SPOILER ALERT!!!!
Those of you who just come here to see the mundane of my life, first hi! Second you probably won’t want to bother with this entry.
Those reading the Buffy Season Eight comics and aren’t caught up, you probably want to skip this too.
This post is about Buffy Season Eight and my current Epic Fuffy fiction I’m writing. Because I spent an hour last night growling and hissing.
I started writing the All is Not Well (previously called ‘Straight from the City of Angels’) story in 2003, just after the television series ended. Because I, like a million other people, was sad to see the show go, and thought they left way too much open ended, and as I love all things Faith/Buffy I wanted a way to show them getting together. But, I ground to a halt about six months after starting due to a variety of reasons. None of them good, because I believe a writer should write, at all costs. Its one of those pesky lessons I am going through life learning.
At any rate, when I started writing the story again, I tweaked a lot of it, because I was three years older and had lived some events in my life that sort of skewed my perception of love and happily ever afters. I also had started to read the Buffy Season Eight comics, and for the most part was not impressed. Mentally moving from the genre of 40 minutes of weekly TV to a monthly 15 minutes was an adjustment. Plus they were focusing a lot on the whole ‘world knows about vampires’ which sort of took away from the dark shadowed movements of the cannon, and well, it took time to find it’s rhythm in my head. Sure they made Buffy do the gay, but with her yelling all the time that she wasn’t gay it was a little off putting. I did like that they made Faith still dark and sad, which is how I write her anyway. But for the most part I wasn’t using it as cannon to work through my story and to tell what I wanted to tell. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joss, and I love the Whedonverse, I was just nit-picky with the comics.
So. I’m about ready to publish Ch5 of my story tomorrow, and that means I am about 180 pages into this tale, and I have outlined fifteen chapters in total. So you do the math on how much I have invested in this whole thing; over the past SEVEN years it’s taken me to write it.
I’d gotten behind in reading the comics, because, life is life. So yesterday when I went to the comic store I picked up issues 31 & 32. I read 31 and was like, huh. Good. Interesting. Little weirded out. Then I read issue 32 and I lost my mind.
Because the whole time in writing my story the ‘action’ side of the story (versus the love side) is to tell the tale about all these slayers, and all their power and how it isn’t right and how it in the end will be altered correct adjusted. If you are reading my story then I have been alluding to this whole theme. That every time a slayer dies all the remaining slayers get more power. It is divided up ALMOST equally by those remaining slayers. Only Faith gets the lion’s share. And with that I have her turning into something else and getting stronger. 
BALLS!
Because in the comics suddenly Buffy can fly, run faster than a speeding bullet, see long distances (hello homage to the comic book nerd crowd). Because when the slayers die she is getting their power.
*cue my face of astonishment*
I know why the comics are having Buffy get all the mojo. It’s called Buffy the Vampire Slayer . So it just follows their logic. But logic / cannon of the show? Faith is the Slayer, and the mojo should go to her. GAAAAAARRRRR.
Last night I read issue 32 of the comic and was aggro. I know I know, me getting all personally pissed off. But honestly, I was. Because they explained that huh, all the slayers that die? Buffy get’s their power. *thud*
Let me be clear, it’s Joss’s ideas, plans, thoughts, and characters. So he can do what he wants, and I will follow along and 98% of the time enjoy the ride.
BUT!
But, knowing that all my readers are in the same frame of mind, and thinking that they will go, ‘oh amanda got that idea from the comic’ chaps my hide, and in a small way makes me want to stop writing. Because I wanted the story to seem interesting and fresh, not a rehash of cannon, which it has now turned into; without me even meaning it to! I am not saying I got the idea first, but I am kicking myself for not writing the story in 2003 and publishing it, so I could stand on my soapbox with pride. Not sure if that makes sense.
I am doubly annoyed that my Ch5 digs deeper into the whys of Faith getting more power, and as I am publishing it after issue 32 came out, some readers of the comic will do the patented eyeroll. Which is not what I wanted. I wanted this idea / story I am writing to have teeth and for it to be believable.
I sort of feel like a whiny bitch right about now, but this seems to happen more often than not with me. I start a writing project and then just as it hits a stride Bamo a movie comes out or a TV show or I am sure a book that deals very similarly with my theme and I just throw my hands in the air and 9 times out of 10 walk away. *legion, the movie was the last time this happened to me* and I don’t want to be like that. Because I know there are only 6 stories in all the world and it is how you tell them that matters… and yet, as a writer it takes the wind out of my sails. Maybe that’s why I like writing fanfiction, retelling is accepted and expected… but fanfiction does not a great writer make, nor is it something I can make a career out of.
After my mini mental melt down last night, where I rushed into Mare’s room waving issue 32 in my hand and lamenting that they went and are telling the very same story I have been writing but with Buffy getting the powers, while I have been working to make it believable that Faith is getting the powers (to wit, Mare said, yeah yeah, you want it to be Faith because you think she is hotter… which, yes very true. But! Moreso, I am in the camp of Faith is the last true slayers. Buffy died. Kendra was called (Buffy was brought back to life) Kendra died. Faith was called. Buffy died. No one called (Buffy brought back to life) Faith still alive, no new slayers yet. See my logic is in fact logical, not that insane troll logic) and the comic just plops down the whole ‘Buffy’s super SUPER slayery now’. I get it. As a fan I do. But as a writer, it makes me angry and a little sad. AND *spoiler* that Faith and Giles and Andrew have been kidnapped and get to see the evil plan? SO FRAKING NOT COOL. Because, I already wrote that part. *sobs*
I’ll admit, I considered throwing my hands in the air and walking away a second and final time from this story. Because I wanted so much for it to be good, and for it to be enjoyable. Something fresh and interesting. And now… *shrug* I know my story is being read by at least 40 different people. I have trackers that show me this, but not one of the 40 have commented (I get that. Fuffy fans are notorious for NOT commenting) it just makes it a little harder to get excited about creating when you don’t know if any one is enjoying it. And now knowing that the similarities between the comic and my story are growing (I will admit, the comic reminded me of Amy, which is why I chose her as my hapless lapdog) it forces me to take a look at keeping my story extra sharp; because the alternative is letting it dull out and stopping it all together.
Which I don’t want to do.
I fear doing it though.
So! My pledge from here on out, to myself, is that I will no longer read the comics. (I’ll buy them of course!) I won’t read them, I won’t spoil myself via the internets about them, not until all chapters of All is Not Well are written. Because… I fear that if I do read them, that will be it. Finito. Which isn’t all that fair to readers, and certainly not fair to my state of creative mind. *le sigh*
Okay, that’s it. For now. Rant over.
cope of things that are lame… when something suddenly becomes your fault, and yet you have no control over it, are merely the facilitator, how much verbal BS should you be forced to take? In my reality apparently this amount of BS is quite large. I just love being stuck in the middle of things. It’s no wonder I am a pro at writing angsty Faith centric fanfic. I so have the inside track of knowing what it’s like to be in the middle of a world where everything is your fault and yet you have no control over it. It’s… so much fun. Only not. Aw well.
