And now the hand-off...

[gabrielleabelle]

Gah. Need more sleep.

Before I go to take a nap, let me throw some stuff at you guys.

1. goldenusagi continues to be awesome and has done some more macros for my feminist Checkpoint rewrite. It's lulz-worthy, so go look!

2. Also, gillo's wanting to try out some B/A fics, so I thought I'd post some links to the B/A side of fandom. I'm afraid I don't have any

Comments

[angearia]

Before I go to take a nap, let me throw some stuff at you guys.

Ow! I wasn't looking and your recs hit me in the back of the head!

:P

Yep. Ducks and Chrisleeoctaves are the B/A names I'm most familiar with. Those be good recs.

Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my favorite B/A series is Bittersweet Legacy by Vatrixsta Cruden (which I just found on AO3 so yay for that!). It's a BtVS/AtS crossover and I love fics that bring all the cast together (and does so with quite even-handed characterization, a job well done there). What's more, it has evil vampire!Buffy. Tragedy! Horror! Angst!

[gabrielleabelle]

Ow! I wasn't looking and your recs hit me in the back of the head!

That's what you get for not paying attention to me! ;)

Yay! I'm glad the recs are good. I feel a little awkward reccing stuff in another part of fandom because I'm just not that familiar with it. That's why I opted to rec...someone else's recs and some author and ficathon sites. Those seem safe.

I've found it interesting now that I've been completely indiscriminate about what I'll read. Buffy fanfic seems to be dominated by B/A and B/S in about equal measures. Then the stuff that isn't B/A or B/S are the male slash ships. Femslash occupies a tiny little corner, and gen fics are tucked under the rug somewhere.

Oh, and the B/A shippers feel just as persecuted and oppressed as the B/S shippers. So Joss must be doing something right...or wrong. Very wrong.

[angearia]

Yeah, Ducks goes by 'theantijoss' so there's definitely feeling like Joss is out to get us all. ;)

[gabrielleabelle]

She's theantijoss on LJ? Ah. Heh.

[eilowyn]

Okay, started reading the first Bittersweet Legacy story, and had to turn away at the first sentence. Angel is not and never should be allowed to sing Barenaked Ladies karaoke.

Now I'm feeling all judgmental and narrow-minded, and I actually really wanted to find a B/A story that was so good, so even-handed, that I could suspend my disbelief with the ship and enjoy it (I have a deep, ingrained, almost religious dislike of Angel. I'm sure there's some pseudo-psychological reason for it, but the guy doesn't do anything for me. I just don't like him. Like certain people don't like ice cream, I guess).

Can someone either convince me to continue to read that story (ignoring that first, completely befuddling image), or rec something that could possibly make me a believer (or not - let's just try for more tolerant)?

[gabrielleabelle]

Heh. Someone else is gonna have to sell you on that. I haven't read it yet. :)

I've tried so hard to overcome my hate-on for Angel. I've mellowed out about it, but I still just can't like the guy. And fanfic that focuses on him bores me to tears. I've come around on the subversive reading of the B/A ship, which I like, but it's at odds with the shippy reading of it, which is mainly what you get in fanfic.

I just do not like Angel. The only time he doesn't bother me is when he's either being a complete doof (Singing Manilow) or when he's being a father to Connor (I found that relationship far more affecting than anything else Angel did).

[ever_neutral]

Word to your last sentence. The Manilow and Connor, respectfully, are the things that prompted my Angel love (though I respect this has not come for you ;)). But you know what - that guy Buffy doesn't even *know*. Hence, I can't even read most B/A fic because it's all so at odds with whom I perceive to be the *real* Angel. Pretty depressing, really.

[angearia]

Well, that story is very Angel-centric since it's Buffy/Angel and also set over in LA in the Season 2 landscape of AtS. I'm not sure I know enough of what you like, but Darla and Lindsey make appearances that are fun.

And again, the vamp!Buffy is the chief selling point for me. It's a dark fic and I enjoy reading stories where the characters go evil. The chief conflict in the beginning is how every character is grieving for Buffy while also being horrified and terrified of what's she's become.

The way I'm able to read stories that have a mixture of stuff I love with stuff I eye-roll at is to just skim when I get to the eye-roll parts. That might help.