fannish5: Five bits of fanon you particularly dislike/like

[selenak]

I picked two I dislike, two I like and one I'm fond of but don't insist on.


1) BTVS: Sex with Riley was completely unsatisfactory for Buffy, and she never really cared for him, either.

I'm 'shipping neutral, more or less, and I do think the end of the Buffy/Riley relationship was inevitable (and good for her, in the long term). You can also make a case out of the nightly running scene in Buffy versus Dracula, absolutely, but I think canon is pretty clear that during the majority of the relationship, Buffy enjoyed being with Riley both emotionally and sexually. (Actually, canon gave us more than most of us wanted to know about that in season 4.) Incidentally, considering both the Angel trauma and the Parka fiasco, Riley was the one who got her over the impression that sex was inevitably followed by disaster. So pray vent your Riley dislike through other means than the "loser in the sack" thing.

2) BTVS/AtS: "Childe". I know, I know. We have "sire" as a verb and a noun (thanks, Joss, for the Buffy/Holden dialogue on the matter), and it would be nice to have something for the vampire offspring, too. But "childe" inevitably conjures up both Byron's Childe Harold and George Bernard Shaw teasing Bosie Douglas by calling him "Childe Alfred" when they were both cranky old men in WWII to me, and when it doesn't that, it makes me wonder whether the writers like their pairings with one part infantilized.

3) X-Men movieverse: Before their fall-out, Charles and Erik ran the school together, and both Scott and Jean are basically in a children of divorced couple situation when they deal with Magneto. Actually, given the teaser of X3, this one can be considered canon not fanon now, but I try not to think of X3 when I can avoid it (not that I didn't love the scene in question). Anyway, I first came across the idea in fanfiction - penknife's, I believe - and loved it. Still do.

4) Babylon 5: brachiarte. This one was created by andrastewhite as a term for male Centauri attributes and is ever so useful, as writing "tentacles" usually isn't conductive to atmosphere. We few, we happy few who write Centauri pairings are immensely grateful!

5) Alias: Emily's pregnancy and the birth and death of Jacquelyne took place when Jack was in custody after the Irina/Laura reveal, which is why Arvin never told him about it before Emily made him promise not to tell anyone (i.e. during the pregnancy). The Alias timeline for the First Gen Spies can be headache inducing anyway, but that explanation always made the most sense to me. I don't insist, though: stories which can come up with plausible alternatives are just as credible to me.

Comments

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

The night runs in "Buffy vs. Dracula" were also a side-effect of summoning the spirit of the first Slayer at the end of S4, which left all the Scoobies, well, "Restless".

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Indeed!

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

1. I, personally, didn't like Riley, but I think it would be awfully hard to argue that Buffy didn't like him, especially in bed!

3. Oh yes. One thing I really, really love about movie canon, that is sadly missing from comics canon, is strong evidence of Charles and Erik's friendship/relationship/whatever. I mean, we have that flashback issue of Uncanny X-Men set in Israel, but that gets them from meeting to parting in a single issue, and is just not enough to explain their connection.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

1: Agree entirely - I got the impression that there was a gradual drift apart, and that they were pretty happy for a while. The Spuffy camp is really fond of the fanon version of events.

2: This seems to have been stolen from the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG and its bastard offshoot the TV series "Kindred: The Embraced" - they have these elaborate sire / childe relationships, the Buffyverse has almost nothing on those lines apart from Darla's respect (and I'm not convinced it's more than that) of the Master and the "strong sire dominates the weak minion" thing that obviously isn't backed by any mystic force - see e.g. the way Harmony's minions turn on her, and Spike on Angel..

3: No strong preference either way.

4: Haven't come across this but I'm not a big B5 fan.

5: Still haven't got my head around any aspect of Alias continuiity - for all I know they were abducted by Rambaldi-loving aliens and artificially inseminated

[selenak.livejournal.com]

What about Excalibur during the time they were living together on Genosha? (I mean, I haven't read it yet, but I hear it's basically canon slash...) Otherwise, I must ask andrastewhite who is the expert whether there are more backstory issues...

Anyway! Love that the movies gave us this free room!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

for all I know they were abducted by Rambaldi-loving aliens and artificially inseminated

That would also work.*g*

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

#2. Well, that's a relief! I was afraid it was just me. There are basically two fannish terms that will turn me off a fic no matter how good it is otherwise - the use of the term "childe" for the siree and the renaming of Buffy as "Elizabeth". No idea where that one came from, except I read some time ago that the late Queen Mother's nickname was "Buffy" when she was a child. I'm sure there are a lot of vampire stories which use "childe" and claiming rituals - BtVS doesn't happen to be one of them.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Hail, fellow Childe despiser.*g*

except I read some time ago that the late Queen Mother's nickname was "Buffy" when she was a child.

So rozk tells me. Apparantly the name itself does come from "Elizabeth", but we do see Buffy's records on screen on several occasions, and she definitely is listed as Buffy (Anne), so that is her full canon name.

Incidentally, I do believe there's a good chance Darla was called either Elizabeth or a derivation thereof as a human, because she was born into Elizabeth I.'s reign, and a lot of children did get called after the ruling monarch....

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! "Buffy" may be a diminutive of "Elizabeth", but it doesn't work the other way around. Interesting possibility re: Darla. She could also have been called Anne, Catherine, Katherine, Jane, Mary, Joan, Margaret, Alice, Agnes, Elinor, Cecily, Joyce, Barbara or Janet, which were among the most often used girl's names during the latter half of the 16th century, altough Elizabeth was the most popular. Isn't it interesting how many of these Elizabethan names have been used on the show? With nothing whatsoever to back-up my choice, I've always thought that Darla's original name was "Anne", but it was probably one of them, as 75% of the female population carried one of those names. Somehow, I just can't see Darla as an "Agnes". *g*