I really didn't want to know the Spike one, because it gave me a visual. But that's okay Am-Chau, because - well, because I'm the mum and I say so. That's why.

So - I read Herc's Jane E. Interview.

I just have to say I adore that woman. I want to have her over for coffee.

Of course, while Jane was at my kitchen table, I'd tell her why she's dead wrong about Joyce=FE in Conversations with Dead People (only after I'd spiked her coffee though, because I've seen Jane post on the Bronze and Bronze Beta, and sober? she use my ass to wipe the floor - in an argument).

For me, here's what doesn't fit about her Joyce=FE theory, and no, even though she is my new best friend, I don't care that she wrote it, and will insist upon calling it a wrong theory.

(From the shooting script)

DAWN (cont'd)

I cast you out with the strength of

those who love me. I cast you out

with the strength I have inside me--

Them's fightin' words in the Buffyverse. That's the most powerful incantation, spell, whatever, ever uttered on the show. It's the part of the mission - it is the damned mission statement from season 7. You can't eradicate evil, but you can reject it, and you do that through love, and through believing in yourself and in those that love you.

Ignore all the paranormal activity in the Summers' house that evening (even though it also backs up my point - because the FE was incorporeal, and erm... well Jane, if it had direct control ('tis understood that of course the FE has indirect control of/influence upon all evil entities) of poltergiesty stuff that could attack and wreck, why wouldn't it have used it more often? Buffy couldn't slay that sort of entity). t /digression

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, ignoring all the paranormal activity in the Summers' house that evening, despite the fact that it backs me up, Dawn driving out whatever that was, based on the strength of love, and her own inherent strength - you don't trump that in the Buffyverse. The power behind that incantation? In addition to being the point of season seven, it's the same power that wins in The Harvest. Prophecy Girl. Innocence. Becoming. Amends. Helpless. Graduation Day. The Freshman. New Moon Rising. Primeval. Family. Checkpoint. Intervention. The Weight of the World. The Gift. There wasn't much of it evident to me in season 6, but I think the point can be made that it was lacking because it was the season in which our heroes weren't heroes. It's the stuff of Grave's breaky yellow crayon.

Given that there was never much more of a payoff for Joyce/Joyce!FE's words, of course none of this matters a whit. But... I'm just sayin'...

However, I still love Jane, and this interview just reaffirmed my love. It also reminded me to give GG a try (even though I'd resisted it up 'til now), simply because she's writing for it. She's just spectacular.

RE: the FE vs. Joyce. I know Jane said it was FE, but I prefer Victor's explanation in his fabu piece of fic he wrote (Conversations with the Monster) in which Dawn recognizes that it was both her mom and the FE. He says it better, really. It's my own personal canon, now.

t /victor pimping

I always try to read all of Victor's stuff, but either I've missed that or forgotten it. Without having read/remembering it, I can totally buy it though - because that was my fanwank for Buffy's dream where the image of Joyce tells her to rest and tells her to wake. I figured both Ghost!Joyce and FE!Joyce were appearing to her, hence the conflicting messages.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty brilliant too, smonster.

t hopelessly behind in all the fic threads, no point in even STARTING to look Hey! No fair pimping a victor fic without a link! t /hbiatft,npieStl

[link] should do it, JZ

Sorry for pimping w/ no link, it's been a hellish day, fighting the ascension and all. (see Bitches)

Thanks, Plei, for picking up my slack.

Heh. For me, I think this is the best reason to write fic, to try and make sense of the ideas in your head that aren't quite explained on the show.

I think this is the best reason to write fic, to try and make sense of the ideas in your head that aren't quite explained on the show.

Absolutely. And I think that's why the bunnies I get -- and especially the ones I actually chase down -- are almost always of the fill-in-the-gaps, mine-the-subtext, get-in-the-character's-head type, rather than anything that's too terribly AU. (YficMV, as always.)

And dudes, fear my hyphens!

Heh. For me, I think this is the best reason to write fic, to try and make sense of the ideas in your head that aren't quite explained on the show.

Oh, yeah. And, well, I may be AU's bitch at the moment, but I swear I have reasons for every single one of them.