“There Ought to Be Clowns”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 03 Jan 2017 ]
Since this is a remix, what prompted the direction this story took in differing from the original?
It came pretty much from the situation itself. In both this story and its precursor, Buffy made Xander a no-strings offer, as a test of his devotion, and I cringed at the very thought because the inherent flaws were horrifying. What if Xander said yes for reasons other than those Buffy could imagine? (I touched on some possibilities in replies to feedback: because he had come to believe her statement that she could never feel anything more for him, and at least he could have this; because he was hoping that sexual intimacy might lead to a change in her feelings; even the tenuous belief that she might be using this as a means of sneaking into an actual relationship without having to admit she’d changed her mind.) What if Xander would have been ready for what she wanted if she had only made that offer? Mostly it all came down to the same thing: if she believed there might actually be a possibility for something between the two of them, that possibility should have been what she was pursuing, instead of some dumb-ass test.
This is not a criticism of the original author, because I could see Buffy doing something exactly that stupid on her own. Heck, I could see her doing it in canon, except that canon never took precisely that course, just others every bit as dumb and destructive.
Is there any particular meaning in the title?
Only what was there in the narrative: Buffy could easily have faced killer clowns (Xander’s one-time greatest fear), but the thing she feared - being judged as not worth loving - was too terrifying for her to even attempt. Plus, of course, the allusion to the song that she cited.
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
I can’t say I actually liked it at all, because it was as emotionally harrowing for me as for some of the readers. I did not at all enjoy seeing our heroine caught up, by her own choice, in something that hurt her so much. I could believe in it, though, because it seemed true to her character. I suppose that could serve in the place of ‘like’.
One thing about which I had some reservations was the tell-not-show direction of the narrative. For me, the story was in the wreckage of the not-really-relationship, so the ‘adventures’ of Buffy were just background for that. All the same, having those events and issues presented AS background detail could have operated as a weakness, and perhaps did so.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
If the intricacies and pitfalls of the relationship itself had been done on a show-not-tell basis - having it come out as increasingly meaningful detail while the events of the new Faith-didn’t-kill-Finch timeline unfolded - that could have been more effective than the direction I followed. That, however, would have been another story entirely, and this was the one I wanted to tell.
Was there a different direction I could have taken the story, and what would have been some of the advantages of the not-taken path?
It might have been interesting to see this one as told from Xander’s POV, or perhaps that of a third party trying to understand just what was it that these two people were doing. (Faith, for instance, gradually coming to understand just how wrong things had gone with Buffy while adjusting to the new dynamic with ‘her’ Watcher Wesley.) Honestly, the situation is one that could have been explored in several different ways.
Any observations to add at the end?
Only what has already been obvious to several readers: the ‘perfect’ trap in which Buffy finds herself continues to exist only in her own mind. She got into this situation because she wasn’t honest - because she wasn’t willing to take that risk - and remains there because she still can’t bring herself to face the possible negative consequences of her own wrong choice.
And one other thing, though that’s more a question than an observation: is this kind of misery what Joss Whedon would subject some of his actual created couples to? because he certainly seemed to put them through the wringer in every other way imaginable.