“Jasmine Tears”, End notes
[ Endnotes posted 28 Jan 2018 ]
Since this is a remix, what prompted the direction this story took in differing from the original?
This was only the third remix I’d ever done, and the first (and still most extreme) time I’d been assigned an author whose style and approach differed so extravagantly from my own. I needed a different approach, since I couldn’t do what had been normal for me up till then: take the same basic story, and look at it from another angle. I don’t remember any of the other tales from this author, but I can remember that the original I chose (“Do and Talk and Do”) was the only one that offered me any possibilities, the two of us were just that different in our style and our outlook. Once I settled on which story I’d be remixing, the natural question - Okay, this differs from canon, so what would have brought about that difference? - gave me a starting-point from which to work.
Is there any particular significance to the title?
None whatsoever. I was still working my way through filling in the alphabet with story-titles, and this gave me an opportunity to check off the ‘J’. I actually would have gone with “Jasmine Laments”, except I knew people could all too easily look at that and see, instead of my intended meaning (lamentations flavored with jasmine), something more like “Jasmine” (the character) “complains/regrets” (about whatever). This is my most unsatisfying - to me, at any rate - title: even “Objects in the Mirror”, the previous winner, at least sounds good, albeit not actually having much to do with its story; “Jasmine Tears” just feels kind of generic to me.
What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?
Like most: I felt I depicted Faith reasonably well, the passion and the regret, the underlying insecurity and the overbearing overcompensation for it, the willingness to die and the plaintive, unvoiced wish for something worth living for. Her very real pain, and the love she remembered while knowing full well that all the memories were false … it worked for me.
Liked least: no single thing, really. The story title (already expounded upon). And I might have gone a little overboard in the physical details of Faith’s memories of her sexual ‘past’ with Cordelia … but, honestly, compared to other things being turned out by other ficcers, then and now, my ‘sexual’ writing is the plainest of plain vanilla.
Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?
For the course I chose to follow on this story, I did about as well as I could do even now. Just the question raises in my mind the possibility of other approaches I might have taken … but those would have been different stories, and ultimately this one works fairly well on its own.
Was there a different direction I could have taken the story, and what would have been some of the advantages of the not-taken path?
The obvious variant would have been if Faith had gone to someone else for insight, rather than Lorne. Calling on Giles would have raised entirely different issues; Willow, well, that could have been explosive. It almost makes me wish I could see those ideas pursued by someone else … but me, no, I’ve done this one already and have no desire to do it over.
Any observations to add at the end?
Two things.
First, despite my decision to not regard the additional ‘seasons’ of Buffy in the comic books as canon (even though Joss Whedon has specifically given them canon status), I have nonetheless occasionally used small details from the comics as filler in Independent stories. The first was the mention of Satsu in “ An’ Foolish Notion” (and Buffy briefly having a girlfriend was later touched on in “ Friends with the Monster”). This was the second, the reference to the rogue Slayer Gigi and her ultimately accidental death (in the “No Future for You” storyline). No real meaning there, just making the observation.
Second, I have more than once thought of transferring this story from Independents to the Backstage section, making it one of my own quasi-canon entries. There’s really nothing stopping me on that, I just have never really made a decision to go ahead. And, when you come right down to it, it isn’t actually necessary.