's brooding, either.
B) Gunn is obviously not going to spend much time--if any at all--thinking about Spike and Buffy. That's entirely out of character. However, at this moment he's in an enclosed space with three other people. Illyria's not a great conversationalist, and Angel and Spike are all focused on each other (and, by extension, Buffy). And like I said, it takes him a while to even think about it.
There's nothing here that's out of character, I don't think, but I'd love to rewatch Angel all the way through paying close attention to Gunn and then come back and add a little bit more nuance to this scene.
C) I needed a catalyst for Spike--something to send him back to Buffy when he hasn't gone back to her or communicated with her in about a year. Being in an enclosed space with Angel for days on end without being able to escape each other's company should do nicely, right? Thus, this section isn't about Spike's fluffy feelings for Buffy...so I don't include any.
Willow:
A) My post-Chosen Willow is still trying to pick up the pieces. She's always been the one who wants everything to be right between the people she cares about, wants everyone she loves to be happy, and they aren't, not really. So this Willow is torn between pain at seeing how much healing everyone still has to do and joy at having them all--everyone who counts--together again.
We have some more Willow characteristics in the second half of the section--cataloging the expressions on Buffy's face, a little bit of that Scooby expectation that Buffy will always be strong, and a bit more poetry than has shown up in any of the other characters' sections--Willow is very book smart, after all, and I don't have any sort of problem with imagining her seeing the motifs in the world around her.
B) Yeah. I think it works. No major regrets with the Willow section.
C) Buffy and Spike need to be reuinted. How? The typical choices either seem to be Buffy crying, Buffy punching Spike, Buffy kissing him, or some combination of all three. None of these seemed right for me--for one thing, they're in the sight of others, and Buffy's not a huge one for PDA, the balcony in "Dead Things" aside. The drama isn't the point of this story, either, and I wanted them to take their time in getting together again.
Still, these two have always been about body language, about touch. A kiss was too strong for what I wanted to accomplish, so Buffy just lays her hand on his chest and they stare at each other. It works for me.
Angel:
Let's just get this out of the way: Angel is hard for me to write.
Now that we've got that covered, we can move on. I wanted an Angel who still cares about Buffy deeply, who still has a lot of regrets and might-have-beens...but who isn't that jealous, overprotective ex who keeps popping up in fic. Even though I think Buffy and Angel have both changed a tremendous amount since they parted ways in S3, I also wanted to say, "You know what? He does know her pretty well, and there are a lot of things he appreciates about her." He gets short shrift in Spuffy fic, where we get told that he puts her on a pedestal and never really saw her for who she is. And while there are a lot of changes in her that he missed and I do think his perception of her doesn't quite line up with reality's (but then again, no one's does), in this story he does appreciate her righteous fury, and he does notice her weariness.
Aside from Buffy, I also wanted him to really ask important questions about life and death: why do some get a second chance while others don't? Angel is obviously a vampire, an immortal, and he's going to think about the nature of life and death a lot. He's lost most of the people he cares about during the last year, and I had to acknowledge that.
B) If I had to do this over again, I would have mentioned Connor more. Because I can't imagine Angel not relating everything back to his son. Also, I'd have him thinking more about Spike, because I love Angel and Spike's interactions. Other than that, it works.
C) There's a mini-character arc for Buffy here: from fury at the beginning of the section to defeat, to acceptance, to laughter. The fury and the defeat are tied to Angel, since he's the one she's talking to at the beginning; the acceptance and laughter have more to do with Spike, and he enters the room then. He can give her that laughter, while Angel can't anymore. Poor guy.
More to come: the last five characters and and some wrapping-it-up thoughts.
no subject
and i am just realizing now that i have icons for every canon buffy ship? this is my life. ugh this 'verse was so good, i miss it dearly.
no subject
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I did it mostly for my own satisfaction, so it makes me really happy that you liked reading it.
There were so many awesome ships. I'm definitely a Buffy/Spike girl, but I also loved Spike/Dru and Xander/Cordy and Willow/Oz and Giles/Jenny and I could go on and on and on!