Commentary - A Fairytale In Five Drabbles

[deird1]

So, I asked for fic commentary requests. (I’m still happy to do more, if anyone’s interested.)

This was written for silveronthetree, who requested a commentary for A Fairytale In Five Drabbles. You should probably read that before looking at this commentary.

The original fic still looks like it did, and my notes are the bits in blockquotes.

Comments

[lavastar]

Oh, this is so cute! I'd forgotten about this fic - it's really quite adorable, and all the little things you did with the style are really, really cute. Especially the way you phrase things.

Time for your daily French lesson, btw.

RULE NUMBER ONE:

If you forget what a word in French is, Frenchify the English version or say it in a French accent! You're probably right anyways! And French people won't notice if you're wrong, because half of their words ARE like that!

Or use a synonym: "to watch or look at" is "regarder", as in "regard".

[deird1]

Glad you liked this!

(Oooh... French stuff...)

[lavastar]

RULE NUMBER TWO: Everything has a gender. And you have to use articles that express the gender and number (singular or plural) pretty much all the time.

There's direct articles - le (masculine singluar), la (feminine singular), and les (feminine or masculine plural). And if it starts with a vowel and isn't plural, it's l'. That's like saying "the" in English.

And there's indirect articles - un (masculine singular), une (feminine singular), and des (feminine or masculine plural). That's like saying "a" or "an" in English.

And remember: if you can't remember what the gender is, who the fuck cares! The important thing to remember about French is that French people themselves don't know how to speak it correctly.

But a usually good rule of thumb is looking at the ending of the word. If it ends in something like "-ette", "-elle", or "-che", it's probably feminine. Except for the 54930584 cases where it's not.

[louise39]

Five fine fairtylale affairs in drabbles [I never saw them before] and a first-rate commentary.

[deird1]

Thanks!

[eowyn_315]

I remember reading this a while ago, and enjoying it, but for some reason had absolutely no memory that it was yours... maybe because I wouldn't have expected Bander from you?

Just out of curiosity, what made you choose to include a non-canon pairing? I actually think a post-Chosen Bander pairing is pretty plausible, but the delight of this fic is the whimsical way you recount canon events.

[deird1]

I remember reading this a while ago, and enjoying it, but for some reason had absolutely no memory that it was yours... maybe because I wouldn't have expected Bander from you?

Heh. Generally not, no. It's not that I don't like the pairing, but I'd much rather have them both end up with someone else...

Just out of curiosity, what made you choose to include a non-canon pairing?

I'm not actually sure. It just seemed to fit.
The original prompt was for "pairings you've never done before" (at the time I'd never written any pairings except Tara/OC, so that was easy...), and I just ended up with this whole bunch of Buffy pairings - and, with the way it was structured, I really couldn't have her end up with one of the first four (if I could have, it would have been Spike, rather unsurprisingly). But putting Xander on the end seemed to make sense.

[angearia]

I do enjoy reading your commentaries. I just read this fic (as you directed) before stepping in here and really enjoyed the whimsical tone. And reading the commentary, I also loved seeing all the structural resonance. It's very impressive to me how you pack so much symmetry into these works. I also liked how you put Angel and Spike on equal footing here.

Great work.

[deird1]

I'm glad you liked it!

[libco]

I love these commentaries-it gives me a chance to go back and read your older stuff and love it!

[deird1]

Thanks! *grins*