(my) Secret Slasha 2007

[hermionesviolin]

Secret Slasha 2007 authors are revealed. I feel like the fics this year were particularly mediocre (YMMV, of course), which is kind of sad. I really hope one of callmesandy's friends wrote her something nice to make up for the Not Good fic she got written for her (not as bad as the one written for Gloss in 2004, but still).

This is the 4th time I've done Secret Slasha since 2003 (I didn't do it 2005) [del.icio.us] and the first time I recall being really excited about my assignment from the get-go, so I feel extra-bad about the fact that I wrote such a shoddy fic. However, since basically no one was gonna read it (and my recipient was a Dropout) I don't feel that guilty.

I wrote "After All," which was Buffy/Dawn, and Ari (the one person besides the recipient I knew would read it) said nice things about it -- and not just because she knew I was the one who wrote it.

I find myself wanting to talk about this fic a lot (even though I still don't think it's all that good), so here goes.

The request I received was: "Buffy/Dawn or Dawn/Willow or Dawn/any"

I immediately e-mailed Ari to be like: "Someone who wasn't you requested Buffy/Dawn."

While I have yet to recover from my S6 Willow Issues and thus have no desire to write her with anyone, "Dawn/any" is pretty much ideal for me (hi, I love Dawn a lot), but I opted for Buffy/Dawn because hello, when else is anyone gonna write that for this girl?

I had the scene of Dawn fisting Buffy, stretching her out, with a glimpse of Buffy in a shiny blue shirt/dress of some sort, basically from the time I got the assignment, tho i r 4 the fael and didn't actually start trying to put it in writing until like a week before deadline.

I'm bad with plot anyway, and trying to figure out anything do with this pairing is a particular challenge.

I had the first scene and the coda written but was under the mistaken impression that there was a word minimum, so I tried to write a morning-after-scene. I actually had snippets of bits where Dawn is the one pushing that they need to talk about it, but the way I ended the first section I realized that it was gonna have to be Buffy who brought it up, which is in and of itself a somewhat out of character push. Partway through writing the second section, _I_ was no longer sold on the pairing, which was problematic.

I was proud of myself for the organic-feeling bit about Buffy not liking any of the guys her sister brought home, with the jealousy and possessiveness laying groundwork for more shippy stuff. I actually went back and inserted some bits into the first sex scene to deal more with the reality since as much as Buffy can be good at staunch denial, getting fucked by her sister is still gonna be weird. I've read and enjoyed this pairing before [del.icio.us], but I think it takes either a lot of plotting work or a serious suspension of disbelief, and I don't really have a problem with the latter in this case but I'm not really good enough to do the former.

I was listening to Dar Williams, hence the title, and restrained myself from including epigraph section headers (which would have been: "loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks," "we will push on into that mystery," " it's stupid and it's obvious").

Comments

[wisdomeagle]

I would have enjoyed having Dar epigraphs...

wait, you knew that. Though I did not actually catch that the title was a Dar ref, though admittedly I was high on Yuletide when I read.

And I think I may take additional thoughts to email, for non-personal reasons. :p But I do think that actual consensual basically sane incest is hard to sell, and despite them being the love story of S5, I find Buffy/Dawn sort of especially hard to sell (for reasons we have discussed before, and how noncestuous my own relationship with my sister is and how similar it feels to Buffy+Dawn's relationship.)

[uses this icon because it has Dar keywords]

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty generic phrase not obviously Dar-connected without the context of epigraphs but yes, I did consider the fact that you would enjoy them :) [Bonus points, which I don't think I thought of at the time, if they caused anyone to actually guess it as a fic you wrote.]

[mosca.livejournal.com]

I really hope one of callmesandy's friends wrote her something nice to make up for the Not Good fic she got written for her (not as bad as the one written for Gloss in 2004, but still).

Hahahaha, I actually made the same comparison on IM when she told me I had to read it to believe it. And I'm pretty sure all the consolation fic in the world can't make up for that kind of pain. (We're trying! It was a scary, scary fic.)

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

I decided I had every right to buy myself on sale pink plaid flannel sheets and red flats after reading that story. true story.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

The first paragraph terrifies me: I'm always sure that somewhere out there, my fics are being called "Not Good Fics" and I don't know. Now, for yuletide this year, I would have completely deserved it (and some of the feedback I got does seem to be saying that...), but... Stuff of my nightmares.

(If this seems overly snarky, please forgive me and blame the third straight day over 100F.)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

No, you don't sound snarky at all. (And three straight days over 100F would totally put me in a mood.)

Pre-reveal, Ari and I discussed the dynamics of publicly talking about fics received as gifts and I purposely waited until post-reveal to say anything, in part because as something of a self-defense I could say, "I'm unimpressed by this round of stories, and I totally recognize that mine is not very good either."

However, while there are plenty of Your Mileage May Vary fics, I really feel safe in saying that the Secret Slasha fic written for k this year was just Bad. There is almost no characterization and what there is bears basically no resemblance to anything in canon. Just . . . trust me, this is in a totally different league than any mediocre fic you may have written.

(I thought it was like Against The Rules [not officially necessarily, but traditionally] to say less than nice things about Yuletide fics.)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I thought it was like Against The Rules [not officially necessarily, but traditionally] to say less than nice things about Yuletide fics.

I read between the lines.

But I did get recc'd once, and by someone whose opinion I respect, so that's enough to make me not unhappy.

[theatre-pixie.livejournal.com]

Wow. Those stories (the one for Gloss in'04 and the one for k in '07) greatly increase my faith in my own fic-writing abilities. Maybe next year I'll throw my own hat in the ring. Maybe.

I'm fighting very hard to bite my tongue about some of the things that I felt could have ought to have been done better, but weren't. I do, after all, recognize that fic writing is not easy. But proof-reading and grammar are.

Okay, done. That last jibe is as mean as I am going to be. Scout's honor.