timepiececlock (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timepiececlock) wrote2003-01-05 01:10 am
timepiececlock) wrote2003-01-05 01:10 am
seem to be update-happy tonight
I was cruising through some older reviews I had on ff.net, and I saw a signed review for "One Step Down From Love". It was unfamiliar to me, and written in August, which was before ff.net reinstated the automatic email reviews.
She said I was a good enough writer, but criticized me for writing a sympathetic, affectionate-when-spike's-not-awake-to-see Buffy, saying...
"Maybe this will help you in future attempts at writing this pairing. Because the thing about Buffy/Spike is that it's a dark pairing. Happy, cutsey, post-coital stuff just doesn't work with the characters..."
I was kind of baffled for a minute, until I checked the date, and remembered that I posted that fic back in January. It was written after Wrecked, and placed sometime in the near future. "Future attempts"? This fic is so old in in fandom-time, it has no bearing on what I write now.
Then I wanted to laugh at her, because as far back as Wrecked we had no IDEA what Buffy/Spike was gonna be like. Well, I certainly didn't. Unspoiled. For all I knew when I wrote that, they'd get over their differences in a few months and be happy, or at least semi-content (back when I drastically overestimated the maturity of all the BtVS characters and believed they would sort out their problems instead of doubly-fucking themselves over). And my fic DIDN'T even have them sugary-in love, it was freakin' titled as something less than love.
I don't get why she'd deliberately read an 8th month old fic and then chastise me for improper characterization, characterization I may know now, but certainly didn't know then. Like I'm supposed to feel bad that she can read my fic with perfect hindsight, then say its wrong?
I was gonna email her to express these opinions, until I looked at her fic list and bio.
No way am I going to bother writing back to discuss my "way off base" characterization with a B/X girl who writes Buffy/Doyle.
I've got better things to do. Like clean my room. Write B/S fic. Laugh at B/Xers.
She said I was a good enough writer, but criticized me for writing a sympathetic, affectionate-when-spike's-not-awake-to-see Buffy, saying...
"Maybe this will help you in future attempts at writing this pairing. Because the thing about Buffy/Spike is that it's a dark pairing. Happy, cutsey, post-coital stuff just doesn't work with the characters..."
I was kind of baffled for a minute, until I checked the date, and remembered that I posted that fic back in January. It was written after Wrecked, and placed sometime in the near future. "Future attempts"? This fic is so old in in fandom-time, it has no bearing on what I write now.
Then I wanted to laugh at her, because as far back as Wrecked we had no IDEA what Buffy/Spike was gonna be like. Well, I certainly didn't. Unspoiled. For all I knew when I wrote that, they'd get over their differences in a few months and be happy, or at least semi-content (back when I drastically overestimated the maturity of all the BtVS characters and believed they would sort out their problems instead of doubly-fucking themselves over). And my fic DIDN'T even have them sugary-in love, it was freakin' titled as something less than love.
I don't get why she'd deliberately read an 8th month old fic and then chastise me for improper characterization, characterization I may know now, but certainly didn't know then. Like I'm supposed to feel bad that she can read my fic with perfect hindsight, then say its wrong?
I was gonna email her to express these opinions, until I looked at her fic list and bio.
No way am I going to bother writing back to discuss my "way off base" characterization with a B/X girl who writes Buffy/Doyle.
I've got better things to do. Like clean my room. Write B/S fic. Laugh at B/Xers.
no subject
I was quite surprised reading about your rude reviewer, that is until I got to the end of your post.
B/Xer, it figures. They're all like that.
I always make sure to say in the summaries that my fics are B/S, yet I got a B/Xer writing me this review saying: "WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. What you really need to do is write a good B/X fic. That's what we all really need."
Well, that might be what they're delusional self needs, but it sure as hell isn't what I need.
And Buffy/Doyle?? I liked Doyle just fine, but... Damn. No comment.
Definitely shouldn't waste your time on that one.
~*~Juliet D.
Re:
Precisely. I like both those characters but the many ways in which that would never happen is indescribable. You'd have to warp Buffy's character beyond belief to make it work, and I don't even know what you'd have to do to Doyle.