Okay people, after having spent my unexpected 4-day weekend reading everything on Barb's site, I have lost all hand-eye coordination and I've changed my Spuffy link to her page. Now Herself is an amazing writer and I loved her fics but ...oh what the hell I'll have two Spuffy links. They're both just too good.

Barb's stuff is much more canon based, her characterizations are perfect and sometimes, imho, truer to character than canon. Herself has changed the Whedonverse more extensively, and I do still love the fics that take the 'verse away from its origins (supreme example is Subtleties (beautiful Spander)), they're just different. Barb has the Whedon lingo down pat, down to each character. She has Spike referring to himself as the Vamp of La Mancha for yoda's sake, how can you not love her? Her literary references alone make this work some of the best writing I've read in ages. Plus, funny.

Barb's three novellas are incredible and her collaborative work, Three Deep, at Tea at the Ford is also excellent. She has great rants on her site, rants about the show and vampire lore etc. I have to say, I'm ashamed that I was surprised that she's a lesbian writing Spuffy fic. How closed is my mind that I assume that an artist would need to write a love relationship that resembled his/her own? And of course she can think Spike is hot, as she herself says "I'm gay, not blind." And, hello? I've been reading slash for how many years now, stories about two men humping that are written (as research would indicate) mostly by women on the straighter side of the continuum.

It's funny to discover tiny parts of your brain you thought must be open (due to open-mindedness about most things queer) but were actually closed. And it's wonderful to feel them open once you've pounced upon them.