#NADIR: Out of timelines. (ooc.)

[nadiroftime-blog]

TEST POST

This is just a test. (And tag dump.)

[rahirah]

The whole "And If the Grave Be Now Thy Bed" counts as a chapter or scene, right? "Splendid news, Mrs. Mears. Bloody Vengeance Inc. is going to take your case." Commentary, please :)))

For reference: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478957

Ok, this one is too long to do a blow-by-blow in a Tumblr post, so I'm gonna talk about it more generally.

For those of you who haven't read the series this story is a part of, it's a long-running AU which branches off of canon after "The Gift."  I started writing the first story in it immediately after "The Gift" aired, so Spuffy wasn't even a canon thing yet.  At the time, I was pretty certain that Spuffy would never be a canon thing; at most, I thought, there would be a lot of pining and UST, and maybe, in the very last season, Spike would get the crumb he was hoping for.

But I didn't care about that; something doesn't have to be canon for me to ship the hell out of it.  And I was fascinated by the concept of an evil demon trying to be good.  What would it look like, I wondered, if Spike and Buffy did get together in a working, functional relationship?  What changes and compromises would both of them have to make?  How would it meet both their needs?  What would the pain points be?  Of course, the easiest way to do it would be to slap a soul into Spike, but I felt that the show had already thoroughly explored that avenue with Angel, and I wanted to do something different.  Plus I have never been one to do things the easy way, and one of the recurring themes in my writing in general is free will and choices.  So I set myself the challenge of writing a story about how Buffy and Spike forge a relationship that works for both of them, and doesn't cheat on characterization – that is, Spike, having no human soul, is still "evil" in Buffyverse terms, and his motivations and behavior reflect that; even when he is doing good things, he is not doing them in the same way, or for the same reasons, as a human would. *

ANYWAY.  In this AU, Warren Mears and Co. still killed Katrina, but Warren went to jail for it.  However, when his inventions came to the attention of Wolfram & Hart, they got him released on a technicality, and brought him into their R&D department.  Warren took the opportunity to get his revenge on Buffy and Spike by zapping Buffy into a W&H pocket dimension, where W&H was collecting Buffys from many dimensions for nefarious purposes.  Unbeknownst to Warren, Buffy has just discovered that she's pregnant.  

This scenario generated four stories: "The Lesser of Two Evils," which details what happens when Willow and Spike confront Warren and try to force him to bring Buffy back; "In A Yellow Wood," which is about Buffy's adventures in the pocket dimension, "If the Grave Be Now Thy Bed," which deals with the fallout of the first two stories, and "To Grandmother's House," which wraps up the arc with Buffy's final decision about the fate of her baby.

I wrote these stories all out of order: "To Grandmother's House" first, "The Lesser of Two Evils" second, "In A Yellow Wood" third, and "If the Grave Be Now Thy Bed" last.  I knew the general course of the arc all along, but writing it inside out and backwards, over ten years or more, posed some interesting challenges.  "If the Grave Be Now Thy Bed" was not part of the original arc plan – in fact, it grew out of feedback I got for "The Lesser of Two Evils."

TLOTE/IAYW are deliberately morally ambiguous stories.  Spike, Willow, and Buffy all do questionable things – perhaps flat out wrong things – under severe emotional stress, and the consequences of those actions echo for a long time through the years to come.  While I hope that readers find their motives understandable, and even sympathetic, I didn't necessarily expect that every reader would agree with or approve of their actions.  Most people who've sent me feedback seem to enjoy the ambiguity, or at least find it intriguing.  Not all of them, however.  

One particular reader had...issues.  Over the course of several conversations, I found out that while they were a Spuffy shipper, they had very particular requirements for the kind of Spuffy stories they liked.  They had to be either A) totally canon-compliant, angst-ridden stories where Buffy hated herself for giving in to Spike's sinister attraction, or B) stories where Spike was a Romance Novel Bad Boy With a Heart of Gold, and there was a tacit agreement between writer and reader that hey, we both know this is totally OOC for both characters, but we're just here for the porn, amirite nudge-nudge wink-wink.

Reader In Question had started in on my work with the assumption that it fell into the latter category, but the more they read, the less comfortable they got, because, as I mentioned above, I was in this for serious.  I sweat blood over characterization.  And I was starting to convince them that maybe a relationship between Buffy and soulless Spike COULD work.  And they didn't WANT to believe that.  So they absolutely had to interpret my work as a dystopian take on Buffy's slide into total moral decay, with this particular arc as the nadir of her fall.**  They left me some despondent feedback on TLOTE, wondering what Warren's dear mother would think of this turn of events.  I'm not sure if they intended to shame me (or Buffy) for our evil ways, but I thought it was an interesting point.  And it planted the seed of an idea.

Over the next several years, as I worked on IAYW (and let me say right here, the less-than-enthusiastic feedback Reader In Question sent me on TLOTE made me work my ass off on IAYW.  Though I obviously don't agree with their overall interpretation, I thought they had some good points, and I wanted to be sure that IAYW addressed those points) I mulled over the thought: What WOULD happen if Warren's dear old mother confronted Buffy and Spike?  

A lot would depend upon what Warren's dear old mother was like.  There were two obvious ways I could go with that: she could be an innocent victim, or she could be as much of a monster as Warren was.  But I didn't want to do anything obvious with this story.   Fic-wise, I always like to take the road less traveled if I can, but in this case, I have to admit that I got a perverse pleasure out of taking Reader In Question's finger-wagging admonition and using it as inspiration for a story that's, well, not exactly what I imagine they were hoping to inspire.  I decided that I was going to make Mrs. Mears a little of both.

The next question was, what did I want to have happen when she shows up?Again, the obvious thing would be to have Buffy feel guilty.  But I had already dealt extensively with Buffy's feelings, and her reasons for making the decisions she made, in IAYW and TGH.  Yes, she feels guilty; she's not sure she did the right thing.  She's not even sure there was a right thing to do.  But that particular subplot plays out over the long term in this AU, culminating many years later in a completely different story arc, and I couldn't bring it to a premature resolution here.  Besides, I knew that Barbverse Buffy would never return to the uncompromising system of morality that Reader In Question wanted her to,*** so there was no point in writing a story where she Learns Her Lesson, Dusts Spike, and Is Very Sorry. ****

So I decided that this story would focus on Spike, and his reaction to Warren's mother and her loss of a son.  And that opened up a lot of possibilities.  I was to some extent constrained by the fact that I'd already written quite a lot of stories taking place after this one in the timeline, so there were certain things I couldn't do.  But I've always found that if you ask yourself, "What would X logically do in this situation?" and follow that through, you can avoid Idiot Plot Syndrome.   Let your characters be smart.   What would Spike do, confronted with the mother of the man he'd killed?  What would Mrs. Mears demand of him in recompense?  

What I wanted to do in this story was to answer those questions in a way that people wouldn't expect.  I was able to bring Spike's ambivalent feelings about his own mother into play, and provide a way for him to get some character development around coming to terms with her death and his part in it that I might not otherwise have been able to do.  And I was able to draw parallels between Warren and his mother, and Spike and Anne Pratt, and come up with some really intriguing takes on how and why Spike can do the right(ish) thing even when his reasons are kinda-sorta wrong(ish).  It gives some background, hopefully, on  how Buffy can make the ultimate decision she does in "To Grandmother's House," and not feel that she's tobogganing head-first down the slippery slope of Utter Moral Decay.  And I got to write Zombie Warren, who was gruesomely, deliciously horrible.  And I got to give Mrs. Mears the last word.

By the time I finished the story, Reader In Question had long since left fandom, and they probably wouldn't have read it even if they were still around.  But I feel I have to thank them for it anyway.  And that's why I always say that even though I don't necessarily like getting critical feedback, it can be the most useful feedback you can get if you look at it in the right way.

__________

* I could write a whole nother essay about the challenges of writing an evil-trying-to-be-good vampire, but that is beyond the scope of the current post.

** Eventually, they practically begged me to tell them that I was deliberately writing Buffy and Spike out of character, and that I didn't really think a relationship between them could work.  Alas, I could not oblige them, and they stopped reading my stuff.

*** I don't even believe canon Buffy stuck to that kind of rigid moral code – she tried to, but one of the things that makes her a complex, fully realized character is that canon Buffy is perfectly capable of double standards and hypocrisy where her friends are concerned, not to mention just plain changing her mind about things over the course of the show.  For every decision I have Barbverse Buffy [or Spike, for that matter] make, I can point to something in canon and say "This is why I think she could do that."

****Although... I do have an alternate ending to "To Grandmother's House" plotted out in my head, where Buffy [either accidentally or on purpose – just as in the main story, it's ambiguous] doesn't stop Giles in time.  I consider the Barbverse to be a low-probability AU, and I watch out for times and ways in which things could go spectacularly wrong, just so I can be sure to avoid them in a believable manner.  Or write stories about them going wrong, and the characters dealing with them.

*****

[hawkebird-archived]

Name:  you must be a level 50 friend to unlock my name Nickname: none. don’t refer to me. don’t talk about me. don’t look at me. (i got that avatar of the void persona going on, pal.) Age: 21 Faceclaim: none. I don’t have a face. Pronouns: they/them or she/her Height: 5′5″ Birthday: [redacted] Aesthetic: Purple, owls, soft surrealism, tree houses, beloved dragons, faded gods, big teeth, elves (i have an aesthetic blog actually @past-tents​) Last song you listened to:  I was listening to the Moana soundtrack before getting online; not sure which song played last, though. I think it was one of the instrumentals.

Favourite muse(s) you’ve written: How could you ask me to choose between my children Actually, Vineme (@gladioluscaptation​) is a terrible and disgusting person, but also very interesting to write. And fun, usually, though there are times when she goes off the rails and gets to be too much even for me. She’s got a lot of stuff going on under the surface, mentally. I kind of wish someone could force her to get serious and face some of that, but at the same time, it’s absolutely antithetical to who she is. (I could write tons of Vineme meta, tbh, but I vastly prefer letting things come out in character than talking about them ooc.)

Of course I also have great love for Mirrak (@theislandtrolls​) considering that she was basically my only/primary muse for like a year.

What inspired you to take on your current muse (that you are posting this on): I just? love?? Hawke???? People bash DA2 a lot, but it was the first Dragon Age game and really the first heavily story/character-based game I played, and I love it. It has plot holes you could drive a truck through, but that just makes me want to write my own versions, tbh. (@Bioware hire me to single-handedly remake DA2 I will do it with love)

What are your favourite aspects of your current muse: Honestly one of the things I’ve been enjoying in RP is how Hawke can go from goofing around to very serious in an instant. Like, one minute it’s joke joke goof, the next it’s “and I’ve watched hundreds of people die, their deaths still weighing on my conscience because I couldn’t save them.” Chill, Hawke.

Also, it’s fun to play a muse whose setting and therefore worldview is so dramatically different than most of the other muses they interact with. I haven’t run into a lot of other characters who hail from medieval worlds where violence, xenophobia, and prejudice are so rampant and widely accepted. (I mean, Alternia is like that but it’s ... different. I guess because Alternia doesn’t really have a front of polite society? Like, most troll muses understand that their world is hyperviolent and unpleasant, whereas Hawke sees Thedas as normal and has nothing to compare it to.) Like, one of the interesting moments early in this blog was when Nadir got really angry at Hawke for calling him a demon, a slur in his context, and kept accusing Hawke of bigotry. Hawke was just baffled because Thedas hasn’t really gotten to the point of “hey bigotry and prejudice are bad” yet; they’re just accepted parts of life, often even encouraged. This is not to say that Hawke supports bigotry, just that they didn’t have the context to take that accusation seriously in a modern sense. I’m trying to come up with an analogy but none are working too well ... I guess it’s a bit like if you told someone back in the 20′s or whatever, before people really realized/believed that tobacco was harmful, that they needed to stop smoking?

(Bonus fun fact: Hawke is actually the most well-adjusted, emotionally healthy, and socially adequate muse I have, which is .... something.)

What’s your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing: ????? I just don’t know how to shut up. (Honestly I wrote something about displacing my feelings + wish fulfillment but then I remembered that I have some seriously creepy muses and like .......... nah.)

Favourite types of threads: I love? everything?? I do enjoy threads that explore the world a character lives in, whether through them telling someone else or through the other character physically hanging out with them. (It does get tricky, though ... I mostly notice it with my Mass Effect OC’s since they’re supposed to be experts who could definitely explain all their tech and history and I’m over here like “I don’t?? know???? please stop asking me how mass relays work I don’t know I love Mass Effect but the science has never made sense to me.”) I also love threads where, like, characters talk out their feelings? (Pro tip: ask Hawke about their insomnia and/or nightmares sometime.) For Hawke I would love to have them talk about their companions more, but I feel like it’d be weird for them to just start giving strangers full bios and descriptions of their relationships. Also, light banter threads are really fun, and I have to say that this (Hawke arguing with @revasem Fenris purely through dog gifs) is probably one of my favorite threads from this blog; I think about it like every day.

Biggest struggle in regards to your current muse: I’m used to RPing Homestuck, and since Homestuck has a canonical concept of multiple universes/timelines, it’s very easy to explain duplicates, discrepancies in canon/headcanon, etc. It’s been kind of difficult to handle that stuff with a muse who not only doesn’t have that concept but whose religion and worldview actively deny it. (”As there is but one life, one death, one world ...”) Honestly I would love to do more in-person threads and whatnot but my ability to do so is kind of limited by the fact that Hawke continues to suspect that everything out of the ordinary is demonic or otherwise harmful -- which is completely normal from their perspective! It’s funny watching people be like “wow you’re paranoid” when Hawke has actually been far more open to the otherworldly than they probably should be, given their belief system and the Thedan/Andrastian worldview of “demons are trying to tempt us all the time.” And, like, even if you manage to convince Hawke, a character like Nadir or Acer who looks obviously nonhuman can’t just walk around Kirkwall without inciting panic and templar attention.

Tagged by: @defectivetaurus​ Tagging: ?????????? do it or don’t do it as you prefer but uhhh @unemused @jesuitic-thanatoid @technologysavvy @themindfang @revasem