Happy Birthmonth Bone_dry1013: Meta-fic-y goodness & Crossing Jordan Icons

[red_satin_doll]

Happy birthmonth to bone_dry1013 , with whom I've spent many, many hours discussing one of our favorite subjects:  Buffy Anne Summers, not just as part of a 'ship but in her entirety: friends, lovers, psychological traumas and personal triumphs.  ("Many, many hours" is not an exaggeration, btw; I mean, literally all day last Thursday while I was at the Cape. P'town and the sand dunes just had to wait.)

Bonedry's multi-chapter "metafic" Origins completely re-images Buffy's story pre-series from her Calling to the beginning of the show; it discards most of the semi-canon version of Joss' original script for the film and the comics based on it.  The Seasons series (in S1 now) is slightly different in that the "camp" of S1 in canon is discarded in favor of a darker tone more in keeping with S2 and later. Canon events are not discarded but the focus is on the emotional and psychological fallout from those events. The fic incorporates the Normal Again!verse and the Key!verse, although Dawn is not a huge presence here.  I particularly love the use of Slayer dreams in this fic, including the fantastic notion of Buffy receiving the first inkling of her calling through one before Merrick finds her.

The Master Post has links to all the chapters, meta essays and pretty, pretty banners/artwork in one convenient place. (Yes, meta essays about a meta fic about Buffy Summers. I HAVE DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN, Y'ALL.)

"it requires me to try to synthesize an episode as it is within both my knowledge/interpretation of canon (through the series) and my invention of Buffy's Calling and her subsequent experiences before she came to the Hellmouth, the goal being to more or less erase the lines between episodes – to make the seasons (and the series) one big story, rather than a collection of a lot of smaller ones."

Origins/Season1 is a nominee in the No Rest For the Wicked Awards and round 29 of the Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards.

*********

At Bonedry's rec I watched the series Crossing Jordan this year because we were both bitching about how stupid Bones had become mid-S3 on. CJ is a smarter, darker and somewhat grubbier predecessor to Bones, which "borrows" many elements of the earlier series. (Although the attempts to deal with race, gender and sexual orientation are problematic at best.) I had a huge crush on Jill Hennessey  in the '90's when she was a regular on Law & Order, so I'm not sure why it took me so long to check out the series. I don't love Jordan Cavenaugh as much as Buffy, of course, but she was so much fun to watch. And Garret Macy and Renee Walcott might be my second-favorite canon 'ship after Buffy & Spike. Their banter was sexy, witty, angry, mature, evoking old-school movie couples; like Buffy and Spike they're perfectly matched characters.

So I'm returning the favor to Bonedry with some CJ icons.  Weirdly enough there's only one fansite, Crossing Jordan Online, dedicated to the show currently with screencaps, from which I've borrowed the images for these. Enjoy the pretties.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Fics are now tabbed to be read. It will be interesting stepping out of my little Spuffy bubble.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I think you'll really enjoy the dream sequences!

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I must admit...I have to agree with you on Bones. I stopped watching about a season and a half ago because I was just burned out on the plots.

I will have to keep Crossing Jordan in mind. Your icons look really nice!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm not happy with a lot of them, but a few I like, such as the first one of Jordan looking wiped out. somebody's gonna find that one useful. (I never am happy with my icons but then I'm always comparing myself to other folks work and thinking "I don't have swirly effects." Or valyssia's work - the icon I'm using now - pure ART.)

It's weird I talked my sweetie into watching Bones and now - I grump about who the heck would be into this shit and why would anyone put up with the stupidity and the way they constantly dumb down the protagonist - and it turns out my sweetie is the one who really enjoys it. She finds it funny.

We watch on Netflix and I really don't know that I want to watch S8. She likes it so we probably will. I'm thinking I need to move on to Breaking Bad.

[bone-dry1013.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks so much (for the rec, the wishes, and for CJ)! Sorry, I've been AFK under a pile of books, so I only just got the chance to respond.

I love the icons! Particularly 2 (I actually made one out of 4 awhile ago; I loved that shot). Between Buffy, Castle, and homework, I haven't had a chance to rerun CJ in awhile, but now I'm really thinking I might have to take the time.

And thanks for having those hours of conversations with me! Really got me back into the writing/thinking stride. Increasingly over the last few years I've been feeling like true-blooded fandom culture is kind of dying (I suspect because of phone culture or, as my friend suggested, the Tumblr-ization of fandom; probably a combination of both), so it's been really nice to actually talk about a show again. Especially Buffy, since she's my favorite character ever.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You're very very welcome hon! I've been wanting to put those up for a while - actually since mid-August but the fire and life and all that jazz - so I definitely understand. (Isn't #4 a fantastic shot, btw? Gah. I don't understand why there aren't more fansites for that show if only because Jill Hennessey is so freakin' gorgeous. Srsly.) I'm kind of fond of 11 & 12 with Garret Macy; I wanted to do better ones of Renee but the caps at that website are sort of sub-par. I seriously love that 'ship.

And I'm the one whose grateful to you for writing the story and hosting the conversations! I get so much pleasure from them. They've meant a lot to me and I'm not kidding when I say your thoughts about Buffy post-series have really influenced the fics I'm writing now. I've heard other people, such as lanoyee say the same thing about the "tumblr-ization" of fandom, but it's not a format that interests me, and yes, people are focusing on Supernatural, True Blood, etc.

But I think there's also the fact that there isn't a single site our focal point for conversation and fandom interest anymore, especially when it comes to Buffy herself; still lots of love for Spike, but it's scattered on several sites; I've seen more Spike/Xander fic, lots of Buffy/Giles fic (Summer of Giles seems quite popular lately.) But there isn't anything along the lines of My Buffyholism is Showing, and the intense interest and conversation that came out of that from about 2008-2010. (And I really haven't kept up my intention to post more often and keep the convo going, and want to try to do better in the coming year.)

Especially Buffy, since she's my favorite character ever.

When I say I love her "like a house a-fire" I don't say that lightly (given my own recent housefire!) I just "get" her on a very deep level; sometimes with this post-series fic I've been writing I don't exactly know sometimes how she'd react but investigating that is part of the joy of it for me.

[bone-dry1013.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why there aren't more fansites for that show if only because Jill Hennessey is so freakin' gorgeous. Srsly.

Yeah, tell me about it. I keep thinking about putting up a Blogger or something for CJ and posting transcripts and screencaps to it, but I just haven't worked out the time to do it (and I have so many screencaps already...).

But I think there's also the fact that there isn't a single site our focal point for conversation and fandom interest anymore

I'm seeing this across a lot of fandoms, not just Buffy, which is what's frustrating. There are still central fansites for some shows (the ones I care about, anyway), but it seems like in the last few years those hubs/forums have been seeing a lot, lot less activity in favor of short, shallow tweets and GIFs and general Tumblr sort of activity. LJ seems to have lost a lot of its population and popularity too, which is annoying, since this was one of the last places to reliably find discussion. And I'm seeing that in FF too, now that I'm posting there again; just a few years ago it seems like people were commenting a lot more, but nowadays it's mostly devolved to a silent subscription and a favorite...
I think it's probably because a few years ago smart phones weren't such a big thing, but nowadays a large percentage of people reading fic are on their phones, so they don't take the time to comment or think or anything.
(sorry, just been thinking about that a lot, since I posted a few drabbles on FF and got flooded with email notifications from people subbing and favoriting but received barely any feedback at all; just in '08, that wouldn't really have happened)

Watching the Buffy fandom slowly die is just painful on top of it.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

but I just haven't worked out the time to do it (and I have so many screencaps already...).

And then you're supposed to eat and do schoolwork WHEN, exactly? (Without an existing fanbase/audience to rally around it, I daresay it would be frustrating anyway.)

in favor of short, shallow tweets and GIFs and general Tumblr sort of activity.

Yeah, it's a bit like what happened when TV became popular decades ago and movie attendance dropped, then tv had to compete with home video, then with computers then....it's been getting faster and faster. (I really DO NOT think the human brain was meant to handle this amount of information at the speed we're trying to do so. No wonder ADD is becoming so pervasive. We can't pay attention for any length of time any more because we're not encouraged or rewarded for doing so. That's in addition to all the directions life tears us in on top of that.)

seeing a lot, lot less activity in favor of short, shallow tweets and GIFs and general Tumblr sort of activity.

There have been times when I've read a fanfic and not really wanted or had time to do a review but wanted to let the author know I've read it, and wished there was a "like" function as with Facebook. And I don't even go on my facebook page all that often (I mostly ignore it because it's an ADD nightmare). And even some of my "meta posts" for Buffy, where otherwise I might have written paragraphs of description, I've just placed a couple of screencaps together for comparison and let readers draw their own conclusions. It's a lazy way for me to "write an essay" without writing an essay; the irony being that it takes a lot of damn time to find, sort, store and edit those caps in the first place. http://red-satin-doll.livejournal.com/15801.html

BTW - by FF are you referring to Ff.net (Fanfiction.net) or another site? comlodge reported to me recently that she's gotten some very good numbers re: readers there, as opposed to AO3 but I hadn't asked about actual feedback. I used to post on Ff.net in the Moulin Rouge cat over ten years ago, haven't done so in ages; and for some reason I'm not really attracted to the site anymore. (Maybe I remember it as being dominated mostly by a lot of really horrible prose, with a few rare gems to be found in the muck, if you looked carefully. Or maybe it's memories of trying to format that thing. Oh, the trauma *raises hand to forehead and sighs*)

I don't have a smartphone but my sweetie has an ipod - she's gone from hating computers to using them reluctantly, to having a desktop, a laptop and her ipod is her CONSTANT companion. She looks up her emails on the laptop but I can't figure out how she can stand that little screen.

She's talked about getting an iPad for me as a replacement for the desktop i.e. a computer that I can use for my stuff instead of her laptop and I feel like, um, ok, cute toy, but I can't imagine sitting in front of that screen for any length of time and do any serious work on it.

Watching the Buffy fandom slowly die is just painful on top of it.

And every time on LJ lately I've seen someone post an opinion to that effect it's generated a very long convo thread. It's not as lively - but if the fandom a few years ago was mostly centered on the comics and the controversy thus surrounding them - well, it's probably a double-edged sword. More activity, more people discovering the fandom, but more anger and arguing as well. (And the revival of the shipper wars oh hurray everyone really wanted that, didn't they? */end sarcasm*)

In other words, I refuse to believe the fandom is dying. Just resting a bit.

[bone-dry1013.livejournal.com]

(Without an existing fanbase/audience to rally around it, I daresay it would be frustrating anyway.)

Yeah, that's the primary barrier. And between three fics that for some reason I decided was a good idea to be working on/posting concurrently... as it is there have lately been days where I've been writing since getting off school and suddenly I realize it's 11:34 and something is due tomorrow and I forgot to eat but I also forgot to go shopping but all I want to do is keep writing...

(I really DO NOT think the human brain was meant to handle this amount of information at the speed we're trying to do so. No wonder ADD is becoming so pervasive...)

I honestly think you're right. I feel like I'm living in a world of over-saturation, but all the colors bleed away and get replaced by something new everytime I try to look at them. And the internet is such a good visual metaphor for it, when you can just watch the update count climb, when you can barely finish reading a meme before it gets buried under a hundred more. And it's hard because I want to focus (which is probably why I like single-focus activities that take massive amounts of time, like writing and art), but the world is always pulling me in a dozen different directions between my likes and classes and other people and other activities/obligations. It just doesn't feel like a healthy mindset or way to live, but short of becoming a hermit, it doesn't seem like there's much of a way to simplify.

There have been times when I've read a fanfic and not really wanted or had time to do a review but wanted to let the author know I've read it, and wished there was a "like" function as with Facebook.

I can get that, but just back in '09 it feels like the amount of lurkers/subbers and the amount of reviewers was a lot closer together. I'm kind of glad there isn't a like function, because I feel like that'd make it even easier for people not to say anything.

she's gotten some very good numbers re: readers there

Yeah, I mean, actual view count is great on the site (and, yes, I am talking about fanfiction.net), but review count is terrible. I think one of the primary problems with that site is it doesn't encourage discussion at all, since the reply system is awful. And you're right that the vast majority of the stuff posted there is beyond terrible, but I have found the rare and occasional gem there.
But, I mean, I got 2.2k views yesterday, between a drabble I'd posted a few hours to midnight and then an update to the longfic (this is for Castle), and I think somewhere around 30+ new subscriptions, but very little actual written response. Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing? I dunno, it's just kind of frustrating, since feedback is the only way we get paid for our time. One PM I got yesterday meant more to me than seeing how many people were reading, if that makes sense.

...to having a desktop, a laptop and her ipod is her CONSTANT companion.

A pattern that's becoming increasingly pervasive. See: my grandmother.

More activity, more people discovering the fandom, but more anger and arguing as well. (And the revival of the shipper wars oh hurray everyone really wanted that, didn't they? */end sarcasm*)

Oh, no, you're completely right. And I've ranted for hours about the horrors/annoyances of fandom and the people it attracts (oh god, fluffernutter shippers, why?), but the lack of centralized forum and places to find people who care about the same crap you do is frustrating. But I am glad for your optimism, that fandom is resting rather than dying. I hope we do see a resurgence, that we'll see people deciding they'd prefer actual discussion over slapping impact font on a screencap... that'd be great, even if it'd also be pretty awful (fannits and stupid arguments that always seem to fall six hundred yards short of the point...).