a rant with much butt-smooching involved... er, just read it. or ignore.

Okay, so I've had this plot bunny hopping in rabid little circles through my brain for about forever. It started out as very vague, but has grown considerably over time, and I still have nothing to write for it. Why? Because I'm afraid to.

The idea came after watching season six two or three times. I'm not sure when exactly, but I remember it was during the episode "After Life." in that little scene of the Scoobies in the backyard, and it struck me as incredibly weird that Buffy came back from the dead, and then she's just... sort of okay. And no, I'm not ignorant. I know the entire season dealt with her inner turmoil of being alive again, but to me it just wasn't enough. This is going to prove once and for all that I spend entirely too much time thinking about fictional characters, but if I had been brought back from the dead, I think it would have taken me considerably longer to recuperate. I think I might have been insane with a bag of chips. And I totally understand the constraints of a television show; Joss wouldn't have had time for a whole season of 'let's deal with these issues.' He did it in the best way possible, and I flog myself for criticizing his talent.

But... in a fanfic world, there are no constraints. So, little plot bunny continues to hop. It wants crazy!Buffy. It wants angst, as usual, with cherries on top.

That's where the fear comes in. I've read TONS of fanfic. I probably have a whole gig of it saved on my hard drive, just in case those wonderful sites go down, and my favorite stories are no longer available. In my opinion the Buffyverse has more talented people writing fanfic for it than all the other fandoms put together. Yes, I've read some incredibly horrible fics, but it's so much easier to find a good one than if you're searching for a nice Inuyasha read. You're going to spend some time looking there.

And in all the Buffy fic I've read, the ones I call 'season six rewrites' are usually the best. Some of them are OUTSTANDING. Can I remember them all off the top of my head? No. But BarbC's whole Barbverse comes to mind immediately, and so does Niamh's Originsverse.

How do they do it? Everything is so intricate and complex, and... NO WAY can I do that. And yes, I know I don't have to. But I'd really, really love to be that fantastic, and it seems even when I give it my all, I just can't. Or I think I have, and then a few weeks later, I read over it, and it's crap. Sigh. Maybe I just don't have the patience.

But don't expect to see my own season six any time soon, because I will not be writing it unless I think I've grasped this concept of being awesome, lol. So long.