Counting to Ten with Crows, part one

[ladycallie]

Fandom: Buffy
Characters/pairings: Willow/Tara implied, Willow, Buffy, Xander
Rating: PG13
Warnings/Triggers: none
Setting: Post Wrecked
Written for WhichWitch Willow ficathon at whichwillow

Summary: The energy throbbed inside her, humming through bone and sinew, lightening bursts and her vision sparkled as magick crested across her brain, tripping neurons

Comments

[ladycallie]

Thank you! I contemplated attending a AA meeting to get a better idea of drug withdrawal, but I worried that my presence would have been insulting to those struggling. I remember a massage therapist once telling me that smokers bodies literally oozed with tar after a deep tissue massage. In my head magick could work that way too. I'm glad that what I had worked for you. =D

[gabriel_le]

these are really beautiful and evocative.

[dragonydreams]

Wonderful descriptions of Willow's withdrawal process. Looking forward to more.

Feedback-a-thon Goodness

[valyssia]

He liked football and porn, although she shared that interest, and he was happy. He skirted the knife’s edge of popularity in high school, unpopular and dorky but outgoing and gregarious enough to aim high. He took the ego bruising in stride and learned to laugh at those who wouldn’t laugh with him.Were this mine, I would cut the above text. The first sentence is confusing--I'm still not sure I know exactly what you mean--and from there down you're really just feeding your audience information they already have. If there was a purpose in the reminder, it might play, but really, it feels to me like you picked the story up there after a break and wrote that as warm up material. I'd suggest tying it more concretely to a pang of sentimentality if you want to keep it, but I think it just weighs the piece down

Re: Feedback-a-thon Goodness

[ladycallie]

I'm fairly certain that was exactly what I did with that segment. I wrote this in three separate rounds of writing mania, and I haven't had interest enough to return to it to finish it. :/

Would you say it would benefit from adding more of this hollowness you mentioned? The way my mind plays it, it's empty but full, that soul deep need, that moment where you stop saying no and just say yes,t before the guilt and responsibility empty you out again. I worry adding more would slog the story down, or contrast with the none to subtle bird metaphors...? But I agree, there's more here, I just need to dig it out a bit.

Re: Feedback-a-thon Goodness

[valyssia]

Okay, let me back up. I wasn't talking about 'a hollow,' I was saying that your story has a hollow spot because you missed a key aspect of addiction...and that is 'the Jones,' or 'craving' if you prefer

Re: Feedback-a-thon Goodness

[valyssia]

I'm gonna do this again 'cause I'm still a screw up

Feedbackathon

[aaronlisa]

Again I enjoyed the imagery that you use in this story. There's something terrible about the normalcy of life going on around Tara while she skips classes and hides away from everyone. I particularly liked the part about the coffee and the tea.

At the same time, the story feels incomplete in a way. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like there's something missing from the story. I am not sure if it's some sort of resolution (perhaps a scene with Dawn) or if it's perhaps the fact you lightly touch on Willow's addiction in the last scene.

On the whole, I do feel that this story fits in with canon and the treatment of Willow. It's a very plausible piece of what happened off camera that led to Willow's eventual breakdown at the end of the Season.

Re: Feedbackathon

[ladycallie]

Sorry for taking so long to reply! Thank you for your comments! And I agree, there is something absent from this, something more then another chapter (or four). valyssia has been helping me unearth the missing piece, so hopefully there will be a revision in the future.

Thanks again!