So, at long last, the writers of the RemixRedux09 stories have been revealed.

As some of you guessed, I wrote the massive Reaping the Whirlwind (Boom Boom Ba Remix), which was a remix of Six Drabbles About Dawn and Death by nothorse.

Just for the record: I am never, ever doing that to myself again.

I'm filing this one under, "What the hell was I thinking?"

Actually, I do kind of know what I was thinking, and I deserved to be kicked in the head for it. Repeatedly.

Before I explain my insanity for this year, I want to take time out to thank everyone who read what was basically a novel and actually gave feedback on it. I figured that I'd get zero feedback during the anonymous period because asking anyone to read 230-page fic in one sitting is really a little bit beyond the pale. And yet, people did exactly that. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you all gave it a go.

Special love to brunettepet who not only read every part, but gave detailed feedback on every part (you don't know how much you made my day), to secondalto for listing it in the su_herald that first day, and to original writer nothorse for leaving positive feedback and reccing the story on her personal LJ.

( What worked, what didn't, and why next year I'm taking Valium before I type word one for the Remix... )

Now that I've finished with my TL;DR meta, I figure I better point you to the fic.

In this journal I'm going to post one part a day for the next 14 days, mostly because I still think asking people to read 230 pages in one go is asking just a little bit too much. For people that want to read ahead, they can get the whole story on the Remix community.


Title: Reaping the Whirlwind (The Boom Boom Boom Ba Remix)
Author: liz_marcs

Summary: What does the addition of supernatural-related reaps to the reaping workload, Roxy’s promotion, the addition of a new grim reaper with supernatural experience, a new sort-of boyfriend who may or may not be a pirate, and an approaching apocalypse all have in common? New grim reaper boss George doesn’t know, but she’s willing to bet that in the middle of it all the universe will kick her ass. Again.

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Dead Like Me crossover
Characters: Dead Like Me (order of appearance) — George, Mason, Daisy, Roxy, Kiffany, Delores, Penny, OCs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (order of appearance) — Dawn, Buffy, Willow (appearance only), Giles (appearance only), Xander, OCs.
Pairing: George/Xander (nothing explicit)

Rating: R for language, cartoon violence and death, sexual situations
Warning: Spoilers for all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show only), Dead Like Me, and Dead Like Me: Life After Death. All comics associated with either series is willfully and cheerfully ignored.

Original drabbles: Six Drabbles About Dawn and Death by nothorse

• Link to Part One of the story in this ElJay.
  
  
• For people who want to read ahead, visit the RemixRedux09 community for the whole story.
  

And, finally, while I was scrounging around YouTube for a Dead Like Me clip, I found this really nice Dead Like Me fan video by Ezyka. Although all of the clips are taken from the series proper, the song, as well as the clips used, fit shockingly well with Reaping the Whirlwind.

Song: Follow Through by Gavin Degraw

What's funny is I did get into a conversation about applying the term "slash" to a canonical male-male pairing that appeared on a mainstream, prime time television show a few weeks ago.

The key difference was that we were all polite to one another while mulling over the application of "slash" to an episode of Cold Case, unlike the situation that sparked this particular discussion over on JournalFen.

I tend to have issues with using "slash" and "femslash" in the mainstream arena for various reasons. The big one is that gay and lesbian relationships are just as "normal" as heterosexual relationships and I think that I prefer my language to reflect that truth.

That said, I can also completely understand why someone would use "slash" and "femslash" as shorthand to describe a same-sex relationships in mainstream television, books, and film, especially if they are talking in an arena where the argot of fandom is easily understood.

Anyway, check out the discussion here (I'm there under the scaryfairy name). There's a lot of good opinions both pro- and con- on the use of the word "slash" in the mainstream arena, as well as a debate on how it's used within fandom itself. Ignore the wank that sparked the discussion and check it out.

Personally, I think it's a worthy discussion to have, especially since gays and lesbians and their relationships are finally gaining an increased amount of acceptance (especially here in the northeast). They're no longer as invisible as they were when Kirk/Spock took its fanfic bow.

Seriously, though. If you have time, read the various opinions over. Many of them are well thought out on both sides of the debate.

I had to share this one because it made me laugh out loud.

Mark Twain tells Fenimore Cooper: LOL!1!!!1!! U sux0rz.

Awesome! They don't make flames like this any more.

I honestly was pretty busy yesterday and didn't suffer the trauma from LJ outage that occured yesterday. I tried to sign on in the ayem, saw there was a power issue with SixApart, and then headed off to do erands.

Ahhhh, weekends. The only time when I can get crap done.

Which is why I'm posting this today instead of yesterday.

People, negative FB on a story is okay. No, really. It is. I don't take offense. As long as the FB is politely worded, you're not putting words in my mouth (i.e., seeing something that isn't there or claiming I said something when I didn't), trying to impose your fanon on my fanon, or dragging past wanks that have nothing to do with anything into the discussion, I'm perfectly cool with it.

( When is negative FB good FB? )

I know, I've raised far more questions than I've answered in this tl;dr musing on "good" vs. "negative" FB.

On the whole, I think the issue of FB is a delicate balancing act. I don't just mean in giving appropriate FB, but in appropriately responding to it.

Anyone out there have any thoughts on the matter? I'd love to hear from you and what you think about this issue.

Holy cow!

I didn't realize that I never transfered this particular fic to LJ. This is another one that was put up on the Pit of Voles a few months before Buffy went off the air.

( A Little Intro for Into the Desert )

For some reason, don't ask me why, but the original title for this story was The Intramural Street Hockey League and Goomba Society.

Don't ask me. I have no clue what it means, either.

I'm sure it made sense at the time.

Because of the story's thorough Jossing, at some point I changed the description from "spec" to AU, complete with a one-sentence description on why the world of Into the Desert was different from canon.


Title: Into the Desert
Author: Lizbeth Marcs liz_marcs
Rating: PG-13 for language, some sexual situations.

Pairings: B/OC; W/X. References to B/A, B/S, X/An, W/T. Hints of B/W/X.
Genre: Future fic, mystery, ghost story, character angst
Warnings: Character death(s). Spoilers for S7, up to “Dirty Girls.” Beyond that, it’s AU for the end of BtVS.

Summary: Buffy begins the task of starting her life over and rebuilding the Watchers Council without her two best friends at her side. (AU)
AU Element: What if Angel only brought himself and not the amulet to the final battle against the First Evil in “Chosen?”

Disclaimer: Xander Harris, Spike, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Rupert Giles, and all associated characters and organizations are the property of FOX and Mutant Enemy. Any mention of real life events and real people are done to serve the story and are not meant to imply that the incidents in question have any relationship to reality. All original characters and the plot are mine. No payment was asked for or received in the writing of this story and no profit was earned. No copyright infringement on FOX or Mutant Enemy is intended.

( Into the Desert, Part 1 )

According to nwhepcat, today is quote your own fic day. It appears that all of you agree.

I am nothing if not ego-centric enough to follow along. I'm only quoting from finished stories, by the way.

( This way to the quotes... )

Wheee! That was fun! I left out a couple of stories, because no exchanges stood out for me from memory.

If you want to check out what isn't included, here's my LJ memories, and here's what's still on The Pit of Voles.

marenfic has an interesting discussion here about the slowdown in Buffy fandom. I won't spoil the discussion, but it's definitely worth the read. She brings up some excellent points, and I agree with a lot of what she says.

Heaven knows I saw something of the same thing for my Dark Xander Fic-A-Thon. A lot of people honestly couldn't think of an angle, others couldn't think of an angle that hadn't been explored before. Lord knows, I complained to my brother that the direction I finally settled on (VampXander) after several false starts had been pretty much done in almost every way possible. The only way to make it new was to mix up the clichés and impose a semi-complicated plot on it.

A whole lot of people were in my boat, and I'm very sure that everyone who contributed beat their heads against the wall to come up with something off-the-norm.

I've certainly seen a lot of fandom drift on my Flist, and it's all normal and good, because nothing lasts forever. Certainly I've been thinking along the same lines myself, although truthfully I haven't felt the need to jump fandoms. My pull is more towards getting off my butt and pulling together some original fiction.

The problem there is if I do it, I wouldn't want to jeopardize a hope of publishing it, so there'd be no way to throw it open for FB and concrit the way fanfiction can be.

But the day's coming soon-ish where I need to make some hard decisions on that front, and I know it.

As for why I haven't jumped fandoms, part of it, I think, is that I suffer from "Netflix" disease. As a friend of mine pointed out, a large part of Netflix disease is a direct result of network behavior. For example:

• Shows that I tend to like get yanked before all the episodes that have already been filmed are allowed to air. I've lost count in the last two years how many shows I've started watching, only to have that show disappear never to be seen again.
  
  
• The insane burden of commercials. I timed it once. For every hour of television, you've got roughly 22 minutes of commercials interrupting the flow. I go absolutely insane with commercials now because there are so many of them. I can't count the number of times I started channel flipping and ended up watching something else entirely because Animal Planet or Discovery or the History Channel sucked me in.
  
  
• Most television series are now "serials" instead of a series of stand-alone episodes. That's good, on the one hand, because now there's actual character growth and changing situations (at least in theory). That's bad, because if the network pre-empts for a week or two, it ruins the narrative.
  

End result? I'm now watching most of my television via Netflix. I mean, what the hell, right? The DVDs literally come out within weeks after the end of the season. It may put me months (or years) behind everyone else, but I get to watch television at my convenience, without commercials, and without interruptions. It's more than worth the trade.

And that, in a nutshell, is Netflix disease. I know an awful lot of people who are suffering from it so much, that they've dropped cable down to the cheapest level so they can get the local stations and are now watching series purely through the magic of Netflix and DVDs.

That said, I'm still addicted to watching the three-hour block on the Sci-Fi Channel in real time (the re-showing of Heroes, followed by Dr. Who and Battlestar Galactica). I'm also still watching The Amazing Race in real time because they've released precious few seasons on DVD.

However, none of what I'm watching has really inspired me to write fanfic (although I've jokingly said I so want to see a wacky!hijinks story where Xander and Faith have to run The Amazing Race because one of the teams aiming for the million is a pair of demons who need to pay off debts — and they're willing to eat the other contestants to win), and I honestly don't see that particular jump happening to me in the future.

The again, 10 years ago I was writing original Battlestar Galactica and Forever Knight fanfic. When I stopped writing it, I thought sure that I'd never do fanfic again. It took years for me to change my mind, so never say never, I guess.

In either case, I'm not at the moment planning on jumping ship, so to speak. But I can totally see (and understand) the fandom drift that's happening. I'm following some of it, albeit peripherally, because I enjoy the same shows. Other shows (like Lost, Veronica Mars, and Supernatural) haven't really thrilled me enough to get beyond a *meh.*