Buffy: A Guide, but no water or food. So it leads me to the sacred place and then a week later it leads you to my bleached bones? Giles: Buffy, really. It takes more than a week to bleach bones.

'Dirty Girls'


Buffista Fic: It Could Be Plot Bunnies  

Where the Buffistas let their fanfic creative juices flow. May contain erotica.


Lyra Jane - May 05, 2004 5:49:22 am PDT #9113 of 10001
Up with the sun

It's just that my imagination decided to supply her a hospital dressing gown to wake up in and a normal outfit to walk out the door in, then balked at the never changing clothes.

If you have it pictured in your head, you should write it. The stuff that's non-essential is the sort of Barbie doll writing some ficcers do -- "Buffy ran a brush through her long blonde hair and then stod before her closet, selecting black fishnet tights, a red plaid mini-kilt, a gray tank top and a black belted sweater with 3/4 sleeves. On her feet she wore knee-high boots." Saying she's wearing the hospital gown and pulls on a sweater and jeans would flow with the plot, and add a detail you feel is important.

And Deena, you have mail :-).


deborah grabien - May 05, 2004 7:03:00 am PDT #9114 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Nova, yep, Lyra's quite right. If the picture's in your head, write it; you can always edit if you feel it's too much or too little.

And that whole "Buffy ran a brush..." example? Perfect example of "I am moving my left foot" hyper-detailing.


Gris - May 05, 2004 9:50:12 pm PDT #9115 of 10001
Hey. New board.

Okay, thanks for the advice. I don't think I'm going to actually write it in this case, as I think my other method of resolving the logical issue is good, but I'll remember for future bits.

ION, I added a lot to Chapter 3. Now it's actually of reasonable length, and feels more like a chapter. Comments are welcome, especially on characterization - do Wesley and Cordelia feel like Wesley and Cordelia to you? And is Tara still working, now that she's talking?

Not that you can't suggest other things, but that's what I'm most curious about. Also, is the plot interesting you? Do you want to read more?


deborah grabien - May 05, 2004 10:04:46 pm PDT #9116 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

(surfacing from editing - see Great Write)

Nova, I got copy edits by Fed Ex today on second book in series and am nosedown. Deadline for return is the 14th (bastards). I definitely want to read more and will have more comments when the check of the copy edits to FFoSM are done.


Gris - May 05, 2004 10:08:18 pm PDT #9117 of 10001
Hey. New board.

Okay, thanks deb. You are amazing at this, so I'll wait as long as necessary for your advice. I'll keep writing, of course.

Good luck!


deborah grabien - May 06, 2004 3:44:23 pm PDT #9118 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Nova, just caught up. The first two sections seem noticeably tighter, which is always good. And I found myself wanting more, when I finished the third.

You're getting a really nice balance between dialogue, thought and action. It's very readable stuff.


erikaj - May 06, 2004 4:40:22 pm PDT #9119 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

Nova, I promise I'll read you, I've just been catching up this week... For right now, more from my girl Kay in the Angelverse:

Why can’t these guys ever get new material? Katrina earns every dime, just from boredom. Christ.

But then I’m thinking “Hello? Earth to Kay? Sounds like Prince Charming there is offering to make a confession.” But this one *wants* to sweat it out.

”When I’m ready, slave,” I say, finally acting out the boredom I’m not feeling anymore, and wishing I still smoked. The five slowest minutes I’ve ever spent not on an apartment hallway floor go by.

I don’t have a notebook or anything, but there’s a huge pile of neon sticky notes on that plantation he calls a desk. The cells at Jessup aren’t that big, I’m pretty sure, not to mention my desk at the squad, which I was able to move myself, heart patient and all. And I work for God.
Who does Manners work for? The Devil? Jesus, I’m really letting all this woo-woo creepy stuff start to infect me. I need to get in and get out.

“Tell you what,” I say, pacing and fondling Katrina’s crop, which I am beginning to think of as mine, which scares me more than anything since Munch’s yellow eyes. “You lawyers like to talk about win-win situations, huh?” I’m acting like Pembleton with a sex-change and PMS. It’s a trip.

I’ve got him trained already. He just stares at me looking like a middle-aged carp. “Answer me when I talk to you, scumbag.” I say, smacking his face.
Which I really do feel kind of guilty about...it’s against the law for cops to commit crimes in the course of undercover investigations, and I just assaulted him. The fact that he thinks this is a hot date wouldn’t change anything legally.
Mentally, I paste Tom Moran’s head on Manners’ body. He looked good for the Erica Chilton murder, but Detective Howard had to follow the rules, and her temporary souse of a bunky. Maybe Moran would chat with Mistress Katrina. That smirking, sleazebag asshole, alibi or no.

“Yes, ideally,” Manners says. “That is the goal. But the fundamental nature of any courtroom proceeding is adversarial...”

I’m not listening to that again. “Yes or no, asshole. My time is valuable. I have to be in Redmond tomorrow. And you know what that means. One smirk from me, and Wolfram and Hart is busted from a T-1 line to paper cups and string, huh? Mr. G. and I have an...understanding."
I slam the whip down on the desk so hard even Timmy would find it over the top. Papers skitter around and some fall on the floor...I try to insinuate them in my demon wonderbra.


deborah grabien - May 06, 2004 4:44:37 pm PDT #9120 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

He just stares at me looking like a middle-aged carp.

suhNERK.

Which I really do feel kind of guilty about...it’s against the law for cops to commit crimes in the course of undercover investigations, and I just assaulted him. The fact that he thinks this is a hot date wouldn’t change anything legally.

suNERK!

I try to insinuate them in my demon wonderbra.

suhNERK!

Oh, man. Kay's in form, yo.


deborah grabien - May 06, 2004 4:50:21 pm PDT #9121 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

BTW, speaking of la fic, I'm about a quarter of the way through my "Faith on the road, post-Chosen, AU" piece, The Long Road. feedback's a good thing, and I want to get back to it this weekend, now that the book edits are taken care of.

The Long Road

Highway, a deep river of darkness punctuated and limned by pale yellow dots. There were stars overhead, uncluttered by city light. In this moonless night, they seemed close enough to pick up and scatter as confetti.

It had been a long time since she'd come this way.

  • * *

Faith drove well. It was a skill she'd picked up early, knowing how to handle any vehicle anyone could produce. The acceleration of awareness, a gift of the Slayer birthright, helped too.

She'd picked this truck up somewhere just outside Tulsa. It was pushing thirty years old, but something about it just spoke to her: a big heavy long-frame Toyota Land Cruiser, the kind where dropping it into low-four meant getting out and doing it by hand. The paint, an ironic British racing green, was faded to nearly pastel. It weighed three tons and ate gas at a horrific rate. She didn't give a damn; the Council had given her plenty of money for this trip. And it was tacitly understood that what she chose to spend it on was entirely up to her.

Faith drove south, casually, not so casually. Her nervous system was talking to her, a soft insidious background whisper that was threatening to become a fullblown chatter. It had been awhile since she'd been out alone like this, alone and not running from anyone. Two years ago, she couldn't have gone near California, but times had changed; Willow had hacked the records, made a few big changes to the fingerprint file, and Faith was unidentifiable as a wanted felon. She was free.

She was also edgy. The highways had grown progressively thinner of passenger cars since they'd whupped the First Evil. But this was spooky - here on Interstate Five, the main artery into Los Angeles, she hadn't seen a single vehicle that wasn't a semi or an eighteen-wheeler. Nothing left out here but commercial vehicles. Where the fuck was everybody, anyway?

The night was silent, nothing but the steady turnover of the Cruiser's big engine. It was getting on her nerves, that silence. She turned the radio on, twisting through stations on the dial, getting random bits of noise and speech: come back to Jesus Ooooh baby I love your way Texaco on I5 just north of the first Bakersfield exit full service come back to Jesus somebody bring me some water ooooh baby baby....

She finally settled on a station out of some small town in the Valley. The dj had put on Warren Zevon, an album side; probably gone to take a leak and smoke a joint, Faith thought, but she listened to "Werewolves of London" and grinned to herself, sparing a passing thought for Oz, wherever he was now...

Singing along in a jangly offkey contralto to "Excitable Boy", she almost missed the hitcher on the side of the highway. About a hundred yards beyond him, she looked in the rear view mirror and saw him staring after her.

"Huh." There was something compelling about his stance, the way he watched her tailights trying to disappear. She stopped the cruiser, backing it up to where he waited.

  • * *


deborah grabien - May 06, 2004 4:51:47 pm PDT #9122 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

(more)

He was a big man, with one of those faces, the kind where gauging his age was as impossible as it would be for a nun. He had deep laughlines, but no other wrinkles, yet his hair was white, and so were his eyebrows. He looked like a boxer gone to seed, soft in the middle, with hands that would make fists like ham hocks.

"Thanks for stopping." He climbed into the passenger seat beside her. "Nothing but commercials out there."

"No problem." She turned the volume down slightly, not really minding. "Tenderness on the Block" wasn't one of her picks anyway. "Where you headed?"

"South." The answer, flip on the surface, seemed oddly flat. "Just south. You?"

"South, for a few days. Into LA. Then back on up north, but not this road." She heard her own voice smooth out. A few days in LA. She wondered what she'd find there. Angel, still helping the helpless? Wes, the forbidden fruit she knew better than to try for? Cordelia was gone; so was Fred. Gunn had done something bad, really bad, old school-Faith bad; she didn't know what, but the word was, he'd left Angel in disgrace. The Council had been alive with whispers. Something about a deal with the devil...

"You got anything to eat?"

His voice, still flat and uninflected, jerked her attention back to him. "Bag of tortilla chips. It's in back. Hang on, I'll pull over."

"No, don't worry, I can reach it."

He twisted around in his seat, his upper body partially obscuring his left hand. His voice was casual, too casual, and her reflexes caught and locked. She jerked the truck to one side, cutting hard and sharp behind a semi with Oregon plates, spinning the Cruiser safely off the road onto the shoulder. She accomplished all this with one hand; the other was clamped around his wrist, pinning his hand - invisible in the depths of her bag - hard in place.

He screamed, a short breathless squeal.

"I was giving you a ride south, dude." Her mouth was a cold thin line. "Shitty way to say thanks, isn't it? Trying to liberate my wallet?"

"You're one of them." Lit by the incandescent flashes of passing halogen headlights, his features were mobile stone. His voice was thin with pain; her pressure on his wrist was unrelenting. Ahead of them, towering darkness, rose the Tehachapi mountains, and the road called the Grapevine. "One of the Girls. Shit, I should have known, I should have -"

"I'm not one of the Girls." Oh, man. Everywhere she went, everywhere. Why was everyone so fucking scared of the new Slayers? "I'm more than that."

He understood what she meant before she realised she said it. "You're one the Two. Oh, God. Please," he whispered. "Please don't kill me."

"Stop talking like that. What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm not going to kill you. Of course I'm not. I don't kill human beings, even shitheads who try to rob me."

A memory, the one that wouldn't ever allow itself to erase, caught her throat and choked her off: the Mayor's aide, froth and blood bubbling at his lips, his eyes on her, beseeching, don't let this be true, no, make this not be real, with Faith's stake in his heart. She remembered the look of horror, a kind of strained compassion, on B's face. She remember, too, her own words: I don't care. A lie, of course. She cared. The caring had ripped her in half.

Her hand tightened unconciously on the hitcher's wrist. His whistling intake of breath brought her back. She ought to boot his ass out, she thought, put him right back out there, let him rot waiting for a ride. But if he got one, and he robbed the driver, it would be her fault, and the legend would grow, the Two, golden Buffy, pitch-dark Faith, Snow White and Rose Red…

"Goddamnit." She released his wrist, and swung the Cruiser back onto Interstate 5. "I'll take you into LA. But you try stealing something, and I might forget you're human. Clear?"

He nodded. Faith set the Cruiser up the long road to Los Angeles, where memories waited.

  • * *