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.... because Tea and Biscuits has been updated.
I read the new parts last night, finishing too late to even think about feedback, and then realised that I'd have to do it on three journals and it would get long. So I decided to make it a post and that way I can go behind tags to avoid spoiling people and not worry about length. If reviewing like this is Not Done (always feel as if LJ etiquette is a minefield and people have different maps to the one I use) then apologies; this just seemed the best way.
So dunk your digestives and let me squee ;-)
I found T&B when Arc 1 and 2 had been completed, back in May. Here's a link to my LJ entry the next day;
http://www.livejournal.com/users/janedavitt/18814.html in which luvsbitch, fitofpique and I go into a lot of TMI detail about what reading it did to us and some other lovely people joined in.
Then there was a long wait...in which time I read it again and possibly another time, dipping in to find my favourite bits and ending up scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and reading reams of it...but suddenly there was Arc 3 and life was good and the authors were saying that was just a tiny part of it and whee...
New bits were mentioned as possibly coming out in December. So I read it again last week, just to get it fresh in my mind. Then last night I waved David off to soccer at nine, finished watching a S4 episode I planned to use as the basis for a Spike/Oz ficard (research; it's a hard job but someone has to do it) and ambled over to the computer to write, idly checking my friends page as you do. Or maybe I'm the only procrastinating writer...no, probably not.
Luvsbitch was talking about printing off T&B. Odd; thought she'd done that ages ago. Then the penny dropped. I was good; carried on reading back to where I'd left it.More people talking about it (always the last to know, always). A new writer? A new character? Oh, my; who? Scrolling became frantic and then I saw who it was and I knew, oh, yes, I did and my guess was right. Not that it was a hard thing to guess ;-)
So, quiet house, kids in bed, husband gone for the next two hours, perfect...settled down to read. He got in just as I was on the final part and I grudgingly paused to examine a scrape on his arm and hear about the penalty shoot out that cost them the match and then shooed him off to shower so I could finish it.
This fic is the one I'd take to a desert island with me, it really is. Before this, if anyone had asked if I'd like to read a fic in email, I'd have probably said no; can't get the detail, the thoughts, too much of a pain with the quoted stuff...the last part is still my (only) problem with this story but the rest? Nope. It works, it brings a sense of immediacy to it and the voices come over so clearly I could tell who's talking without seeing the names at the top.
It was complicated by the end of Arc Two; four players, not three...but in a way Angel and Wes getting together made it simpler too; they were in LA, Giles and Spike in Sunnydale and I wondered if, slowly, they'd become two couples.
Arc Three started with the relationships still secret and it's still like that now, though the introduction of Xander in a minor thread and Giles' guilt, means it's not going to stay that way in Sunnydale for long. We didn't get chance to really see the effect of Angel/Wes though, because Giles left and Spike/Wes and Angel shifted closer as a result. That didn't seem a bad thing at all; Giles and Angel, always the two with the most tension between them, because Spike and Angel, though at each other's throats initially had a different dynamic, were starting to talk and Giles wasn't going to be gone long, and he could help Cordy, come back, much rejoicing, all happy. Right?
Well, that's no fun ;-) So we get Ethan and oh boy, can you tell when he's in the mix. Lemon, not milk in the tea, or maybe both at first, curdling it, because he's bitter, angry, hurt and so achingly vulnerable and sad I was close to crying.
This update was so full of emotion and drama and it kept taking what I thought and shaking it up; showing me something from a dozen perspectives until I was dizzy with torn loyalties all over the place.
It's impossible not to get seduced into what's happeneing with Giles and Ethan; their relationship is so much a part of what made Giles what he is and Giles, like all the players in this, has guilt. Ethan takes that guilt and magnifies it until Giles can't see past it, is focused on it to the exclusion of all else.
Including Spike and Wes.
The part where they find out what Giles has been doing, been saying is heartbreaking. What's that Aerosmith lyric? "Guess all those late night promises, they don't mean a thing" And suddenly Ethan stops seeming so harmless and helpless. He's after Giles, he's breaking up G/S/W...but it's not that simple. Never is. He's got a prior claim, he's got rights too and he's got Giles yearning to make it right.
And now the wheel's turning again and Angel, the oldest, is playing the peacemaker, soothing the hurt, giving the advice, and we've got spells that could hurt Giles, Wes stuck in transit, Angel and Spike left to wait, Xander starting to be a cloud on the horizon and...
TBC
God. Can't wait. I love this fic, I really do.
I read the new parts last night, finishing too late to even think about feedback, and then realised that I'd have to do it on three journals and it would get long. So I decided to make it a post and that way I can go behind tags to avoid spoiling people and not worry about length. If reviewing like this is Not Done (always feel as if LJ etiquette is a minefield and people have different maps to the one I use) then apologies; this just seemed the best way.
So dunk your digestives and let me squee ;-)
I found T&B when Arc 1 and 2 had been completed, back in May. Here's a link to my LJ entry the next day;
http://www.livejournal.com/users/janedavitt/18814.html in which luvsbitch, fitofpique and I go into a lot of TMI detail about what reading it did to us and some other lovely people joined in.
Then there was a long wait...in which time I read it again and possibly another time, dipping in to find my favourite bits and ending up scrolling, scrolling, scrolling and reading reams of it...but suddenly there was Arc 3 and life was good and the authors were saying that was just a tiny part of it and whee...
New bits were mentioned as possibly coming out in December. So I read it again last week, just to get it fresh in my mind. Then last night I waved David off to soccer at nine, finished watching a S4 episode I planned to use as the basis for a Spike/Oz ficard (research; it's a hard job but someone has to do it) and ambled over to the computer to write, idly checking my friends page as you do. Or maybe I'm the only procrastinating writer...no, probably not.
Luvsbitch was talking about printing off T&B. Odd; thought she'd done that ages ago. Then the penny dropped. I was good; carried on reading back to where I'd left it.More people talking about it (always the last to know, always). A new writer? A new character? Oh, my; who? Scrolling became frantic and then I saw who it was and I knew, oh, yes, I did and my guess was right. Not that it was a hard thing to guess ;-)
So, quiet house, kids in bed, husband gone for the next two hours, perfect...settled down to read. He got in just as I was on the final part and I grudgingly paused to examine a scrape on his arm and hear about the penalty shoot out that cost them the match and then shooed him off to shower so I could finish it.
This fic is the one I'd take to a desert island with me, it really is. Before this, if anyone had asked if I'd like to read a fic in email, I'd have probably said no; can't get the detail, the thoughts, too much of a pain with the quoted stuff...the last part is still my (only) problem with this story but the rest? Nope. It works, it brings a sense of immediacy to it and the voices come over so clearly I could tell who's talking without seeing the names at the top.
It was complicated by the end of Arc Two; four players, not three...but in a way Angel and Wes getting together made it simpler too; they were in LA, Giles and Spike in Sunnydale and I wondered if, slowly, they'd become two couples.
Arc Three started with the relationships still secret and it's still like that now, though the introduction of Xander in a minor thread and Giles' guilt, means it's not going to stay that way in Sunnydale for long. We didn't get chance to really see the effect of Angel/Wes though, because Giles left and Spike/Wes and Angel shifted closer as a result. That didn't seem a bad thing at all; Giles and Angel, always the two with the most tension between them, because Spike and Angel, though at each other's throats initially had a different dynamic, were starting to talk and Giles wasn't going to be gone long, and he could help Cordy, come back, much rejoicing, all happy. Right?
Well, that's no fun ;-) So we get Ethan and oh boy, can you tell when he's in the mix. Lemon, not milk in the tea, or maybe both at first, curdling it, because he's bitter, angry, hurt and so achingly vulnerable and sad I was close to crying.
This update was so full of emotion and drama and it kept taking what I thought and shaking it up; showing me something from a dozen perspectives until I was dizzy with torn loyalties all over the place.
It's impossible not to get seduced into what's happeneing with Giles and Ethan; their relationship is so much a part of what made Giles what he is and Giles, like all the players in this, has guilt. Ethan takes that guilt and magnifies it until Giles can't see past it, is focused on it to the exclusion of all else.
Including Spike and Wes.
The part where they find out what Giles has been doing, been saying is heartbreaking. What's that Aerosmith lyric? "Guess all those late night promises, they don't mean a thing" And suddenly Ethan stops seeming so harmless and helpless. He's after Giles, he's breaking up G/S/W...but it's not that simple. Never is. He's got a prior claim, he's got rights too and he's got Giles yearning to make it right.
And now the wheel's turning again and Angel, the oldest, is playing the peacemaker, soothing the hurt, giving the advice, and we've got spells that could hurt Giles, Wes stuck in transit, Angel and Spike left to wait, Xander starting to be a cloud on the horizon and...
TBC
God. Can't wait. I love this fic, I really do.
