Recs #9

[snick_backup]

This ended up being the late-season Spike/Buffy/Spuffy recs list. It’s all S6 or later, all involving either Spike or Buffy or both and accompanied variously by Dawn, Tara, Oz, Illyria, Faith, and Nikki Wood.

Organized by season, because I felt like it.

S6

Old Year's Eve, by st_salieri
Dawn makes a discovery about Spike and Buffy and another discovery about herself. This is Dawn-growing-up fic, beautifully written and with the sense of weight and melancholy growing up brings.

untitled Valentine’s Day vignette thingy by theohara
Tara stumbles across Spike in the greeting card aisle, just before Valentine’s Day. Cue quiet companionship and sharing of respective relationship woes. One of those pieces I reread when I want to cry.

S7

Take the Heat, by Estepheia
Sometime before S7, Oz spots Spike in a crowd. What comes next is one of those moments of unexpected grace that never fail to move me. Plus, yanno: Oz!

Nothing Special, by deird1
Brief, quiet Buffy-and-Dawn sisterly fluff snuck in during the S7 chaos. I think I love this partly just because I love their sister relationship so much, and there isn’t near enough fic about it.

Microwave Meals (Quick, Easy, and Sometimes Satisfying, by quinara
And more S7 fluff, this time of the Spuffy variety. If I ever come around to liking S7 Spuffy, it’ll be because of folks on the flist like Quin and fics like this. Quiet, gentle, funny, hopeful.

Wayward, by Devil Piglet
Nikki Wood shows up at the house on Revello; Spike is tasked with taking care of her. Long and mildly plotty and heavily angsty. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this fic around before and was positive it wouldn’t work, but lo! it does, at least for me.

Post-Series

Winds Blowing Chill, by brutti_ma_buoni
Rulesverse Buffy starts thinking about babies, but in the Rulesverse there are no quick fixes for the vampire reproduction problem, which leads to one of the more emotionally complex pieces of Spuffy babyfic I’ve ever read. Also: excellent Buffy voice.

Angels in the Architecture, by only_passenger
This is the closest I’ve ever seen to the long, character-study style genfic of Buffy&Faith post-Chosen that I keep wanting. They have such a fascinating dynamic and so many issues, and this explores a few of them.

The Last Fingers of Leaf, by quinara
Buffy and Illyria. A dragon. Pizza. Combined, they’re an unexpected pleasure as the two find commonalities that I’d never have thought of. Poignant and elegantly written.

Life in the Present Tense, by penny_lane_42
A long, delicious series of vignettes of Buffy, Spike, and Dawn living in Rome. Lirazel describes this as self-indulgent Spuffy fluff, but yanno, sometimes that’s just what a person wants. Rich and gorgeous and hopeful.

Comments

[quinara]

Ooh, it's me on a rec list! Twice! Thank you very very much - considering how much I love the other fics on there, I'm going to take it as a very big compliment. Especially Wayward.

And you don't like S7 Spuffy? :O ( ;) )

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I want to personally thank you for joining my campaign to convince Snick to enjoy S7!Spuffy. IT'S MY LIFE'S MISSION. *salute*

[quinara]

*signs up - if only as a summer job!*

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I take all the volunteers I can get!

[snickfic]

You're very welcome!

We've had this conversation before, right? About me and S7!Spike and S7!Spuffy? I just... eh.

[quinara]

We've had this conversation before, right? About me and S7!Spike and S7!Spuffy? I just... eh.

Almost certainly - I think I must have forgotten. S7 Spuffy definitely lacks a certain oomph - I'm happy to accept I'm the strange one for liking my romances with the least amount of romance possible.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Awww! It is self-indulgent, but I guess that's not such a bad thing when someone else finds it indulgent as well. Thanks for the kind words!

Also: there are actually some on here I haven't read. I read all the good Buffy/Spike (or Buffy-and-Dawn. Or Spike-and-Dawn) fics as they come out, but you always manage to find a few I've overlooked. Thanks!

[snickfic]

Really, there's some you haven't read? I've found myself pulling a lot more from the flist lately, so I kinda figured most people had seen most of them. Which ones are new to you?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

HA! Now that I look at it, like half of them!

I hadn't seen "Old Year's Eve" or the Valentine's one or "Take the Heat" or "Angels in the Architecture" (though I had heard of the last one, but I thought it was more about Faith. If I'd known it was Faith-and-Buffy I'd've checked it out long ago!).

Also, I had seen "Winds Blowing Chill," but I haven't read the rest of the Rulesverse, and I hate popping in in the middle of the a series.

Also, most of those people aren't on my own flist, so that's why they passed me by. If they aren't on my flist and they don't post to at least one of the Spuffy communities or at an outside archive, I tend to miss things.

[snickfic]

You haven't read the Rulesverse?!? But it's the best Faith/Giles going! And it has Spuffy! And Wes/Illyria! And Illyria giving advice!

And frankly, you can kind of drop into it anywhere you want; she's not writing chronologically anyway. She has a timeline here. The Spuffy stuff doesn't depend too heavily on anything else that's going on, and the various bits aren't really plot-dependent on one another.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I just don't know that I could drop in at any point! I'm pretty laid back about most things, but I'm kind of compulsive about experiencing stories in the order in which they're meant to be experienced (I still sometimes sit around and think about whether I should read the Narnia books to my future kids/nieces and nephews in chronological order or in the order they were published). Just thinking about not reading everything in the correct order is stressing me out!

*deep breath* I'm going to have to think about this.

[snickfic]

Housemate says: the order in which they were published. No question. (I concur.)

(Also, I love you sit around thinking about this. Just further proof that you are in so many ways My Kind of Person.)

As for the Rulesverse, if you like you could start with this one, which is the first she wrote, and then work forward through her archives. (She does not, alas, seem to have a tag, just the index page.)

Or, you know, not. Don't let me stress you out.

ETA: Except, you're the one who was going on a while back about undermining linearity and masculine-style narrative. *eyebrow* Think of all those different pieces as parentheticals. (I still mean to get back to you on that email, BTW. There's a lot in there I want to dig into.)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Well, I would always start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, actually, because that has to be first. But I always wonder if then it should The Magician's Nephew?

It's just strange to me that even with other series that were published out of order--like, say, the Anne books, or the Little House books, or any of the series by Madeleine L'Engle--you always read chronologically, but for some reason Narnia is the one exception to that. It baffles me.

(Hee! Yes indeed! I have a whole long list of books that I must share with various familial offspring. Or the kids of my good friends. I don't know that I'll get married, and if I do, I don't know if I want kids, but half the reason I would want to is so that I could share awesome books with them. When I picture being a parent, it's nearly always reading to my kids.)

I will definitely give it a try. I trust your taste. :D

[ETA] You're right about undermining linear structure, and I absolutely love stories that are told in non-linear fashion. FAULKNER FAULKNER FAULKNER. I'm really crazy about that sort of thing.

But for some reason when it's books (or stories) that are written in a fairly straight-forward fashion, where the whole point of the structure isn't to be non-linear, I get all obsessive about it. I have no idea why.

[snickfic]

For Narnia, it seems to me that if you start out non-linearly, there's no point in trying to enfore linearity later.

The Anne books were written out of order? This I did not know - although it'd probably explain some things.

I guess the reason I'm thinking of non-linearity and the Rulesverse is because a lot of the stories are going on simultaneously. Like, the fic above is Buffy's POV, but there's also a Wes/Illyria fic showing another perspective on the same events. They're really two halves of a whole. So, short of sorting all the paragraphs of the two fics into one longer fic, linearity is just impossible. And there's a lot of that going in F/G end of the 'verse as well.

As for Faulkner: A Rose for Emily. I'm ambivalent about a lot of the Faulkner I've read, but I'm in no way ambivalent about that one. Because: structural funnery FTW! (Also, that collective POV is just weird.)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

True. But yes, quite a few of the Anne books were written much later--I know that Anne of Windy Poplars as one of the last written. *pulls up wikipedia* It looks like Anne of Ingleside was the very last to be written. There are a great deal of young adult series that are written out of order. The Hero and the Crown is a prequel to The Blue Sword, which was written first (and really, I don't see any particular way of determining which of those two you should read first), for instance.

Okay. So it isn't like the Barbverse? That's what I was picturing--where you're jumping around with gaps to be filled later. If they're running concurrently, I think that I'd be able to deal with that.

Faulkner hits just about every single one of my kinks--including a few I didn't know I had until I read him. It's gender and Family and History and race and non-linearity and complicated prose and Gothic traditions and grotesque characters and Southern tradition and dark, dark humor and--nearly always--a sense of looming apocalypse, despite the fact that it isn't really coming. Plus, it's all set in one little area, and everyone's related in one way or another and intruding into each other's stories, which just does it for me. Plus: Quentin Compson. Favorite fictional character ever. /fangirl

You know what? I've read multiple Faulkner novels, but I've never read any of his short stories. Not one. Mostly because short stories don't appeal to me (we've talked about this). But everyone else reads that one, so I feel like I should?

[eta] I think it's things I'm fannish about that I approach like this: I don't want to miss anything, because I'm always thinking of stories to write, and so I have a compulsive need to be an encyclopedia of my fandom's canon. This seems to carry over to reading the works inspired by that fandom as well.

[snickfic]

I've always been very confused about The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown - no one else can tell me which to read first, either. Which, somehow, has left me in such a dither of indecision that I haven't read either even though I picked them both up over a year ago on recommendation from, oh, everyone.

Well, kind of like the Barbverse. She does hop around some. But she also has this multiple-narrative thing going on that confounds reading things in order even she had them all.

When I get back to the states, I am going to be looking up more Faulkner. Because you say so. And also O'Connor.

If A Rose for Emily can't seduce you to the glories of the short story, nothing can. Trufax.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I really don't think it matters. But since you need a decision in order to read them (as you should!), I say The Blue Sword first. Because that's what I did. :D

It sounds like something I'd be able to handle.

I hope you like him! I of course can't guarantee that you will--there's a lot of people whose opinions I respect who he just doesn't do it for. I feel like he's one of those writers you either connect to or you don't. Like, I hate Hemingway. A lot. *shrug* But I'd love to talk with you about anything you might read. ;) I think you'd find O'Connor and her approach to religion, especially, really interesting.

I will have to read it then.

And I had another EPIPHANY. It's not the fandom thing--it's that I want to make sure that I have experienced the entirety of the story the writer wants to tell. If something's published or in film format, I can pretty much guarantee that here it is, this is it, this is all.

With fic, it's much more complicated--WIPs are abandoned all the time. And I read some of them, and love them, but I hate being left in the middle when I know there should be more. If a story ends with an ambiguous ending, I love it, because I know that I have the entire story the author meant to tell in my hands. But with fic...the idea that the author won't finish everything before wandering away from fandom makes me sadface.

It's sort of why I don't want to read all of the Song of Ice and Fire books right now. I'm paranoid GRRM will die before he finishes them, and that thought freaks me out.

[snickfic]

Being able to gab with you about Faulkner and O'Connor are good enough reasons to read them, all by themselves! When I get back...

And I know exactly what you mean about wanting the complete story. It bothers me, too, when I feel like I don't have all the pieces. It's why I can't fathom ever writing in Who fandom, for rexample - there's so much canon, and isn't some of it lost?

[deird1]

So it isn't like the Barbverse? That's what I was picturing--where you're jumping around with gaps to be filled later.

Not exactly.

Each story is complete by itself, but she is jumping around to a certain extent.

Let's see...

1 - It started with a single Giles/Faith phonecall, in an established relationship.
2 - Then there was a fic made up of five different moments in the Giles/Faith relationship, beginning before the phonecall, and finishing long afterwards.
3 - Then came babyfic. (Set after every bit of story so far.)
4 - Then came another five-different-moments fic, beginning shortly after fic number 2, and ending shortly after fic 3.
5 - Then came a later piece, set after everything so far.
6 - Then a prequel, right at the start of their relationship.
7 - Then another start-of-the-relationship ficlet, with Dawn discovering that they're together.
8 - Now the not-so-much-about-Faith-and-Giles starts, with a fic about the new structure of the Council, and how everything works post-Chosen.
9 - Next there was a Buffy/Spike fic, running parallel to the Faith/Giles stuff we'd had so far (but finishing slightly later).
10 - Then there was a fic about the end of AtS, and what happened to all the people from that.
11 - Then there was a long fic, about what Spike was doing for the first few years, post AtS.
...and then it kind of branched out in several directions.

But there's definitely an internal logic going on, even when it is skipping around in time.

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

I love having other people to do my pimping for me! I would also love to have new readers, any time you feel like dropping in. Though snickfic is right that there isn't a proper reading order after the founding fics, which sounds like it could be a source of stress...

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I trust Snick's judgment a lot, so I think it's something I'd definitely want to look into. And who knows--maybe it'll finally bring me over to the Faith/Giles side!

It's not so much the reading order thing (as I just worked out for myself), it's knowing whether or not I have the entire story the author means to tell in front of me. So if that story is out of order but all there, I'm okay. If the story has a very open-ended finish, but it's all there, I'm okay. It's just the thought of it not all being there that freaks me out.

Anyways, thanks for the invite! I'll be sure to let you know if/when I check it out!

Does that make any sense at all?

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

It does, actually. Rulesverse is very atypical of what I write (which is mainly short one-shots, prompt based and planned out), and it comes in bursts as I think my way into different corners of the verse. It has a tendency to surprise me with new aspects. But the core of it has been there from the first three or so fics.

Anyway, I feel you probably have enough people telling you to read it, so I'll now be quiet and let you pick your own reading matter!

[deird1]

Okay, have you just been tagging?

Because when I started my longish comment to Lauren, the Rulesverse tag all fit on one page, and now they're going over...

Am I going mad? Because I could swear it's different than it was half an hour ago.

*is confuzzled*

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

*cough* I may have been. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while. What I shouldn't have done was take this welcome nudge to do it when I'm on my semi-functional mobile dongle thingy, so the whole business has taken about an hour. Ah well.

Thanks for trying to make it sound comprehensible though...

[deird1]

Oh good. I thought I was delusional.

[riccadonna.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I just started checking them out, and I already read a new (for me) one!
Plus, now I'm puzzled about this Rulesverse phenomenon that I don't know anything about...

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm enjoying this spontaneous outburst of other people pimping *hard*. In return, I have actually tagged up the Rulesverse (http://brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com/tag/rulesverse) so if you want to dip in, you can follow the original order. New readers always welcome!

[snickfic]

You are very welcome! I hope you enjoy. :)

[riccadonna.livejournal.com]

Thanks, will do! (Though the Faith/Giles thing scares me.)