lunabee34

I wrote A Kiss to Build a Dream On (the Something Blue Remix) for Remix this year. The fic is Spike/Buffy, Xander/Anya, PG, and based on one of the vignettes in Four Kisses Spike and Buffy Never Shared (and One They Did) by cindergal.

In cindergal's ficlet, everyone is still under the effects of Willow's My Will Be Done spell from "Something Blue." The fic is a very fun and wonderfully fluffy look at what might have happened if Spike and Buffy had actually gotten married, very much in keeping with the humor of the episode itself.

Naturally, I chose my old standby for remix--the tonal shift. I wanted to explore what life might actually be like for the Scoobies if Spike and Buffy continued to believe they loved each other (at a point in canon when they definitely did not have any warm and fuzzy feelings for each other), Giles remained blind, and Xander stayed a demon magnet. Even more importantly, what about the Willow who is responsible for it all?

Willow is such an interesting and complex character. I can see antecedents of her quest for power and eventual breakdown as far back as the first season, and I think she is particularly vulnerable in season four when this fic takes place. I wanted to show the consequences of her actions without making her a wholly unsympathetic character.

I really enjoyed participating in remix as always. I enjoyed the story I wrote, the story I received, and the high quality of the fic in the archive this year. :)

I don't know if any of you are interested in the writing process for my remix fics, but I thought I'd say a little about the choices I made and what I intended to accomplish.

This was my first remix and I was really intimidated. In theory, I understood the object of this exercise but I wasn't so sure I could demonstrate that in practice. I wondered what writer I would draw (would it be a friend? some BNF whose writing steers fanon and is instantly delicioused eleventy billion times? someone I didn't know at all?), what fandoms I would be presented with, what genres I would have to work with.

I ended up with a writer whose work I had never read (married_n_mich) which I think actually ended up being beneficial to me. There wasn't the added layer of writing for to someone I know. I know the purpose of remix is not to please your remixee, but I think we'd all like to write something our remixee enjoys and if I had known mine, I might have made different choices (even unconsciously) based on what I know that person likes in fic.

With the exception of one brief SPN/BtVS crossover, all of married_n_mich's fic is BtVS. This added an extra layer of tension to the fest for me because while the Buffyverse was my entre to fandom I never felt the comfort and ease writing there that I do in SGA or SPN. Partly this is because in three years, I've developed as a writer; I think something would be wrong if after three years of well nigh constant practice, I didn't feel a little more comfortable and a little more competent as a writer than I did with those first stories. This is also partly because I feel like I was never able to quite grasp the voices of the characters that interested me most, Spike in particular.

I thought a lot about the concept of remix and just how I wanted to change my remixee's fic, whichever I ended up choosing. I was struck by something someone said in a How-to-Remix post about maniuplating the tone of a fic and immediately I realized that I wanted to take one of married_n_mich's crack fics and transform it into something serious.

This would prove to be a bad choice. LOL

( The Buffybot and Mr. Gordo Save the World (Ozymandias Remix) )

The next remix I wrote was actually eligible for posting. :)

( The Last Seduction (the multiplicity remix) )

In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed participating in Remix and I will definitely be doing so again.