cousinjean
| Fan | |
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| Name: | cousinjean |
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| Fandoms: | Buffy, Angel |
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cousinjean was a popular Buffy and Angel fanfic writer.
cousinjean gafiated in August 2005. See Cousinjean and Profit Wank.
See Dancing Lessons, a well-known Spike/Buffy fic.
Some of Her Fiction
- JeanJeanie.net - Story Time, Archived version, this link includes a "Tip Jar" for donations to Pay Pal
- All About Spike
- Elysian Fields
- Fanfiction.net
Some Comments About Her Fiction
Reading Cousinjean is a bit like reading Hemmingway. The style is spare, and not a single word is wasted. Despite that, her writing packs a punch because it invites readers to read between the lines and figure out for themselves the emotional resonances. At first glance, the Butterfly Effect seems to be one out of many “what-if”, time-travel stories, but Cousinjean's execution renders the piece into a real gem. Set five months after "Chosen", Buffy returns to S2's Sunnydale on a mission. There, she meets Spike again and has to convince him to help her. Revisiting the past gives Buffy a chance to see Spike as he is, sans soul, chip or the burden of loving her. And Buffy is finally struck by an epiphany... The Butterfly Effect is a classic. Tight and compact, it's an easy read with a polished emotional and structural resolution few other stories can boast of. In case you are wondering about that one niggling plotline at the end, Cousinjean did embark on a sequel titled "Ripples", but it's not likely to be completed. [1]
Alas, there has been a monstrous kerfuffle and cousinjean has left both LJ and the Buffyverse fandom. Cousin Jean was one of the first fic authors I discovered and still one of my favourites. Some of her stories are still archived at All About Spike and all are well worth reading. My particular favourites are Future Imperfect, Perfect World, and And Miles To Go. The Butterfly Effect is one of her most well-known fics and deservedly so. However, it was archived only at her own site which seems to have been taken down. Bummer. [2]
The Profit Wank
In 2005, cousinjean proposed that fans give her enough money so she could take a year off from her job and finish the fic Dancing Lessons.
For much more, see cousinjean and Profit Wank.
A summary from a fan in 2006:
Cousin Jean wanted people to donate money so she could afford to take a leave of absence for a year to finish Dancing Lessons and an original fiction novel she was working on. Suffice to say, after Cousin Jean's modest proposal, there was a huge LJ-based fight over the situation and her LJ got slammed. The pile on was pretty fierce.In one corner, you had fanfic writers who were positively horrified and more than a little worried that her fanfic-for-pay proposal would capture the attention of FOX's legal department and inspire it to start going after Buffy fanfic writers the same way it had started going after fansites that were using screencaps without permission or posting shooting scripts.
In the other corner, you had several people who worked on various Dancing Lessons stories as co-authors expressing horror and dismay. They were doubly furious because her modest proposal came out of the blue. They demanded that their stories be removed from the series and her Web site as a result.
Cousin Jean announced she was leaving Buffy fandom effectively immediately, deleted her LJ and, from what I understand, took down her fanfic site as a result of the dust-up.[3]
References
- ^ My Spuffy Long-Fic Recs (Part 1), by elyvern, posted by on October 5, 2005
- ^ Cousin Jean, desoto_recs, August 22, 2005
- ^ from Television Without Pity, Archived version, by ScaryFairy1, posted May 11, 2006