deird_lj

I realised something unexpected this morning.

It was because

stormwreath posted a list of all his fanfic, arranged by season. And I decided to look at mine, and see what seasons had the most stories, and so forth. (For the record: season 6 has the most. I seem to like it a lot.)

But the thing is,

stormwreath had said this:
“The challenging part, of course, is that some of these fics are mutually contradictory. I’ve written Buffy’s final death scene three times, twice in glorious battle and once of old age, peacefully in bed: they can’t all be right! So I decided which one would be my own fanon, and marked the others ‘AU’.”

…and I thought, “Oh, well that probably won’t happen much with mine. Maybe once, but all the rest of my post-series stuff seems to be pretty consistent.”

*facepalm*

Then I put it in order. And suddenly, right next to each other, were these three:
- All The Same (Buffy dies, Faith is still alive, Giles is still alive)
- Final Instructions (Giles dies, Faith is still alive, Buffy is still alive)
- Almost There (Faith dies, Buffy is still alive)

…slightly more inconsistent than I’d thought.

“But those are death scenes,” I reasoned. “I was wanting to say something specific using the death scenes, so I went away from what I usually picture happening, post-series. The rest should still be pretty consistent.”

…except for Just The Four Of Us, in which Faith and Buffy die in the same battle, while Giles is still alive.

“But that was a remix of someone else’s AU,” I decided. “And… yeah, they didn’t actually have Buffy and Faith dying in the original story, but still, that one doesn’t count. Because it’s a remix.”

But by now I was intrigued.

So I wrote down the Definites – all the stuff that definitely happens post-series, when I’m picturing it:

a) Buffy ends up in a relationship with Spike.
This happens in 4 of my post-series fics – out of a total of 31.
In another, she’s with Xander, and another has her ending up with Faith.
In my remix, Buffy, Willow, and Xander are all together.
In yet another story, she’s in a relationship with… someone who isn’t Xander. That’s as clear as it gets.
And in All The Same she dies while single.

b) Dawn ends up in a relationship with Andrew.
Nope. I’ve never, ever written that.
Usually, in my fics, Dawn is going out with faceless people who are never given names. Despite the fact that I know she ends up with Andrew!

c)Buffy and Dawn live in Rome.
4 out of 31.
Not that most of the other fics have anything saying that they don’t live in Rome for a while. Well, only 2 of them.

d)…Dawn stays alive?
Most of the time.
But occasionally I am horribly evil and change her back into a bright green glowy thing, with the consequence of everyone else forgetting about her.

e)Willow and Kennedy stay together.
YES. One that actually happens on a regular basis!
…by which I mean that it’s happened twice. And that I’ve never actually had Willow end up with anyone else – except the Buffy/Willow/Xander thing from my remix.

In Shell Game, Illyria survives, and the rest of the Fang Gang dies. In Waiting Game Illyria dies with the others, and Spike survives. In Not Yourself, Spike and Gunn die, and Angel and Illyria survive. In Just The Four Of Us, Angel’s the only one left.

In They Come To Haunt Me, Lorne is horribly depressed and singing in lots of different towns. In Pigs and Pyleans, Lorne is extremely happy, and in love with Miss Piggy.

In Waiting Game, Spike and Buffy meet up again in Rome; in Succession, Buffy finds Spike and Angel in the middle of the big fight at the end of NFA.

How on earth did I end up thinking my post-series fic had any kind of consistency?

Mind you, there are some common threads. Faith and Vi always end up working together in America for a while. Dawn – assuming she doesn’t become a big glowy ball of light mid-high-school – moves to Boston and becomes a researchy sort of Watcher.

Also, for some reason I have three separate stories (a grand total of 9050 words) devoted to people mourning over Wesley.

I know what I think happens, though.
What is supposed to be the clear, common story in all my post-series stuff, is this:
- Buffy and Dawn move to Rome.
- The rest of the Scoobies move to all the different places mentioned in You And I, We Fly Together.
- Spike survives the battle in NFA, and finds Buffy in Rome (see Waiting Game).
- After a few years, the Scoobies relocate to bits of America, now that the international bits are able to run themselves.
- Dawn moves to Boston, and becomes a Watcher.
- And they all live happily ever after.

It’s interesting that, despite the many and varied completely contradictory ways I’ve written about things ending up, I still have one story very clearly lodged in my brain, that I tend to think of actually happening – even when I’m in the middle of writing something totally different.

…and yet, on the other hand, while I have one central story that I’m writing, I’m also coming up with thousands of little variations on the central theme.

(Both of those sentences being different ways of expressing basically the same thing – and I really can’t decide which one I mean…)

I think this whole line of thought actually started several weeks ago, when I was making my latest vid.
I showed it to my housemate, and she went, “Oh… now I want them to end up together. It’s so sad! They so should have been a couple!”
…to which my initial response was: “Well, maybe this time they will. You never know.”

Maybe… this time, season 3 will go in a completely different direction, and actually, instead of what we saw happening last time we watched the dvds, this time Willow and Xander will end up together.
Maybe… this time, Tara won’t die. Maybe she’ll stay alive!
Maybe… this time, instead of Buffy ending up in Rome, she’ll stay in America. It could happen.
Maybe… this time, Angel will be the one who dies in the alley, while the rest of the Fang Gang survives and join the circus.
Maybe… this time, Dawn will become a powerful warrior. In space! With some super-special sidekicks with pink hair.

Fanfic has done weird things to my brain.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

stormwreath.livejournal.com

Sounds like you enjoy killing off characters way too much. :-)

Also, I have visions of someone from a parallel universe sneaking into your house and swapping the DVDs inside their boxes for their own parallel universe ones... (The first sign of this will be when you re-watch S2 and notice Spike now has a goatee...)

I'm in two minds about all this myself. In one way, it gives me a cool Larry Niven-like feeling to have all my stories arranged in a neat 8400-year long timeline. On the other, I'm afraid it might limit my creativity too much. What if I want Faith to babysit Willow and Kennedy's daughter Elizabeth, when Faith died four years before she was born?

From:

deird1

Killing off characters is fun!

Also, I have visions of someone from a parallel universe sneaking into your house and swapping the DVDs inside their boxes for their own parallel universe ones... (The first sign of this will be when you re-watch S2 and notice Spike now has a goatee...)

Wouldn't it be weird if this had already happened? I mean, if they managed to do it before I watched the show the first time, how would I know?

Maybe all the badly-written fanfic I keep rolling my eyes at is actually perfectly in-character, and I just don't realise its brilliance because I've got fake alternate reality dvds...

What if I want Faith to babysit Willow and Kennedy's daughter Elizabeth, when Faith died four years before she was born?

Resurrect her! (Hey, it's canonically possible.)

From:

stormwreath.livejournal.com

I can't see Faith getting ressurrected. I can see her clawing her way out of the afterlife by her own strength of will and returning to life herself, if she really really wanted to...

From:

slaymesoftly.livejournal.com

I did a similar mental exercise some time ago. My fics have always been organized by season, and within the seasons that I've written the most there are certain common themes.(Season six tends to be "Spike grows a pair" and/or "Buffy gets a clue") However, I've not yet attempted to make one "verse" or world that would be consistent throughout. I have different things I want to explore, different scenarios I'd like to see play out and I just go with them. My future fics are all over the place too. Sometimes (usually - I AM a Spuffy lover, after all) Spike and Buffy end up together. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes one or the other of them (or both) ends up dying. There are just too many possibilities out there to lock myself into one particular version of the future. And I'm much too lazy and sloppy to create one believable world and make it work. :) If/when I really like the world I've created in a fic or series of fics, I may set another story in that world. I just put something in the summary to indicate what the setting is and provide as much backstory as seems necessary without making a reader who isn't familiar with the original fic(s) have to go read them.

From:

deird1

You seem to have a wonderfully relaxed approach to the whole thing.

*is envious*

From:

next_to_normal

You know, I had the exact opposite reaction to yours when I read

stormwreath's post. :) I thought to myself, "Why on earth would you expect all your fic to be consistent?" (Unless, of course, all your fic is intentionally written in the same 'verse, like the Barbverse.)

But then again, I've always had my fic arranged chronologically, and the only ones that mesh together are the ones that were meant to (i.e. my alternate season six). I don't write much post-series fic, and I rarely write between-the-lines fic, so anytime I start something, it's pretty much guaranteed to go off in a different direction than anything else I've written.

I can't say I really have one post-series story in my head that I think of as what "really" happened. That's what I find so freeing about fanfic - it can be whatever I want it to be, even if that's Buffy/Spike on Tuesday and Buffy/Xander on Wednesday and Xander/Dawn on Thursday.

From:

deird1

I think it's largely because you write lots of "up until now it's canon, but from here on out, anything goes" stories, where the plot veers off into something entirely different.

Whereas...

Well, I've written stuff in canonical AUs (like the Wishverse, or the Dawnverse).

And I've written 5 stories set in other AUs (Anya stays with Olaf, vamp!Oz, Faith stays stuck in Buffy's body, Angel mpreg, and Angel and Spike choose to save Fred's life and unleash Illyria on the world). That's 2590 words altogether.

Apart from that, every story I've written so far lines up entirely with canon. The most I've deviated from what's on screen is by having Holden Webster wake up as a vampire while in the morgue instead of in the cemetery.

The idea of having stories not being consistent is something I find very strange...

From:

next_to_normal

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at, in terms of the type of fic I write, but I think it's also just about having a different mindset towards fic.

Even when it's a fic that lines up with canon, my mindset is that you're starting over fresh - the story can go anywhere it wants to, and you're not bound by anything except canon. There's no one right answer when it comes to fanfic, so there's no "oh, I can't do this because I already wrote that in a different story." You can easily have two different fics that both line up with canon but not with each other. Especially future fics, since they're just as much "up until now it's canon, but from here on out, anything goes" stories, since there's no canon on the other end that it needs to fit.

And from your description, it seems like that's what you do - you've obviously not tried to constrain yourself to what you've already written, or you wouldn't have so many contradictions. It's just kinda funny to me that you did it despite having a different mindset about what you were writing.

From:

elisi

I love this post, and I think it demonstrates *perfectly* what's so awesome about fanfic, and the way the shows ended. :)

Also it's fascinating to nose around in people's heads and see how they see the future. Mostly though, this threw me:

Dawn ends up in a relationship with Andrew.
Because... well, he's gay. *g* (MY Dawn... now that depends.)

Otherwise, then Spike and Buffy find each other, and end up living in England. And mostly they all live happily ever after. :)

From:

deird1

Because... well, he's gay. *g* (MY Dawn... now that depends.)

You mean you haven't seen this? I'm shocked. :)

(I've never really seen Andrew as gay. Possibly because none of the gay guys I know act anything like Andrew...)

I do find it very fascinating reading other people's images of the Buffyverse future. So many different concepts, and some that are always surprisingly similar.

From:

elisi

Oh I can definitely see *why* you'd go for Dawn/Andrew. It's just that I can't see him as straight, and there's no UST there at all. (Thanks for the link though!)

ETA: IF YOU CAN WRITE XANDER-SLASH, I CAN WRITE ANDREW-HET.
I can't read Xander slash *at all*. Dunno what that says about me, but I just can't. And that goes the other way too. So no het Andrew for me. *g*

So many different concepts, and some that are always surprisingly similar.
*nods* I can't even make up my own mind. Sometimes Spike shanshus, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes Buffy ends up with him *and* Angel.

Edited Date: 2009-11-07 10:38 am (UTC)

From:

brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com

You interest me strangely. I've never been worried about consistency, mainly because I started out writing within canon or at least within series, and left the post-Chosen world to others. But having created a mini-verse of my own, I now look back and ponder which other fics fit into it (definitely the Ripper and Darla fics, possibly my seasonal Spuffy for this year, a lot of the canon ones).

And writing post-series S/X, S/B and S/A all at once was definitely uncomfortable - I need to make sure if writing for several ficathons in future I set them firmly at different periods, and ideally don't create a post-series verse at the same time.

My whichwillow fic this year probably fits into the Rulesverse too, but in an uncomfortable way. Hmm.

From:

deird1

*is happy to be strange and interesting* :)

And writing post-series S/X, S/B and S/A all at once was definitely uncomfortable

Whoa. That'd be confusing.