Who Are You Ficathon and Farscape/Buffy

[shadowkat]

Lovely day outside. Difficult inside. Best bit was being let go early. Enuf said on that.
Adoring Farscape - have decided to rewatch the Liars, Guns, and Money arc tonight.

The Who Are You Ficathon - which is basically about characters in the Buffy fandom switching bodies and not having it just be about sex - reminded me of what I loved about the Farscape episode Out of their Minds. Normally when people do this - the characters switching are the romantic leads and that's it. But they involved other characters. An alien character named Rygel, who is a 167 year old dethroned ruler in Exile, and an aquatic alien, also a puppet (although you actually forget he's a puppet - that's how good it is) - lands in John Crichton's body, while Crichton lands in Aeryn's and Aeryn lands in Rygel (or the puppet). This happens through an alien weapon device. When the device hits again, Aeryn lands in John, John lands in Rygel, and Rygel lands in Aeryn. They do the same thing with three other characters. It's hilarious and goes beyond pure sex and bathroom jokes in some respects. It addresses what would it be like to be in another person's body. Whedon similarly played this game with Who ARe You.

If I were doing the Buffy ficathon? I might do a crossover - what would happen if Spike landed in Captain John's body ? Or better yet, Doctor Who and Xander changed places? Can you imagine Xander operating the Tardis? And how long do you think the Doctor could tolerate Giles? Or how about the Doctor and Buffy? Another fun switch would John Crichton and Spike? (I'd like to see someone try that one. I don't think it is possible). Or what about Buffy and Harmony? Or Xander and Spike? Or Spike and Mr. Gordo? Now that I'd like to see. Spike and Mr. Pointy - may be impossible. Or Puppet Angel and Spike? (Someone was writing a fanfic recently about Spike's soul being stolen around the same time Angelus needed to be resouled - and I thought that they'd come up with the rather fascinating idea of having Willow accidently steal Spike's soul and put it into Angel in S7. They didn't. And I lost interest.)

In Farscape - when they did this - they actually did play with sexual attraction and slash. Chiana (who lusts after Crichton) ends up in her love interest, D'Argo's body, while Rygel who lusts after Chiana ends up in Crichton's. Chiana in D'Argo's body attempts to seduce Rygel in Crichton's to convince him to flee the ship (which is under attack) - she actually kisses him and he goes for it, then pulls back, because he wants his body back. I don't think I've seen a tv show actually do that.

Hee. This is why I love science fiction and fantasy, they play with narrative forms and characters in fun ways.

Comments

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

I must say some of the switching you propose are really hilarious, like Puppet Angel-Spike or Buffy-Harmony for example. And others would be really interesting, provided like you said that the story went beyond bathroom jokes (which can be fun too). One I'd like to see myself would be Buffy-Spike (season 5-6), that could be the occasion for a good exploration of the POVs. Season 2 and 4 could be also done but much more in a funny way. Just think about the possibilities in season 4: Spike in Buffy's body as she is involved with Riley. :-)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of a Riley - Spike bodyswitch. Now that would be interesting - I'm not sure which would be better though S5 or S4.
In S4 - he hates her and The Initiative and is still a pseudo-villian. In S5 he has realized that he loves her and is madly jealous of Riley, while Riley is equally, and oddly, jealous of Spike. Five might be more interesting. Four could be hilarious.

With Bodyswap fics - the ones I usually see are Faith/Buffy or Buffy/Willow, or Xander/Buffy or Xander/Spike.

I'd love to see a Giles/Spike or Giles/Xander or even more interesting, a Giles/Buffy swap. The trick is to pick the two most outlandish.