A bit of Spuffy pimpin' + other stuff.

[elisi]

sb_fag_ends [fag end (n.): (British) the remainder of a smoked cigarette, usually when it has been thrown away. And possibly stomped on.] is a community for producing quick drags of Spike/Buffy fanfiction, ie. between 100 and 500 words. Ten prompts will be posted every week, in response to which authors may post as many fag ends as they like. The only necessity is that the fics depict Spike/Buffy: it doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be pretty - these are fag ends after all! Any and every rating/genre combo is welcome. (I was there when it was created! [The icon was my idea.] I feel all connected and stuff! *g*)

And penny_lane_42 wrote a wonderful post about Spike/Buffy, that you should all go read! (OMG the nostalgia... Oh my ship!)

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In RL news then I'm very busy just doing all the stuff I don't normally have time for. Tuesday I sorted out mine and Darcy's bedroom (not quite there yet, but it is a *lot* better) and yesterday I tackled Impish Girl and the Cherub's bedroom and I feel like someone should give me a medal. I went through things that have not seen the light of day for... years. (Those of you with children will know just how much *stuff* they amass. ::cries::)

Sustaining me throughout all this has been The Writer's Tale (RTD and Benjamin Cook) which is 50 million shades of wonderful and incredible and insightful and so marvelously long that I'm still not done! Hurrah!

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OH! And because of only being on LJ in a very lurk-y fashion, I've forgotten to pimp this EXCELLENT Sherlock vid:

Rococo by lolachrome.

Very clever and exquisitely made. And the song is so good that I had to go and buy it. :)

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I think I might be the only one not excited about the Spuffy community--I love the concept and think it's brilliant, but the name is not something I enjoy associating with my OTP. I think it's because it's a British saying maybe, but well, the smoking thing is icksome to me (for family health reasons) and I also have an intrinsic reaction to the middle word that triggers my back up because of hate speech (which I know isn't what the phrase means to Brits, but that's what it means for me on a visceral level).

:(

[elisi]

Well the name was chosen to be... unromantic - a reaction against ba_rosebuds (did Angel ever give Buffy roses except when he was evil?), and so people tried to think of something gritty and small and Spuffy-centric.

That said, I can perfectly understand your reaction. *sends hugs*

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I've edited away my negative space. :p

[elisi]

Hey, you're *always* welcome to ramble in my LJ! Esp. when you have lots of thinky thoughts. And I like your B/A thoughts muchly. But I come from a very different mindset re. the Spuffy comm.

Firstly, this (along with the icon) was my immediate thought (from Anna's Spuffy meta, as always...):

*

That wonderful moment with the cigarette end in Flooded is the nicest example of a scene that has "enter Spike" written all over it, and the wry smile that accompanies Buffy's "hello, Spike" seems to indicate she’s conscious of that too. He does have a habit of turning up just when somebody who can help take responsibility for a situation is most called for. And how telling is that possessive gesture when Buffy covers his cigarette end with her foot?

*

Spike and smoking... it's always been there, right from the start, and it's twenty million different kinds of metaphor. The vampire, the spark... And sometimes it got stomped on, and sometimes it made her smile and sometimes - like when he was flirting with Faith - it made her jealous. It is the opposite of the rosebud thing: The rosebuds are beautiful, and have that dark undercurrent. The cigarette stubs (to avoid unpleasant words) aren't beautiful at all, but beneath all that there's light, because the most unlikely thing happened - something that Buffy would once happily have trampled on, became something she could love.

(I don't know if I'm making any sense at all. I'm very sleepy. But there's something there. Spuffy shouldn't have happened, Spuffy is still regarded as something unpleasant in *some* corners - and yet it triumphed!)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

When I see that icon, I see the back porch and then backporchspuffy. Sigh, I should turn over that community to someone else. It never took off as a home of self-generated discussion, but I love the name and what it symbolizes for the relationship.

With smoking the last drags of a cigarette stub, all I can think about is people standing outside in freezing weather because it's illegal to smoke indoors pretty much everywhere in America, but the smokers are so addicted that they can't go without a fix and they'll suck a cigarette dry, even relighting a cigarette stub all so they can get that last hit of carcinogens and nicotine.

I just don't have a way of seeing cigarettes as positive. And I do appreciate what you say about turning something Buffy would trample on into something she loved, but... cigarettes only work for Spuffy imo as symbolism of their relationship in Season 6 when it was destructive, addictive, but a burning fire that Buffy couldn't resist.

And Spuffy is so much more than that. That period of destructive addition is merely one step on very long journey and it really doesn't encompass their relationship--rather, it depicts the dark.

Because that spark is a burn that leads to addiction and death. It's not the spark of life, of love, of hope, of soul. It's the dark side bereft of light, as the cigarette burns and putters out.

I mean, hell, we could say Spike burnt up like a cigarette in Chosen. But I'd never want to because that takes something transcendent and turns it a bit profane imo. I think a cigarette isn't an appropriate object to project Buffy and Spike upon.

I come from a place where growing up, cigarettes were called cancer sticks. And I lost my grandparents to lung cancer when I was too young to ever get the chance to know them. I see cigarettes as a dangerous habit at best, but an addiction that robs people of life at its worst.

So for me to enjoy the name, I'd have to first be impressed by how a cigarette is a positive object.

[elisi]

So for me to enjoy the name, I'd have to first be impressed by how a cigarette is a positive object.
It's a Spike thing. And Spike isn't really positive, I guess. Vampires and death and all that, although I can see why it's hard for you to see past the RL implications.

To be honest, then I think it's as much about the comics, as anything. They're making people grumpy and defensive and tired of being stomped on by the DH PTB. So the name is a way of claiming it back - we might be disregarded and seen as useless, but sod that. We'll rather be ugly, than glowy.

(Don't mean to sound grumpy with you btw, I hope it didn't come across that way!)