So just to harp on a point I mentioned before, I don't quite agree that everyone here is a dream. Wilkins showed up early on as a Warlock, and I would be pretty surprised if he wasn't actual dead Wilkins that has been talking to us throughout the quest. Seeing how Buffy responds to the message that the artifact is sending would probably be pretty informative if he is going to be stuck in our dreams for awhile.
Successor (BTVS)
- Thread starter DeAnno
- Start date
- Mature
S3.5E16: In Color VI
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
[12/19] Kill The Wicked Witch. The cosmos deserves to have hope for a better future.
-[(3+7)/19] Kill The Wizard. Save Oz and its people from untold levels of destruction.
Oz was heartbreakingly beautiful, an entire world brought alive by living color. It was unthinkably vast, in a way that Buffy suspected dwarfed even Earth itself. It seemed to hold wonders over every horizon, and for all that its people were all demonic or otherwise bizarre, plenty of them were worth saving. She'd met some. It should've been an easy decision to team up with a lesser evil to keep it from being destroyed.
But she'd witnessed the deliberate cruelty of the Wicked Witch of the West. Even when she was trying to win her over to her side, she'd still antagonized the munchkins and harassed Scarecrow. She hadn't even been able to stop herself torturing Tin Man with bees. And maybe if that was all, it still wouldn't have been enough to sway her. She'd worked with Spike before under similar circumstances. But of course that wasn't all, because she was starting to remember that this was no lesser Evil she was dealing with.
"You just couldn't quite help yourself, could you?" Buffy started. She had this 'Faust's' number now. "You picked your funny nickname, you did up your flying monkeys all 'Third Eye Blind', but it wasn't enough. You had to drop the E-word." She still didn't know why her memories were so foggy, but she'd finally figured this one thing out, at least. "But then, without that special sense of melodrama, you wouldn't be the First Evil we all know and loathe, would you?"
The Wicked Witch's stolen smile shattered into an ugly rictus of hate, but she wasn't done arguing, "So what? I'm Evil. You knew that already. It changes nothing. All of Oz is at stake, surely we can put aside petty differences like that?"
Buffy shook her head. "Guys, I'm sorry, but she's even bigger bad news than you know. With her trapped like this we can't let her get away."
Scarecrow and Lion both didn't say anything, but shared a skeptical look with each other. Buffy hoped they weren't being quiet out of fear, but she knew she was doing the right thing.
Tin Man, on the other hand, was making his opinion known, "Buffy, not negotiating with terrorists is fine in principle, but the actual world is about to get blown up." He didn't look much different than the other Tin Men in the room, but he definitely wasn't dancing to The Wizard's tune.
"Your friend isn't wrong," The Wicked Witch agreed.
"I'll deal with him after," Buffy said. Most of this technomagical stuff looked pretty fragile anyway; even if she couldn't beat him she could break all his things. "Right now? We've got a witch to burn."
"For the record, I don't care who we fight, I'm with you either way," Harmony said.
"So that's your final decision? Fine then! It's you that's going to be burning, my little pretty," With that, a wave of bright green flame exploded out from her hands, aimed directly at Buffy. She pulled on her superspeed just in time, grabbing up Harmony and diving through a workbench as the magic fire obliterated the place where they'd been standing.
Buffy didn't know what had happened to her other friends in the confusion, but she had zero time to figure it out. The Wicked Witch had gotten onto her broom and was flying around the room now, launching another fireball even as Buffy got her bearings. She almost dived into another desperate dodge, but this time, the witch's attack was intercepted.
A stream of water crashed into the fire, quenching it and giving them time to recover. The Wizard was already conjuring another from his staff, trading shots with the airborne witch. "I knew you'd choose the right side in the end, Buffy. Let's take her out!"
Even as the two spellcasters fought, their minions crashed into each other in a wave of carnage. The Bringer-Monkeys had the Tin Men outnumbered and outmaneuvered, but The Wizard's robot minions were made of tough stuff, and wouldn't go down easy. Part of the monkey forces peeled off to occupy Buffy, but Harmony jumped in front, going for them like a vampire possessed. "This time it's a grudge match! You won't be getting my hair again!"
Buffy didn't let the opportunity Harmony gave her go to waste, and immediately ran to catch the witch. The room's high ceiling gave her a lot of altitude though, and Buffy knew she'd have trouble engaging. Buffy scavenged some projectiles out of the lab equipment, throwing up beakers of who-knows what and strange rocks of half-worked ore, but the witch was flying fast enough to match Buffy's own speed now, and her improvised attacks just made a mess of the runework on the ceiling.
Buffy was noticing a lack of ranged support as she dodged a couple more fireballs, and sure enough, The Wizard was being harassed by a veritable swarm of the flying bringer-monkeys. Even as he sprayed water attacks in one direction, they all crowded him from the other, and he either didn't have anything deadlier or didn't want to use it so close to himself. His Tin Men were trying to reach him, but the sheer number of flying monkeys that had worked their way into the room was too much for them to overcome.
With a spark of inspiration, Buffy hatched a plan. "You know, for an Evil that's been around since literally the beginning of time, your aim really sucks. Are you actually trying to hit me or do you just enjoy seeing everything miss?"
The Wicked Witch redoubled her fire attacks in response, throwing them with both hands now and barely a breath in between. With no support from The Wizard, Buffy was sent running madly across the huge room, leaving fiery destruction in her wake that devastated both friend and foe. Even with her superspeed, she could only barely keep ahead of it all, and the witch cackled madly with Buffy unable to fight back.
She was so focused on landing a blow that she didn't see where Buffy was leading her. When she reached the swarm of monkeys harassing The Wizard, she bullied her way through with one swing of her hammer and then swallowed him in a hug. It felt weirdly familiar, but she had no time to wonder about her messed-up memory. "Quick, water us, now!"
Luckily, he didn't question her order, and they were both surrounded by a protective sheath of water as the rain of fire came down around them. Buffy almost choked at the sudden change of environs, but the unprotected monkeys did way worse, dying by the score in their master's own massive fireball.
"You know, I think I could get used to this," The Wizard said.
Buffy shoved him off, "Sorry, taken. Also, not at all into that whole cosmos-sundering kink." Before the conversation could continue, another fireball came at them and they both dodged in separate directions, getting back into the rhythm of the battle.
Even with the crowd of bringer monkeys thinned and The Wizard free to act again, the fire kept coming from above and Buffy knew something had to be done before the whole floor was an inferno. She hopped up, using the head of one of the battered Tin Men as a stepping stone, and from there she leapt to a bizarre orrery hanging from the ceiling. It tilted crazily under her weight, but she didn't give the strings holding it time to snap, jumping for the witch at superspeed, her hammer swinging as she flew through the air.
The witch saw her coming, but just as she was about to dodge another stream of water shot up from The Wizard and splashed her, pushing her back into the path of Buffy's attack. The witch screamed and barrel-rolled, managing to avoid the hammer herself, but her broom wasn't so lucky.
With a nasty crack, Buffy smashed the thing in two, and they both crashed down to the floor amidst the scrambling monkeys and robots. The witch was so furious that she was actively smoking, screaming bile at her even as she rose to her feet, "My broom! My broom! You vile, impertinent child, that was-"
She was interrupted by a hammer jab to the mouth, but the Wicked Witch was made of strong stuff; she was only a little bruised up as she hurriedly backed away behind a screen of more fire. "It'll take more than that to get rid of me! I've existed since the Dawn of time, and I'll last until the End!"
"Well, if you don't at first succeed, just keep hitting people, I guess," Buffy said irreverently. Buffy raced forward through Tin Men to get at the witch again, dodging the odd fireball as she went. She'd almost caught up with her when the unexpected happened.
Just as she was about to dodge another fireball, one of the Tin Men grabbed at her suddenly, dragging them both into its path! "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do this," Buffy screamed with pain as the green fire scorched her skin and cooked her hair, breaking free of the traitorous robot to roll over the ground and try to put herself out.
A splash of water from The Wizard's direction extinguished her as he reengaged with the witch, but Buffy still wasn't in good shape. Tin Man wasn't either, but his metal body had tanked the worst of the heat. "Tin Man, I know you're afraid, but-"
"We don't have time for buts!," he screamed, charging at her, trying to hold her in place again. "Everyone I love might die, and if that means I'm on the Wicked Witch's side, then-"
"It also means you're dead!" Harmony screamed, laying into him with a vengeance. Buffy had still been reluctant to really hurt him, but Harmony had no such compunctions, denting his body with vicious kicks and tearing chunks right out of his metal with her teeth. "Buffy, go, finish her off!"
Even as she turned her attention back to The Wizard and the Wicked Witch, Buffy could tell the battle was reaching a crescendo. They were edging closer and closer to each other, their minions all either dead around them or forced back, and the fire and water attacks they used were forced so close that they'd been surrounded by a cloud of toxic green steam. The witch looked terrible, her skin melting as she fought, but it didn't stop her from casting again and again. The Wizard's spells slowed on the other hand, and he was racked by a nasty cough.
KILL
Buffy was tired and burnt and hungry, but she pushed herself one last time, drawing on everything that was left of her reserves. She was a blurring streak as she crossed the battlefield, and this time when the Wicked Witch tried a frantic dodge, The Wizard had one last trick. The steam around her purified and froze into ice, holding her in place for just a second too long.
KILL
The rage and hatred in her eyes turned to confused terror as Buffy bore down on her, and this time Buffy's attack was no little jab, but an extreme overhand swing. The hammer hit her square in the temple, and the witch's half-melted head was knocked clean off her body. A moment later, both disintegrated into black and green smoke, hopefully for the last time.
The Wizard was a pathetic sight, still practically coughing his lungs out as the toxic steam cleared. Buffy didn't feel so great herself, but she had the presence of mind to knock his staff to the side of the room before he recovered. "Now that that unpleasantness is done with, lets chat like reasonable adults about this end of the world thing. My position is that you're absolutely not doing it."
He smiled, shaking his head, and Buffy knew something was wrong. "You're a hero to the end. Truly admirable. It's good that you are, it wouldn't be right for you to be complicit in this."
"What do you mean? There isn't going to be any this! I'm not allowing it!" Buffy said worriedly.
"It's already too late," he said, and waved to indicate the runes covering the walls and ceiling, now alternating with pulses of white and black energy. "This was always the plan. I needed a sacrifice to make The Sundering work, and who better than the Wicked Witch of the West? The Entire Emerald City is charged now, everything going through the spellwork I've prepared. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to."
"But we did," Lion said, emerging from some rubble by the side of the room, with Scarecrow right behind her. "I've been reading your runes the whole time, and I figured out your plan."
The Wizard examined the patterns closer now, and his expression of resigned victory turned to shock. "What have you done?"
"She had the bravery to do what she had to. I merely helped her finish in time." Scarecrow said.
Lion nodded. "I knew Buffy would win, I couldn't stop that. And all these runes were ready to suck up the energy when the witch died, I couldn't stop that either. It had to go somewhere. A little tinkering with your feedback loop-"
"You've destroyed the Emerald City!" The Wizard shouted. "And you've killed us all! There's no time to escape!"
"Better us and the Emerald City than the whole world," she said sadly. "I'm sorry, Buffy."
"No, don't be sorry," Buffy said. She'd been so sure she could deal with The Wizard's plan herself, and if Lion hadn't been there... "You did the right thing when I couldn't. You're the hero of this story."
"Buffy?" Harmony said from behind her. She was covered in motor oil and singed by near-miss fire and her face was wracked with uncertainty and she'd never been more beautiful. Absently, Buffy noticed the destroyed wreck of their Tin Man in the background too, and she felt a little regret that it'd had to go down that way. But there was no time for that now. The runes seemed to be glowing both brighter and darker at once, and Buffy knew what was coming.
"Harmony," she said, and gathered her up in a hug and pecked at her lips. No time for secrets either. "You did really well. I'm so sorry I can't save us." The white light shined over the room, but all that it seemed to illuminate were shadows, taller and taller.
"Don't be sorry," Harmony was crying. "You still saved me. You're the hero of my story." And then everything went still, and turned to gold.
------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a moment of severe disorientation, and then Buffy found herself standing in a familiar savannah, the one she'd been in for that first vision at the start of the Summer, months ago. Harmony and the rest were gone, but Rich and Cindy- no. Wilkins and Sineya were here. Like a flood inside her brain, all her memories crashed back into each other, and she squinted her eyes trying to get everything straight.
"I wasn't aware that the hot new thing in movie technology was having them injected into your brain," she said.
"Trust me, this was the easy version," Wilkins said. "But before we get mired in the weeds of what just happened, let me just give you a big ole congratulations on winning the election. I don't really know from experience myself, but I imagine Sunnydale isn't an easy electorate to wrangle for the first time."
"Gee, thanks. Hopefully I can manage with a bit less evil and a bit more urban renewal," Now, what happened exactly, and why is she here?" Sineya was in her full tribal face paint getup, but apart from fixing Buffy with a curious glare, she hadn't done anything yet.
Then, without seeing Sineya's lips move, Buffy heard a voice come from her. Buffy's own voice. "In your thoughts, you had to see."
"Is there a reason you have to talk like that?" Buffy asked, a little creeped out.
"She's not quite all there, I'm afraid," Wilkins said. "The First Slayer died a long time ago, and even she wasn't the origin of her own power. But she did carry the mantle well enough for it to keep a little bit of her afterward, so here we are, looking at her pretty face. What you'd call the original 'Wicked Witch of the East' wasn't something that ever was even slightly human."
"An Old One, like your Olvikan?" Buffy waved her arms in exasperation. "So you're saying that she wasn't just the First Slayer, she was like you. And me." Dracula's words rang bitterly in her ears. "A Successor. And now the freaky mystical backer we have in common is using her as a puppet to show me spiritual revelations wrapped up in '30s movies. Is she going to reach inside my head and start jerking me around next? Does it come with the fun kind of brain damage?"
"Buffy, you really need to stop panicking about this," Wilkins chuckled a little. "The Lady of Sun and Shadow isn't even properly conscious anymore, really, it just has a ghost of Sineya inside pulling on a few of its strings. The power is yours, more or less. You just need to coax it into doing what you want! I did it with a hundred years of difficult rituals, and you apparently do it by killing things and cracking jokes."
"But from everything I've seen and heard, these Old Ones are a pretty big deal. Are you sure that you weren't just overconfident?" Buffy gave Sineya a considering look back, or at least an affectation of one. "She seems pretty shifty to me."
He shook his head. "You saw what happened fourteen thousand years ago, or at least most of it. The Cosmos was Sundered, the Old Ones could not survive the aftermath, and the Empire of Tears fell. Those pesky Powers That Be just couldn't leave well enough alone, and as a result we have our modern multiverse, shattered like a broken mirror. No one shard is big enough to reflect an Old One within, just as they planned."
"So that was definitely the past then? Not some twisted vision of the future?" There'd been a lot not to like, so Buffy hoped she understood it right. The thought of Xander turning on her like that, and of him maybe even being justified, was just too much to bear. Not to mention everyone else dying pretty soon after.
He tilted his hand back and forth. "Not quite the past, obviously, especially since those friends of yours managed to avert the apocalypse. It wasn't stopped in the real timeline, I'll tell you that. But the story was close enough, in the broad strokes."
Sineya spoke then, again using an echo of Buffy's voice. "Sometimes tales have two meanings."
"How reassuring," Buffy said.
"Then again, I never had much of a gift for prophecy, not like your powers do," he said, hedging his earlier statement.
"Well, at least the dream didn't feature me turning into a massive freak of nature or anything," she said. "What was up with all the colors though? And superspeed? What was I supposed to be, an Old One or a comic book character?"
"The rules were different then. The Emotional Spectrum powered magic of the oldest, truest kind, but in the sorry state of the current multiverse, it doesn't work anymore." He paused, wavering a bit on whether to continue. "Using The Wizard of Oz as a metaphor was my idea, actually. My Edna really did love those books. I've always thought she'd have been overjoyed by the movie."
"Oh, I ..." Buffy stopped, thinking it would be a little crass to joke about it now. "Umm. Thanks. It was educational? But why did Sineya, or whatever she is, want to show me ancient history in the first place?"
The First Slayer tilted her head, and Buffy's own voice answered. "Death is your gift."
"I find her a little opaque myself, I have to admit," Wilkins said.
Buffy almost went with it, but no. She wouldn't let Wilkins disarm her and brush her off this time, the way she had before. Not after all this. "I don't buy it. You just said you picked the metaphor, and it's your artifact that's doing all this in the first place. Even if it's Sineya behind the wheel, you're at least looking at the map."
He sighed. "Something big might be coming. The Hellmouth's been popping off like a firecracker for the past few years."
"And that's news how?" she said. "Seems like business as usual, as far as I'm concerned.
He looked reluctant. "It's not, not really. Not to this extent. Do you think I spent a hundred years juggling a different apocalypse every six months? I'm not that powerful, or that lucky. This level of instability, well, it's a sign of the times. A bad sign."
"What are you saying?" Buffy asked.
"Soon they'll all call the tune," Sineya interrupted again.
"I have to agree," he said. "At this rate, something's going to happen eventually, whether we like it or not. It isn't supposed to be this easy to end the world; this dimension's becoming unstable."
"You're saying it's going to split into pieces, like what almost happened in my dream?"
"No, the opposite. The opening of the Hellmouth, the release of Acathla, think Buffy, you're a smart girl. They're both getting at the same thing."
"You mean a merger?" she said. "And I thought it was evil when corporations were doing it."
"The cosmos was shattered a long time ago, but it still remembers what it's supposed to be," he said. "Its natural state is to come together again. It's been happening ever so slowly for thousands of years, one merge at a time, adjacent dimensions slipping back together."
"That sounds bad," Buffy said. "Dimensions aren't meant to slip, are they?"
"It'll be survivable," he said. "At least for someone like you."
"And everyone else?"
"I don't know what to tell you Buffy. It's only been a tendency so far. Like I said, signs. It might be a long time away, if you can keep holding it off. The Hellmouth is the natural nexus for something like that, and you've nicely taken control. I don't want Sunnydale destroyed any more than you do."
"So you're saying you'll help?" Buffy was skeptical.
"I'll do my best. And look!" He displayed two open hands. "Not even crossing my fingers."
"OK, so then, first order of business. The First. That was really her in there, wasn't it?" In retrospect it was even more obvious she'd been playing with Buffy the whole time. She seemed to be pretty anti-Sundering too, so Buffy wouldn't put it past her to want to put the pan-dimensional humpty-dumpty back together again.
"Mostly. I'm not sure if Sineya let her in for some reason or if she found her own way, but after the scare you gave her I don't think she'll be trying that again," he said.
"So she's one of these half-dead Old Ones too, right? Or maybe a Successor?" The First always acted like she was some super-ancient evil, but then again, Buffy had just had a whole dream sequence to teach her that Old Ones couldn't survive in the world anymore. "I suppose it's too much to hope that when she died in my dream she died in real life?"
"No such luck, I'm afraid," he said.
"Darn," She eyed Sineya again, "That would've just been too nice a reward for a dream sequence, huh? I don't suppose I get to keep going fast as a consolation prize?" On a whim, she tried to draw on her speed for a few quick trial steps, to mixed results. It did work, spraying sand behind her as she blurred, but she felt way more winded than she would have doing the same thing in Oz.
Wilkins looked surprised for a second that she'd managed it at all, but covered it up with an easy grin a moment later. "You kids and your newfangled toys. You'll have to be careful whose eyes you put out with that."
The First Slayer looked to the sky for a moment, seemingly distracted, and spoke one last time, "There's a bustle in your hedgerow." It definitely lacked a little gravitas, compared to her earlier statements.
"What?" Buffy asked. Then she woke up.
Cynthia Danvers' even voice echoed through the door as she opened her eyes to a shaded office. "Mayor Summers, I'm sorry to disturb you, but there's someone to see you from the university. She says it's moderately urgent."
"I'm awake!" Harmony proclaimed, though it obviously hadn't been true seconds ago. She'd been slumped down against the door and she was scooting herself back up.
"Harmony!" Buffy said. She pivoted herself out of her office chair and darted over to sweep her up in her arms, giving her a quick kiss. "Are you OK?" Her room-temperature girlfriend was still in one piece. Even though Buffy knew everything had been a dream, it was still a load off her mind.
"I was supposed to keep watch while you napped!" She said. "But I must have fallen asleep too." She looked behind Buffy at the shades, glowing with obvious morning light behind them. "I'm sorry Buffy, we must have missed the whole party at Crawford street!"
It looked like if the real Harmony had been part of the dream, she didn't remember anything. "That's fine Harm. It was really cool of you to stay."
"It was my pleasure, really. I love watching you sleep," she said. From anyone else, it might be kind of creepy, but somehow Buffy found it endearing. But apparently sleepy time was over.
"Well, as long as you're happy." Then Buffy raised her voice, to be heard more easily through the door. "I'll be right out Cynthia. Can you lay out a spare outfit for me?"
"Me too!" Harmony said, after a quick look down at her own sleep-addled clothing.
The reply from outside didn't seem surprised in the least. "Of course," Buffy could only imagine what Cynthia thought they'd gotten up to in here last night. Not that they hadn't before. But not this time! It was the principle of the thing, or something.
"Better greet the new crisis," Buffy said. "I hope it isn't more zoning."
After a very quick shower using City Hall's excellent facilities and a change into an almost depressingly grown-up pantsuit (stylish, but still), Buffy was ready to meet the first challenge of her officially elected mayorship, magic hammer in hand and a smile plastered onto her face.
"So this isn't the Dean?" Hal Richards had been her point of contact on all things UC Sunnydale, so it was weird for someone else to be showing up.
"No. It's one of the Professors," Cynthia clarified. "She claimed that what she had to say was for your ears only."
Buffy hoped this wasn't some stupid ivory tower political game that had somehow spilled over to her. Then again, the alternatives were probably worse. Resigned to bad news either way, she opened the door to the conference room, empty but for a severe woman with short blonde hair.
"Mayor Summers," she began. "I'm Professor Maggie Walsh. But more importantly, I'm the Director of the Initiative, a Federal program to study and contain hostile subterrestrials. We have a lot to discuss."
A/N: There isn't technically a vote this time, but please read the end-of-season survey post that'll go up in a couple minutes!
-[(3+7)/19] Kill The Wizard. Save Oz and its people from untold levels of destruction.
Oz was heartbreakingly beautiful, an entire world brought alive by living color. It was unthinkably vast, in a way that Buffy suspected dwarfed even Earth itself. It seemed to hold wonders over every horizon, and for all that its people were all demonic or otherwise bizarre, plenty of them were worth saving. She'd met some. It should've been an easy decision to team up with a lesser evil to keep it from being destroyed.
But she'd witnessed the deliberate cruelty of the Wicked Witch of the West. Even when she was trying to win her over to her side, she'd still antagonized the munchkins and harassed Scarecrow. She hadn't even been able to stop herself torturing Tin Man with bees. And maybe if that was all, it still wouldn't have been enough to sway her. She'd worked with Spike before under similar circumstances. But of course that wasn't all, because she was starting to remember that this was no lesser Evil she was dealing with.
"You just couldn't quite help yourself, could you?" Buffy started. She had this 'Faust's' number now. "You picked your funny nickname, you did up your flying monkeys all 'Third Eye Blind', but it wasn't enough. You had to drop the E-word." She still didn't know why her memories were so foggy, but she'd finally figured this one thing out, at least. "But then, without that special sense of melodrama, you wouldn't be the First Evil we all know and loathe, would you?"
The Wicked Witch's stolen smile shattered into an ugly rictus of hate, but she wasn't done arguing, "So what? I'm Evil. You knew that already. It changes nothing. All of Oz is at stake, surely we can put aside petty differences like that?"
Buffy shook her head. "Guys, I'm sorry, but she's even bigger bad news than you know. With her trapped like this we can't let her get away."
Scarecrow and Lion both didn't say anything, but shared a skeptical look with each other. Buffy hoped they weren't being quiet out of fear, but she knew she was doing the right thing.
Tin Man, on the other hand, was making his opinion known, "Buffy, not negotiating with terrorists is fine in principle, but the actual world is about to get blown up." He didn't look much different than the other Tin Men in the room, but he definitely wasn't dancing to The Wizard's tune.
"Your friend isn't wrong," The Wicked Witch agreed.
"I'll deal with him after," Buffy said. Most of this technomagical stuff looked pretty fragile anyway; even if she couldn't beat him she could break all his things. "Right now? We've got a witch to burn."
"For the record, I don't care who we fight, I'm with you either way," Harmony said.
"So that's your final decision? Fine then! It's you that's going to be burning, my little pretty," With that, a wave of bright green flame exploded out from her hands, aimed directly at Buffy. She pulled on her superspeed just in time, grabbing up Harmony and diving through a workbench as the magic fire obliterated the place where they'd been standing.
Buffy didn't know what had happened to her other friends in the confusion, but she had zero time to figure it out. The Wicked Witch had gotten onto her broom and was flying around the room now, launching another fireball even as Buffy got her bearings. She almost dived into another desperate dodge, but this time, the witch's attack was intercepted.
A stream of water crashed into the fire, quenching it and giving them time to recover. The Wizard was already conjuring another from his staff, trading shots with the airborne witch. "I knew you'd choose the right side in the end, Buffy. Let's take her out!"
Even as the two spellcasters fought, their minions crashed into each other in a wave of carnage. The Bringer-Monkeys had the Tin Men outnumbered and outmaneuvered, but The Wizard's robot minions were made of tough stuff, and wouldn't go down easy. Part of the monkey forces peeled off to occupy Buffy, but Harmony jumped in front, going for them like a vampire possessed. "This time it's a grudge match! You won't be getting my hair again!"
Buffy didn't let the opportunity Harmony gave her go to waste, and immediately ran to catch the witch. The room's high ceiling gave her a lot of altitude though, and Buffy knew she'd have trouble engaging. Buffy scavenged some projectiles out of the lab equipment, throwing up beakers of who-knows what and strange rocks of half-worked ore, but the witch was flying fast enough to match Buffy's own speed now, and her improvised attacks just made a mess of the runework on the ceiling.
Buffy was noticing a lack of ranged support as she dodged a couple more fireballs, and sure enough, The Wizard was being harassed by a veritable swarm of the flying bringer-monkeys. Even as he sprayed water attacks in one direction, they all crowded him from the other, and he either didn't have anything deadlier or didn't want to use it so close to himself. His Tin Men were trying to reach him, but the sheer number of flying monkeys that had worked their way into the room was too much for them to overcome.
With a spark of inspiration, Buffy hatched a plan. "You know, for an Evil that's been around since literally the beginning of time, your aim really sucks. Are you actually trying to hit me or do you just enjoy seeing everything miss?"
The Wicked Witch redoubled her fire attacks in response, throwing them with both hands now and barely a breath in between. With no support from The Wizard, Buffy was sent running madly across the huge room, leaving fiery destruction in her wake that devastated both friend and foe. Even with her superspeed, she could only barely keep ahead of it all, and the witch cackled madly with Buffy unable to fight back.
She was so focused on landing a blow that she didn't see where Buffy was leading her. When she reached the swarm of monkeys harassing The Wizard, she bullied her way through with one swing of her hammer and then swallowed him in a hug. It felt weirdly familiar, but she had no time to wonder about her messed-up memory. "Quick, water us, now!"
Luckily, he didn't question her order, and they were both surrounded by a protective sheath of water as the rain of fire came down around them. Buffy almost choked at the sudden change of environs, but the unprotected monkeys did way worse, dying by the score in their master's own massive fireball.
"You know, I think I could get used to this," The Wizard said.
Buffy shoved him off, "Sorry, taken. Also, not at all into that whole cosmos-sundering kink." Before the conversation could continue, another fireball came at them and they both dodged in separate directions, getting back into the rhythm of the battle.
Even with the crowd of bringer monkeys thinned and The Wizard free to act again, the fire kept coming from above and Buffy knew something had to be done before the whole floor was an inferno. She hopped up, using the head of one of the battered Tin Men as a stepping stone, and from there she leapt to a bizarre orrery hanging from the ceiling. It tilted crazily under her weight, but she didn't give the strings holding it time to snap, jumping for the witch at superspeed, her hammer swinging as she flew through the air.
The witch saw her coming, but just as she was about to dodge another stream of water shot up from The Wizard and splashed her, pushing her back into the path of Buffy's attack. The witch screamed and barrel-rolled, managing to avoid the hammer herself, but her broom wasn't so lucky.
With a nasty crack, Buffy smashed the thing in two, and they both crashed down to the floor amidst the scrambling monkeys and robots. The witch was so furious that she was actively smoking, screaming bile at her even as she rose to her feet, "My broom! My broom! You vile, impertinent child, that was-"
She was interrupted by a hammer jab to the mouth, but the Wicked Witch was made of strong stuff; she was only a little bruised up as she hurriedly backed away behind a screen of more fire. "It'll take more than that to get rid of me! I've existed since the Dawn of time, and I'll last until the End!"
"Well, if you don't at first succeed, just keep hitting people, I guess," Buffy said irreverently. Buffy raced forward through Tin Men to get at the witch again, dodging the odd fireball as she went. She'd almost caught up with her when the unexpected happened.
Just as she was about to dodge another fireball, one of the Tin Men grabbed at her suddenly, dragging them both into its path! "I'm sorry, but I can't let you do this," Buffy screamed with pain as the green fire scorched her skin and cooked her hair, breaking free of the traitorous robot to roll over the ground and try to put herself out.
A splash of water from The Wizard's direction extinguished her as he reengaged with the witch, but Buffy still wasn't in good shape. Tin Man wasn't either, but his metal body had tanked the worst of the heat. "Tin Man, I know you're afraid, but-"
"We don't have time for buts!," he screamed, charging at her, trying to hold her in place again. "Everyone I love might die, and if that means I'm on the Wicked Witch's side, then-"
"It also means you're dead!" Harmony screamed, laying into him with a vengeance. Buffy had still been reluctant to really hurt him, but Harmony had no such compunctions, denting his body with vicious kicks and tearing chunks right out of his metal with her teeth. "Buffy, go, finish her off!"
Even as she turned her attention back to The Wizard and the Wicked Witch, Buffy could tell the battle was reaching a crescendo. They were edging closer and closer to each other, their minions all either dead around them or forced back, and the fire and water attacks they used were forced so close that they'd been surrounded by a cloud of toxic green steam. The witch looked terrible, her skin melting as she fought, but it didn't stop her from casting again and again. The Wizard's spells slowed on the other hand, and he was racked by a nasty cough.
KILL
Buffy was tired and burnt and hungry, but she pushed herself one last time, drawing on everything that was left of her reserves. She was a blurring streak as she crossed the battlefield, and this time when the Wicked Witch tried a frantic dodge, The Wizard had one last trick. The steam around her purified and froze into ice, holding her in place for just a second too long.
KILL
The rage and hatred in her eyes turned to confused terror as Buffy bore down on her, and this time Buffy's attack was no little jab, but an extreme overhand swing. The hammer hit her square in the temple, and the witch's half-melted head was knocked clean off her body. A moment later, both disintegrated into black and green smoke, hopefully for the last time.
The Wizard was a pathetic sight, still practically coughing his lungs out as the toxic steam cleared. Buffy didn't feel so great herself, but she had the presence of mind to knock his staff to the side of the room before he recovered. "Now that that unpleasantness is done with, lets chat like reasonable adults about this end of the world thing. My position is that you're absolutely not doing it."
He smiled, shaking his head, and Buffy knew something was wrong. "You're a hero to the end. Truly admirable. It's good that you are, it wouldn't be right for you to be complicit in this."
"What do you mean? There isn't going to be any this! I'm not allowing it!" Buffy said worriedly.
"It's already too late," he said, and waved to indicate the runes covering the walls and ceiling, now alternating with pulses of white and black energy. "This was always the plan. I needed a sacrifice to make The Sundering work, and who better than the Wicked Witch of the West? The Entire Emerald City is charged now, everything going through the spellwork I've prepared. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to."
"But we did," Lion said, emerging from some rubble by the side of the room, with Scarecrow right behind her. "I've been reading your runes the whole time, and I figured out your plan."
The Wizard examined the patterns closer now, and his expression of resigned victory turned to shock. "What have you done?"
"She had the bravery to do what she had to. I merely helped her finish in time." Scarecrow said.
Lion nodded. "I knew Buffy would win, I couldn't stop that. And all these runes were ready to suck up the energy when the witch died, I couldn't stop that either. It had to go somewhere. A little tinkering with your feedback loop-"
"You've destroyed the Emerald City!" The Wizard shouted. "And you've killed us all! There's no time to escape!"
"Better us and the Emerald City than the whole world," she said sadly. "I'm sorry, Buffy."
"No, don't be sorry," Buffy said. She'd been so sure she could deal with The Wizard's plan herself, and if Lion hadn't been there... "You did the right thing when I couldn't. You're the hero of this story."
"Buffy?" Harmony said from behind her. She was covered in motor oil and singed by near-miss fire and her face was wracked with uncertainty and she'd never been more beautiful. Absently, Buffy noticed the destroyed wreck of their Tin Man in the background too, and she felt a little regret that it'd had to go down that way. But there was no time for that now. The runes seemed to be glowing both brighter and darker at once, and Buffy knew what was coming.
"Harmony," she said, and gathered her up in a hug and pecked at her lips. No time for secrets either. "You did really well. I'm so sorry I can't save us." The white light shined over the room, but all that it seemed to illuminate were shadows, taller and taller.
"Don't be sorry," Harmony was crying. "You still saved me. You're the hero of my story." And then everything went still, and turned to gold.
------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a moment of severe disorientation, and then Buffy found herself standing in a familiar savannah, the one she'd been in for that first vision at the start of the Summer, months ago. Harmony and the rest were gone, but Rich and Cindy- no. Wilkins and Sineya were here. Like a flood inside her brain, all her memories crashed back into each other, and she squinted her eyes trying to get everything straight.
"I wasn't aware that the hot new thing in movie technology was having them injected into your brain," she said.
"Trust me, this was the easy version," Wilkins said. "But before we get mired in the weeds of what just happened, let me just give you a big ole congratulations on winning the election. I don't really know from experience myself, but I imagine Sunnydale isn't an easy electorate to wrangle for the first time."
"Gee, thanks. Hopefully I can manage with a bit less evil and a bit more urban renewal," Now, what happened exactly, and why is she here?" Sineya was in her full tribal face paint getup, but apart from fixing Buffy with a curious glare, she hadn't done anything yet.
Then, without seeing Sineya's lips move, Buffy heard a voice come from her. Buffy's own voice. "In your thoughts, you had to see."
"Is there a reason you have to talk like that?" Buffy asked, a little creeped out.
"She's not quite all there, I'm afraid," Wilkins said. "The First Slayer died a long time ago, and even she wasn't the origin of her own power. But she did carry the mantle well enough for it to keep a little bit of her afterward, so here we are, looking at her pretty face. What you'd call the original 'Wicked Witch of the East' wasn't something that ever was even slightly human."
"An Old One, like your Olvikan?" Buffy waved her arms in exasperation. "So you're saying that she wasn't just the First Slayer, she was like you. And me." Dracula's words rang bitterly in her ears. "A Successor. And now the freaky mystical backer we have in common is using her as a puppet to show me spiritual revelations wrapped up in '30s movies. Is she going to reach inside my head and start jerking me around next? Does it come with the fun kind of brain damage?"
"Buffy, you really need to stop panicking about this," Wilkins chuckled a little. "The Lady of Sun and Shadow isn't even properly conscious anymore, really, it just has a ghost of Sineya inside pulling on a few of its strings. The power is yours, more or less. You just need to coax it into doing what you want! I did it with a hundred years of difficult rituals, and you apparently do it by killing things and cracking jokes."
"But from everything I've seen and heard, these Old Ones are a pretty big deal. Are you sure that you weren't just overconfident?" Buffy gave Sineya a considering look back, or at least an affectation of one. "She seems pretty shifty to me."
He shook his head. "You saw what happened fourteen thousand years ago, or at least most of it. The Cosmos was Sundered, the Old Ones could not survive the aftermath, and the Empire of Tears fell. Those pesky Powers That Be just couldn't leave well enough alone, and as a result we have our modern multiverse, shattered like a broken mirror. No one shard is big enough to reflect an Old One within, just as they planned."
"So that was definitely the past then? Not some twisted vision of the future?" There'd been a lot not to like, so Buffy hoped she understood it right. The thought of Xander turning on her like that, and of him maybe even being justified, was just too much to bear. Not to mention everyone else dying pretty soon after.
He tilted his hand back and forth. "Not quite the past, obviously, especially since those friends of yours managed to avert the apocalypse. It wasn't stopped in the real timeline, I'll tell you that. But the story was close enough, in the broad strokes."
Sineya spoke then, again using an echo of Buffy's voice. "Sometimes tales have two meanings."
"How reassuring," Buffy said.
"Then again, I never had much of a gift for prophecy, not like your powers do," he said, hedging his earlier statement.
"Well, at least the dream didn't feature me turning into a massive freak of nature or anything," she said. "What was up with all the colors though? And superspeed? What was I supposed to be, an Old One or a comic book character?"
"The rules were different then. The Emotional Spectrum powered magic of the oldest, truest kind, but in the sorry state of the current multiverse, it doesn't work anymore." He paused, wavering a bit on whether to continue. "Using The Wizard of Oz as a metaphor was my idea, actually. My Edna really did love those books. I've always thought she'd have been overjoyed by the movie."
"Oh, I ..." Buffy stopped, thinking it would be a little crass to joke about it now. "Umm. Thanks. It was educational? But why did Sineya, or whatever she is, want to show me ancient history in the first place?"
The First Slayer tilted her head, and Buffy's own voice answered. "Death is your gift."
"I find her a little opaque myself, I have to admit," Wilkins said.
Buffy almost went with it, but no. She wouldn't let Wilkins disarm her and brush her off this time, the way she had before. Not after all this. "I don't buy it. You just said you picked the metaphor, and it's your artifact that's doing all this in the first place. Even if it's Sineya behind the wheel, you're at least looking at the map."
He sighed. "Something big might be coming. The Hellmouth's been popping off like a firecracker for the past few years."
"And that's news how?" she said. "Seems like business as usual, as far as I'm concerned.
He looked reluctant. "It's not, not really. Not to this extent. Do you think I spent a hundred years juggling a different apocalypse every six months? I'm not that powerful, or that lucky. This level of instability, well, it's a sign of the times. A bad sign."
"What are you saying?" Buffy asked.
"Soon they'll all call the tune," Sineya interrupted again.
"I have to agree," he said. "At this rate, something's going to happen eventually, whether we like it or not. It isn't supposed to be this easy to end the world; this dimension's becoming unstable."
"You're saying it's going to split into pieces, like what almost happened in my dream?"
"No, the opposite. The opening of the Hellmouth, the release of Acathla, think Buffy, you're a smart girl. They're both getting at the same thing."
"You mean a merger?" she said. "And I thought it was evil when corporations were doing it."
"The cosmos was shattered a long time ago, but it still remembers what it's supposed to be," he said. "Its natural state is to come together again. It's been happening ever so slowly for thousands of years, one merge at a time, adjacent dimensions slipping back together."
"That sounds bad," Buffy said. "Dimensions aren't meant to slip, are they?"
"It'll be survivable," he said. "At least for someone like you."
"And everyone else?"
"I don't know what to tell you Buffy. It's only been a tendency so far. Like I said, signs. It might be a long time away, if you can keep holding it off. The Hellmouth is the natural nexus for something like that, and you've nicely taken control. I don't want Sunnydale destroyed any more than you do."
"So you're saying you'll help?" Buffy was skeptical.
"I'll do my best. And look!" He displayed two open hands. "Not even crossing my fingers."
"OK, so then, first order of business. The First. That was really her in there, wasn't it?" In retrospect it was even more obvious she'd been playing with Buffy the whole time. She seemed to be pretty anti-Sundering too, so Buffy wouldn't put it past her to want to put the pan-dimensional humpty-dumpty back together again.
"Mostly. I'm not sure if Sineya let her in for some reason or if she found her own way, but after the scare you gave her I don't think she'll be trying that again," he said.
"So she's one of these half-dead Old Ones too, right? Or maybe a Successor?" The First always acted like she was some super-ancient evil, but then again, Buffy had just had a whole dream sequence to teach her that Old Ones couldn't survive in the world anymore. "I suppose it's too much to hope that when she died in my dream she died in real life?"
"No such luck, I'm afraid," he said.
"Darn," She eyed Sineya again, "That would've just been too nice a reward for a dream sequence, huh? I don't suppose I get to keep going fast as a consolation prize?" On a whim, she tried to draw on her speed for a few quick trial steps, to mixed results. It did work, spraying sand behind her as she blurred, but she felt way more winded than she would have doing the same thing in Oz.
Wilkins looked surprised for a second that she'd managed it at all, but covered it up with an easy grin a moment later. "You kids and your newfangled toys. You'll have to be careful whose eyes you put out with that."
The First Slayer looked to the sky for a moment, seemingly distracted, and spoke one last time, "There's a bustle in your hedgerow." It definitely lacked a little gravitas, compared to her earlier statements.
"What?" Buffy asked. Then she woke up.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Cynthia Danvers' even voice echoed through the door as she opened her eyes to a shaded office. "Mayor Summers, I'm sorry to disturb you, but there's someone to see you from the university. She says it's moderately urgent."
"I'm awake!" Harmony proclaimed, though it obviously hadn't been true seconds ago. She'd been slumped down against the door and she was scooting herself back up.
"Harmony!" Buffy said. She pivoted herself out of her office chair and darted over to sweep her up in her arms, giving her a quick kiss. "Are you OK?" Her room-temperature girlfriend was still in one piece. Even though Buffy knew everything had been a dream, it was still a load off her mind.
"I was supposed to keep watch while you napped!" She said. "But I must have fallen asleep too." She looked behind Buffy at the shades, glowing with obvious morning light behind them. "I'm sorry Buffy, we must have missed the whole party at Crawford street!"
It looked like if the real Harmony had been part of the dream, she didn't remember anything. "That's fine Harm. It was really cool of you to stay."
"It was my pleasure, really. I love watching you sleep," she said. From anyone else, it might be kind of creepy, but somehow Buffy found it endearing. But apparently sleepy time was over.
"Well, as long as you're happy." Then Buffy raised her voice, to be heard more easily through the door. "I'll be right out Cynthia. Can you lay out a spare outfit for me?"
"Me too!" Harmony said, after a quick look down at her own sleep-addled clothing.
The reply from outside didn't seem surprised in the least. "Of course," Buffy could only imagine what Cynthia thought they'd gotten up to in here last night. Not that they hadn't before. But not this time! It was the principle of the thing, or something.
"Better greet the new crisis," Buffy said. "I hope it isn't more zoning."
After a very quick shower using City Hall's excellent facilities and a change into an almost depressingly grown-up pantsuit (stylish, but still), Buffy was ready to meet the first challenge of her officially elected mayorship, magic hammer in hand and a smile plastered onto her face.
"So this isn't the Dean?" Hal Richards had been her point of contact on all things UC Sunnydale, so it was weird for someone else to be showing up.
"No. It's one of the Professors," Cynthia clarified. "She claimed that what she had to say was for your ears only."
Buffy hoped this wasn't some stupid ivory tower political game that had somehow spilled over to her. Then again, the alternatives were probably worse. Resigned to bad news either way, she opened the door to the conference room, empty but for a severe woman with short blonde hair.
"Mayor Summers," she began. "I'm Professor Maggie Walsh. But more importantly, I'm the Director of the Initiative, a Federal program to study and contain hostile subterrestrials. We have a lot to discuss."
To be continued in Successor: Season 4
A/N: There isn't technically a vote this time, but please read the end-of-season survey post that'll go up in a couple minutes!
End of Season 3.5 Survey
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
It's that time again! Oh wait, this has never happened yet, so let's explain. It's been 90 updates, over a year and more than 260,000 words since I started writing Successor, and I'd like to see how things went. Writing Successor has involved a lot controversial decisions, not just from you, but also from me. Which ones were good? Which ones were bad? I guess we'll find out.
Before we get started with our surveying though, I'd just like to take some moments to be completely terrible and desperately try to milk you all for more readers.
Successor is, as far as I can tell, the only currently active Buffy media on SV, and as such I worry sometimes that it's difficult to find for people who like Buffy fanfic but haven't the faintest idea what SV, or for that matter a Quest, even is. Most probably just trawl ffnet and/or AO3 instead when they look for new things.
That's where you all come in, my already-faithful readers. Are any of you trusted members of hidden Buffy or Buffy-adjacent communities, buried for thousands of years in the jungles of the internet? If you are, maybe give them a 411 about Successor, which I should emphasize, could pretty much be read as book 1 of a normal fanfic at this point. It's my hope that we draw in some shiny new posters from diverse corners of the fandom this way.
And now, for a second terrible moment, if you like Successor, please Like the very first post of this thread. The first post likes are a sortable statistic in Xenforo, and more of those might possibly draw in more random readers from SV itself.
Now that that ugly business is concluded, on with the Survey. I'm going to present most of these as votes, but feel free, and in fact encouraged, to expand on them as you see fit. I put an example vote in front of each to make it easier to not have everyone use different formatting. Feel free to answer as many or as few of these as you like, and also feel free to answer whenever you stumble by this post, even if a lot of time has already passed.
Also, and I stress this part, feel free to share random other thoughts too, that don't necessarily follow from the questions.
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[] Favorite: Victors
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[] Unfavorite: Victors
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[] Multimedia Good
[] Multimedia Bad
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[] More Interludes
[] Buffy Only
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[] S4: Restless
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[] OOC: Buffy
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[] OCs good
[] OCs bad
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[] Too short
[] Too long
[] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] That Perfect Fanfic DeAnno didn't know about
Open Response) Have I messed anything up really badly in an obvious way? Point out plotholes great and small, and watch in amusement as I dance frantically trying to put out fires.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
Before we get started with our surveying though, I'd just like to take some moments to be completely terrible and desperately try to milk you all for more readers.
Successor is, as far as I can tell, the only currently active Buffy media on SV, and as such I worry sometimes that it's difficult to find for people who like Buffy fanfic but haven't the faintest idea what SV, or for that matter a Quest, even is. Most probably just trawl ffnet and/or AO3 instead when they look for new things.
That's where you all come in, my already-faithful readers. Are any of you trusted members of hidden Buffy or Buffy-adjacent communities, buried for thousands of years in the jungles of the internet? If you are, maybe give them a 411 about Successor, which I should emphasize, could pretty much be read as book 1 of a normal fanfic at this point. It's my hope that we draw in some shiny new posters from diverse corners of the fandom this way.
And now, for a second terrible moment, if you like Successor, please Like the very first post of this thread. The first post likes are a sortable statistic in Xenforo, and more of those might possibly draw in more random readers from SV itself.
Now that that ugly business is concluded, on with the Survey. I'm going to present most of these as votes, but feel free, and in fact encouraged, to expand on them as you see fit. I put an example vote in front of each to make it easier to not have everyone use different formatting. Feel free to answer as many or as few of these as you like, and also feel free to answer whenever you stumble by this post, even if a lot of time has already passed.
Also, and I stress this part, feel free to share random other thoughts too, that don't necessarily follow from the questions.
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[] Favorite: Victors
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[] Unfavorite: Victors
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[] Multimedia Good
[] Multimedia Bad
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[] More Interludes
[] Buffy Only
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[] S4: Restless
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[] OOC: Buffy
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[] OCs good
[] OCs bad
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[] Too short
[] Too long
[] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] That Perfect Fanfic DeAnno didn't know about
Open Response) Have I messed anything up really badly in an obvious way? Point out plotholes great and small, and watch in amusement as I dance frantically trying to put out fires.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Talking Points
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S5
Serious answer after a rewatch of parts of the season.
[X] The episodes with Olaf Anya's Troll ex-husband, the Gem of Amara and Hush.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: None that stick out
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good but some have been weaker then others. I like the city hall cast.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the best ongoing Buffy fanfic I know about.
[X] Favorite: Talking Points
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S5
Serious answer after a rewatch of parts of the season.
[X] The episodes with Olaf Anya's Troll ex-husband, the Gem of Amara and Hush.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: None that stick out
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good but some have been weaker then others. I like the city hall cast.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the best ongoing Buffy fanfic I know about.
Last edited:
[X] Favorite: Might Makes Right
My favorite long running plot has been the election, but none of the episodes that specifically focus on that quite beat out this one on enjoyment factor.
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
Generally this didn't land all that well with me. I wasn't all that interested in trying to sleuth my way into the color analysis and the surrealism factor generally wasn't too interesting for me.
[X] Multimedia Bad
I like the KILL invisitext. Most of the rest is rather meh to me.
[X] Buffy Only
I like the current style, keep the interludes sparse.
[X] OCs bad
I don't mind the OCs we've got but the story can only sustain so many characters, so I'd be against piling more on.
[X] The right length
Generally they seem like they've told a good story without dragging.
My favorite long running plot has been the election, but none of the episodes that specifically focus on that quite beat out this one on enjoyment factor.
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
Generally this didn't land all that well with me. I wasn't all that interested in trying to sleuth my way into the color analysis and the surrealism factor generally wasn't too interesting for me.
[X] Multimedia Bad
I like the KILL invisitext. Most of the rest is rather meh to me.
[X] Buffy Only
I like the current style, keep the interludes sparse.
[X] OCs bad
I don't mind the OCs we've got but the story can only sustain so many characters, so I'd be against piling more on.
[X] The right length
Generally they seem like they've told a good story without dragging.
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Cordelia Chase, and where to find her. Cordelia and Anya and lorne were all really well done there, and seeing Buffy smash through what was basically an Angel episode while giving no fucks was pretty great.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color. This was an interesting episode, and I liked the backstory lore stuff, but it had the problem that most dream sequence stuff has. Namely noone but Buffy in it really mattered. Xander getting ripped apart by an angry and betrayed Harmony is fun and all, but it doesn't really count for anything.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good. The Lorne songs were very on point.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only. Interludes being incredibly rare has worked pretty well so far, it is hard to think of a character or episode from the canon season 4 that would really need someone else's pov. I also like seeing the problems other cast members have from the outside and having to guess how they are doing. Getting an interlude of Willow's exhaustion while packing 200 hours of work into each week would be less fun than seeing the results of it.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] The Yoko Factor. I am kind of a sucker for scooby gang blood bowls, especially ones where Buffy comes out okish, and I sort of think that was one of the things really missing from this season. Admittedly things were going well enough that the gang never really had the chance to explode, but I was sort of waiting for the Harmony secret to get blown wide open so there could be a nasty screaming match that is patched up with communal violence towards an external enemy.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] Everyone has been surprisingly on point.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] I don't think you need to rein it in, you have done a pretty good job of letting the OCs wax and wane as appropriate. Gold, Vanessa, and Cortez have been surprisingly strong, and the others have been ok but less impactful.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] Unfortunately not that I know of.
I am a bit worried that Dawn and Glory are going to slip into the quest early and start causing all sorts of problems. I doubt it would be THAT hard to get DeAnno to let them come out and play with some of the meta options, it would just also be an amazing disaster.
[X] Favorite: Cordelia Chase, and where to find her. Cordelia and Anya and lorne were all really well done there, and seeing Buffy smash through what was basically an Angel episode while giving no fucks was pretty great.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color. This was an interesting episode, and I liked the backstory lore stuff, but it had the problem that most dream sequence stuff has. Namely noone but Buffy in it really mattered. Xander getting ripped apart by an angry and betrayed Harmony is fun and all, but it doesn't really count for anything.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good. The Lorne songs were very on point.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only. Interludes being incredibly rare has worked pretty well so far, it is hard to think of a character or episode from the canon season 4 that would really need someone else's pov. I also like seeing the problems other cast members have from the outside and having to guess how they are doing. Getting an interlude of Willow's exhaustion while packing 200 hours of work into each week would be less fun than seeing the results of it.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] The Yoko Factor. I am kind of a sucker for scooby gang blood bowls, especially ones where Buffy comes out okish, and I sort of think that was one of the things really missing from this season. Admittedly things were going well enough that the gang never really had the chance to explode, but I was sort of waiting for the Harmony secret to get blown wide open so there could be a nasty screaming match that is patched up with communal violence towards an external enemy.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] Everyone has been surprisingly on point.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] I don't think you need to rein it in, you have done a pretty good job of letting the OCs wax and wane as appropriate. Gold, Vanessa, and Cortez have been surprisingly strong, and the others have been ok but less impactful.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] Unfortunately not that I know of.
Lupercal you are a savage.
I am a bit worried that Dawn and Glory are going to slip into the quest early and start causing all sorts of problems. I doubt it would be THAT hard to get DeAnno to let them come out and play with some of the meta options, it would just also be an amazing disaster.
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Teen Vampire Harmony. It was nice to switch perspectives for a bit and see Harmony's thought process.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Angel & Dracula. I'm not a fan of Dracula.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good, with the caveat that it's hard to see black/grey on the site's background.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good. That said, you should try to use or repurpose canon characters where possible.
[X] Teen Vampire Harmony. It was nice to switch perspectives for a bit and see Harmony's thought process.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Angel & Dracula. I'm not a fan of Dracula.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good, with the caveat that it's hard to see black/grey on the site's background.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good. That said, you should try to use or repurpose canon characters where possible.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Yes, I am shipper trash. No, I will not apologise for it. Also, I loved Harm's interactions with Lorne and Spike. Full disclosure, I love Spike and he's my problematic fave, so seeing the softer, romantic side of him was really nice.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
Basically the same reasons as above: a lack of stakes, the coloured text being a bit headachey, standard dream sequence opacity (for lack of a better term) and, like "Restless", it feels almost completely disconnected from the season it caps off.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
I love the music (and have since sought some of it out) and I find the images helpful (especially if I don't offhandedly remember someone like Skip) ... but"In Color" was kinda pushing it on the text front.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
I may be in a minority, but I always enjoy quests where we can occasionally climb into another character's head. Not too many, mind, like two or three rather than one. Or a dozen.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: Fear Itself
[X] S4: Pangs
[X] S4: Something Blue
[X] S4: Hush
[X] S4: A New Man
I honestly don't know if I could pick just one of these. "Hush" is definitely among the best hours of tv I've ever seen, "Pangs" and "Something Blue" are at the top of my list not just for S4 but BtVS overall, "Fear Itself" was awfully creepy...up to the end, which I still gleefully reference to this day...and "A New Man", long-suffering Giles is always my favourite Giles, and his interactions with Spike are delightful in this ep.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] Overall doing great. Harm is technically OOC, but it's a completely believable shift for her to cosy up to Buffy instead of Spike, and the results that spiral out from that remain very true to her personality and attitudes. Also, I love Successor!Harm, so I'm biased af.
If I had to point to anyone, I'd point to the needs, specifically Andrew, who feels like he's been dialed up to Eleven (though that could just be me) and Warren, whose baseline misogyny seems...a little understated? Like, if he can be weaned off, that's fine, but people don't become psychopathic fuckheads like that overnight and in canon he was never particularly subtle about it.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] I don't think you need to rein it in, you have done a pretty good job of letting the OCs wax and wane as appropriate. Gold, Vanessa, and Cortez have been surprisingly strong, and the others have been ok but less impactful.
I think S4 may end up with more OCs by dint of, while there's plenty of characters with names and faces, there's like zero background or personality for them, so I expect you'll craft whole personalities around the canon cutouts and cannot wait to see that!
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
It feels like it could make an episode (or comic series episode) length, and it makes a satisfying chapter length each time.
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] sorry, wish I knew.
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Yes, I am shipper trash. No, I will not apologise for it. Also, I loved Harm's interactions with Lorne and Spike. Full disclosure, I love Spike and he's my problematic fave, so seeing the softer, romantic side of him was really nice.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
Basically the same reasons as above: a lack of stakes, the coloured text being a bit headachey, standard dream sequence opacity (for lack of a better term) and, like "Restless", it feels almost completely disconnected from the season it caps off.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
I love the music (and have since sought some of it out) and I find the images helpful (especially if I don't offhandedly remember someone like Skip) ... but"In Color" was kinda pushing it on the text front.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
I may be in a minority, but I always enjoy quests where we can occasionally climb into another character's head. Not too many, mind, like two or three rather than one. Or a dozen.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: Fear Itself
[X] S4: Pangs
[X] S4: Something Blue
[X] S4: Hush
[X] S4: A New Man
I honestly don't know if I could pick just one of these. "Hush" is definitely among the best hours of tv I've ever seen, "Pangs" and "Something Blue" are at the top of my list not just for S4 but BtVS overall, "Fear Itself" was awfully creepy...up to the end, which I still gleefully reference to this day...and "A New Man", long-suffering Giles is always my favourite Giles, and his interactions with Spike are delightful in this ep.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] Overall doing great. Harm is technically OOC, but it's a completely believable shift for her to cosy up to Buffy instead of Spike, and the results that spiral out from that remain very true to her personality and attitudes. Also, I love Successor!Harm, so I'm biased af.
If I had to point to anyone, I'd point to the needs, specifically Andrew, who feels like he's been dialed up to Eleven (though that could just be me) and Warren, whose baseline misogyny seems...a little understated? Like, if he can be weaned off, that's fine, but people don't become psychopathic fuckheads like that overnight and in canon he was never particularly subtle about it.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] I don't think you need to rein it in, you have done a pretty good job of letting the OCs wax and wane as appropriate. Gold, Vanessa, and Cortez have been surprisingly strong, and the others have been ok but less impactful.
I think S4 may end up with more OCs by dint of, while there's plenty of characters with names and faces, there's like zero background or personality for them, so I expect you'll craft whole personalities around the canon cutouts and cannot wait to see that!
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
It feels like it could make an episode (or comic series episode) length, and it makes a satisfying chapter length each time.
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] sorry, wish I knew.
- Location
- Canada
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Talking Points
-[X] I liked the debate.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
-[X] I just didn't expect it, and it made no sense until the end.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: EP9, Something Blue
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: All good.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the best ongoing Buffy fanfic I know about.
[X] Favorite: Talking Points
-[X] I liked the debate.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
-[X] I just didn't expect it, and it made no sense until the end.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: EP9, Something Blue
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: All good.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the best ongoing Buffy fanfic I know about.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
-[X] Harmony was amazing and adorable. Her attraction works really well with Buffy's slight necrophilia. Her latching onto Buffy, and then basically going the way of
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
-[X] The dream sequence wasn't great, as it meant the decisions made in it didn't have much consequence. But I really liked the color/mystery part of it.
[X] Multimedia Good
[X] Buffy Only
-[X] with the occasional Harmony Interlude, because that's adorable.
[X] Not my favorite, but I'm looking forward to "The Harsh Light of Day", where Spike and Harmony show up (in canon), as does the Gem of Amara. I'm wondering if you are planning on adapting it. I'm also looking forward to the tension between the Initiative and Demons, which you kinda hinted at with the disappearing demons.
[X] OOC: Not Harmony. This is some really believable character change, and I like what you did with her.
[X] OOC: Warren. He should be a bit more of an asshole, I think. But it's not a big issue.
[X] OCs good
-[X] So far, so good, but I would be wary of expanding it farther. The OCs used as one offs are great, as are the ones you've gone in depth on to make meaningful characters are also good. But this seems about the right level.
[X] The right length
[X] There's one or two crossovers, but nothing great.
Faith's portrait in the character description is now a broken link.
So you've dodged most of the problems. First, it hasn't been done to death, so there is a lot of new stuff to do there. Part of the problem with indy!Harry is just that it has been done before. Second, you aren't bashing anyone, which is the other major problem.
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- Location
- USA
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Fully on board and crewing this ship, and its reason enough to want moar interludes just because it can be really cool to see the tough main character (especially if they tend a bit colder) from the perspective of the goofier sidekick trying to keep up with them. Reminds me of a Worm fic Monster/How I Met Your Monster, which did that with two takes on the same story, or the similar effect with Enders Game/Enders Shadow novels.
As a side-note, just to contrast with past surveys I quite liked "In Color" as the dream strangeness made for an excellent Breather Episode on top of the interesting lore, even if I had no real grasp on the color-theory analysis and relied on some other readers to explain it to me. No worse than having to watch sports with little squiggles drawn on the screen for me
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: Angel & Dracula.
Hot Take: I thought Dracula was cool and wish he could've stayed an ally instead of getting chased off? Been a few weeks since i binged story though so I might've forgotten details. But the Angel/Angelus confusion was also a mess I didn't quite enjoy, which is to say I'd probably never much enjoy that plot hook of his coming up when Harmony's role is mostly keeping him and Spike out in LA anyways.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
Its been a whiiiiile since I watched Buffy, and only the earlier seasons on streaming binge instead of catching half of it before school or the like, so any pictures to remind me who a person is or help me look them up is great. And moments like recognizing the Witches in the dream when Buffy didn't is the fun sort of "audience knows things they don't" that I tend to love in stories..... especially in a Quest where we sometimes get to shout answers at the screen and have them heard xD
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
Not saying we need a lot of them, certainly the style of this story doesn't suit something on the level of Wheel of Time (which I did love), but the Harmony interlude as above was one of my favorite parts of the story. I'm sure Giles and Willow have their moments where we get to see these old allies of Buffy react to her new relationship with Harmony (most obviously i NEED to see how Willow reacts when she notices.... even if she's currently with Oz) and the choices Buffy has to make to be the mayor of a town of demons.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[] S4: N/A
Its been too long since I watched to show to remember ;-; and uhh... can't say I'm very fond of the Initiative and their robots from what I do remember. Maybe whatever episode involved Spike getting a play-nice chip, since that led into him basically growing a Soul as asuperior foil to Angelus getting one via curse?
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs bad
Not necessarily a remark on the writing so much as how good the existing Buffy characters are , but most of the ones I know to be OCs like city council don't stand out quite so clearly? I know the guy who's got a movie relative but he doesn't seem to have had much role, while the two females I tend to mix up as much from my own difficulties keeping names straight if I don't know them well. Whoever drove the van during that LA segment was awesome in her quiet butler/fixer way, but if I mix up and blur her with the other one....
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] That Perfect Fanfic DeAnno didn't know about : N/A
I jumped into reading this as much as anything due to a lack of Buffy fiction out there... see a lot of Harry Potter, Naruto, Worm, can be hard finding others written on a comparable level. Its a nasty chicken-and-egg vicious spiral yah? The more stories are written, the more people read about that fandom and want more, so the more gets written....
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Fully on board and crewing this ship, and its reason enough to want moar interludes just because it can be really cool to see the tough main character (especially if they tend a bit colder) from the perspective of the goofier sidekick trying to keep up with them. Reminds me of a Worm fic Monster/How I Met Your Monster, which did that with two takes on the same story, or the similar effect with Enders Game/Enders Shadow novels.
As a side-note, just to contrast with past surveys I quite liked "In Color" as the dream strangeness made for an excellent Breather Episode on top of the interesting lore, even if I had no real grasp on the color-theory analysis and relied on some other readers to explain it to me. No worse than having to watch sports with little squiggles drawn on the screen for me
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: Angel & Dracula.
Hot Take: I thought Dracula was cool and wish he could've stayed an ally instead of getting chased off? Been a few weeks since i binged story though so I might've forgotten details. But the Angel/Angelus confusion was also a mess I didn't quite enjoy, which is to say I'd probably never much enjoy that plot hook of his coming up when Harmony's role is mostly keeping him and Spike out in LA anyways.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
Its been a whiiiiile since I watched Buffy, and only the earlier seasons on streaming binge instead of catching half of it before school or the like, so any pictures to remind me who a person is or help me look them up is great. And moments like recognizing the Witches in the dream when Buffy didn't is the fun sort of "audience knows things they don't" that I tend to love in stories..... especially in a Quest where we sometimes get to shout answers at the screen and have them heard xD
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] More Interludes
Not saying we need a lot of them, certainly the style of this story doesn't suit something on the level of Wheel of Time (which I did love), but the Harmony interlude as above was one of my favorite parts of the story. I'm sure Giles and Willow have their moments where we get to see these old allies of Buffy react to her new relationship with Harmony (most obviously i NEED to see how Willow reacts when she notices.... even if she's currently with Oz) and the choices Buffy has to make to be the mayor of a town of demons.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[] S4: N/A
Its been too long since I watched to show to remember ;-; and uhh... can't say I'm very fond of the Initiative and their robots from what I do remember. Maybe whatever episode involved Spike getting a play-nice chip, since that led into him basically growing a Soul as a
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs bad
Not necessarily a remark on the writing so much as how good the existing Buffy characters are , but most of the ones I know to be OCs like city council don't stand out quite so clearly? I know the guy who's got a movie relative but he doesn't seem to have had much role, while the two females I tend to mix up as much from my own difficulties keeping names straight if I don't know them well. Whoever drove the van during that LA segment was awesome in her quiet butler/fixer way, but if I mix up and blur her with the other one....
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[] That Perfect Fanfic DeAnno didn't know about : N/A
I jumped into reading this as much as anything due to a lack of Buffy fiction out there... see a lot of Harry Potter, Naruto, Worm, can be hard finding others written on a comparable level. Its a nasty chicken-and-egg vicious spiral yah? The more stories are written, the more people read about that fandom and want more, so the more gets written....
- Location
- St. Petersburg
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[x] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Since the interludes are rare this kind of episode shines all the brighter for it. Harmony gets a lot more depth than she does in the original series, and it's enjoyable to delve into her head... not that I am sure there is enough there to keep this up for more than a single episode.
Also, it had Spike in it. I miss him, he was a great villain.
Other contenders are "Cordelia Chase, and where to find her", and anything that has WRH in it. I also enjoyed the game show for the change of pace.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[x] Unfavorite: Lights in the Sky
That's a tough one. None of the episodes are without good points, and we got Cortez and Cordy scenes out of it. Still, you can tell one's been duller than the other if you have trouble remembering what it was about besides a brief plot summary.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[x] Multimedia Bad
I am indifferent to most of it. Pictures, maybe. They help me remember who the character is when it comes to existing ones. Invisitext... the "Kill" was a decent implementation, can't remember if there was anything besides it. Colored text was fine for exactly one episode and for the novelty of it. Overall, it's fine to experment with the format, and it can help give an episode a unique feel, but I don't think any of it is really necessary.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[x] Please keep it as is.
Harmony's episode is my favorite for a reason. I would love to see more of it kind, but this is a very delicate balanse to keep.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[x] N/A
Can't recall anything specific, which I suppose is indicative of my attitude towards S4. About all I can remember are Spike scenes.
Oh, and Faith. I want Faith to come back, badly.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor?
[x] No
Well, Harmony, perhaps, but her handling was an improvement as far as I am concerned.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[x] OCs good
It's fine. Cynthia's been a great addition to the roster, and the Gervais debacle was entertaining. If anything, I want them to rise to prominence so they could stand hand in hand with the canon ones. Harmony is one of the better examples of what I'd like to see more of... sure she isn't technically OC, but there is almost nothing left of the canon Harmony in there besides the backstory.
Nate's been... kinda weak in comparison. But we haven't seen him much.
I wonder if Cortez would have more screentime now that he's on the Council.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[x] The number of updates/decisions is about right, but the updates get a bit wordy at times.
I wouldn't mind a greater "decisions-per-thousands-of-words" ratio.
[x] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
Since the interludes are rare this kind of episode shines all the brighter for it. Harmony gets a lot more depth than she does in the original series, and it's enjoyable to delve into her head... not that I am sure there is enough there to keep this up for more than a single episode.
Also, it had Spike in it. I miss him, he was a great villain.
Other contenders are "Cordelia Chase, and where to find her", and anything that has WRH in it. I also enjoyed the game show for the change of pace.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[x] Unfavorite: Lights in the Sky
That's a tough one. None of the episodes are without good points, and we got Cortez and Cordy scenes out of it. Still, you can tell one's been duller than the other if you have trouble remembering what it was about besides a brief plot summary.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[x] Multimedia Bad
I am indifferent to most of it. Pictures, maybe. They help me remember who the character is when it comes to existing ones. Invisitext... the "Kill" was a decent implementation, can't remember if there was anything besides it. Colored text was fine for exactly one episode and for the novelty of it. Overall, it's fine to experment with the format, and it can help give an episode a unique feel, but I don't think any of it is really necessary.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[x] Please keep it as is.
Harmony's episode is my favorite for a reason. I would love to see more of it kind, but this is a very delicate balanse to keep.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[x] N/A
Can't recall anything specific, which I suppose is indicative of my attitude towards S4. About all I can remember are Spike scenes.
Oh, and Faith. I want Faith to come back, badly.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor?
[x] No
Well, Harmony, perhaps, but her handling was an improvement as far as I am concerned.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[x] OCs good
It's fine. Cynthia's been a great addition to the roster, and the Gervais debacle was entertaining. If anything, I want them to rise to prominence so they could stand hand in hand with the canon ones. Harmony is one of the better examples of what I'd like to see more of... sure she isn't technically OC, but there is almost nothing left of the canon Harmony in there besides the backstory.
Nate's been... kinda weak in comparison. But we haven't seen him much.
I wonder if Cortez would have more screentime now that he's on the Council.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[x] The number of updates/decisions is about right, but the updates get a bit wordy at times.
I wouldn't mind a greater "decisions-per-thousands-of-words" ratio.
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Vanessa Waters and Cynthia Danvers: Compare and Contrast
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
So it's come to my attention, not just from this survey but from my own perceptions and some other sources, that Vanessa Waters and Cynthia Danvers are unfortunately a little hard to distinguish. This probably reflects some poor planning on my part earlier in the quest, but as both of them have survived the summer, I decided it'd be good to make a helpful post helping to identify their differences and some of their key relationships and plot points. I'll start with the blurbs from the cast and then expand on them.
A lot to unpack here, and one critical development from E15 that hasn't been reflected yet in the blurb: Vanessa Waters is the illegitimate granddaughter of Richard Wilkins, and that's probably why she was on the city council in the first place. Obviously, as far as most people that even know this are concerned (and not a huge number of people do, but the well-to-do-circles tend to), her grandfather was Richard Wilkins I, as Vanessa is at this point in her late sixties; she's a contemporary of Carl's Gervais' uncle Anthony (who is also on the city council now), and they hate each other with a passion.
Vanessa has shown herself to be a bit of a political operator several times, possibly owing to a store of blackmail Wilkins left her. She's not only pulled strings to get Buffy confirmed as interim mayor very early, but she also managed to springboard that situation into convincing Buffy to appoint her half-nephew Matt (on her mother's side, so not related to Wilkins) as the Chief of Police. In general, she's very opinionated and a little bit shady, but she's also personable, like a naughty grandmother. She's very well preserved for her age, in contrast to Anthony, who nurses a limp.
Now, let's look at Cynthia.
So immediately, we see why they get confused; Vanessa is an older woman who acts younger than she is, and Cynthia is a young woman who acts reserved and formal. Mea Culpa. Cynthia's office administratorship is a lot like Pam Beesly's: she's a secretary with much more formal power than the role would normally entail. She's been proven utterly unflappable by the events of the summer, and seems to think that everything Buffy does is automatically right, probably because she's the mayor.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this led her to have a friendship with Harmony quite early on, and they originally even bonded over Cynthia's (extremely proficient) make-up skills. This led to Cynthia noticing Harmony's crush even before Buffy did, and she's helped enable their illicit relationship with complete discretion and zero judgement since.
Cynthia has shown herself to be extremely, almost unnaturally, competent at everything she does, and as we've seen over the summer she has a wide range of skills; budgeting, fashion, and stunt driving are among them. She also has been shown to have a adamantine-trap memory, at least with regards to anything that relates to her job.
EDIT: Given all this, if anyone wants to suggest actresses for the cast list in the hopes it might inspire some more differentiation, be my guest.
A lot to unpack here, and one critical development from E15 that hasn't been reflected yet in the blurb: Vanessa Waters is the illegitimate granddaughter of Richard Wilkins, and that's probably why she was on the city council in the first place. Obviously, as far as most people that even know this are concerned (and not a huge number of people do, but the well-to-do-circles tend to), her grandfather was Richard Wilkins I, as Vanessa is at this point in her late sixties; she's a contemporary of Carl's Gervais' uncle Anthony (who is also on the city council now), and they hate each other with a passion.
Vanessa has shown herself to be a bit of a political operator several times, possibly owing to a store of blackmail Wilkins left her. She's not only pulled strings to get Buffy confirmed as interim mayor very early, but she also managed to springboard that situation into convincing Buffy to appoint her half-nephew Matt (on her mother's side, so not related to Wilkins) as the Chief of Police. In general, she's very opinionated and a little bit shady, but she's also personable, like a naughty grandmother. She's very well preserved for her age, in contrast to Anthony, who nurses a limp.
Now, let's look at Cynthia.
So immediately, we see why they get confused; Vanessa is an older woman who acts younger than she is, and Cynthia is a young woman who acts reserved and formal. Mea Culpa. Cynthia's office administratorship is a lot like Pam Beesly's: she's a secretary with much more formal power than the role would normally entail. She's been proven utterly unflappable by the events of the summer, and seems to think that everything Buffy does is automatically right, probably because she's the mayor.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this led her to have a friendship with Harmony quite early on, and they originally even bonded over Cynthia's (extremely proficient) make-up skills. This led to Cynthia noticing Harmony's crush even before Buffy did, and she's helped enable their illicit relationship with complete discretion and zero judgement since.
Cynthia has shown herself to be extremely, almost unnaturally, competent at everything she does, and as we've seen over the summer she has a wide range of skills; budgeting, fashion, and stunt driving are among them. She also has been shown to have a adamantine-trap memory, at least with regards to anything that relates to her job.
EDIT: Given all this, if anyone wants to suggest actresses for the cast list in the hopes it might inspire some more differentiation, be my guest.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've edited in the above in regards to which S4 episodes are my favorite.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well...
I mean...for opinionated, clearly has secrets, personable and "like a naughty grandmother"...is there anyone more qualified than Lily Tomlin?
- Location
- DC area
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
Apart from Buffy first becoming mayor, I've really enjoyed it as a cohesive whole, in that you've been going consistently for so long with substance and quality.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
I wouldn't call it unfavorite, but I had a lot of trouble with Colors. There was less of a sense of it mattering in terms of consequences for the town and characters, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on at the core. If that was your intent, good job, but it's not my preference. The big choice between the Witch and the Wizard worked better than the one between Angel and Dracula, though, because it was a lot harder to figure out which one I liked, if either - Angel didn't act like Angelus, so i had basically zero problem siding against basically the ur-vampire, as not-terribly-threatening as he ended up being in his canon episode.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
It's been decent. The pictures have helped keep the cast in mind. I don't typically listen to any clip people post on a forum. I also don't check for invisitext. Colored text has been mildly interesting, but feels like it takes more work for you than it gives meaning to me. But without people trying things, we don't know what works, so keep going - it's never gotten excessive.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
As above, what you've been doing is working. I don't think it's fundamental to the fic, though; if you have something in mind that works better when we don't have Buffy's view as primary, give it a shot.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
The final conflict with Adam! Spike successfully breaking up the Scoobies, and then having to fuck it up again. Everyone contributing more or less equally to the last battle - and through that spell, Buffy pulling some straight-up bullshit.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: Harmony, to an extent. But her character was annoying in canon, so I'm happy with that.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs bad
What you're doing has worked so far, but the big thing is that stories can only support so many characters in the minds of readers, especially when, as is the nature of fiction posted as you go, people read one updte at a time and most of the fic fades away somewhat. Given that you have that cap, best that it be primarily devoted to canon characters, since they're the ones we read fics to see do stuff. Bringing in new people is fine when you have a role in the story that doesn't work for a canon character - the whole point here is to have Buffy as mayor, but the town's other politicians and senior civil servants can't reasonably be filled out by any of the Scoobies or adult characters.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
Beats the hell out of me.
Open Response) Have I messed anything up really badly in an obvious way? Point out plotholes great and small, and watch in amusement as I dance frantically trying to put out fires.
The one thing that does bother me is the notion that everything goes back to normal after this. Partly this is because I love disrupting canon, and dislike things amounting to 'it was just a dream' and 'status quo is god'. Maybe I've misremembered, but I do remember getting that impression.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
As pointed out by someone already, the problems with indy!Harry fics are that a. there are so goddamn many of them, b. they're generally very bashy, c. they're also frequently power fantasies that indulge fanon over canon, d. Harry is an everyman and generally pretty young and should not be all that independent. You're not treading muddy ground, not claiming Giles or Xander are assholes, Buffy is dealing with responsibilities and fitting into a larger structure (so not all that independent anyway), and there's solid backing for Buffy occupying her spot according to mystical/demon psychology and eing the One Girl in All the World etc etc, making her genuinely unique and powerful, where Harry lucked into unusual circumstances when he was a child and had his later status as leader be largely a matter of perception rather than a particular suitability.
Apart from Buffy first becoming mayor, I've really enjoyed it as a cohesive whole, in that you've been going consistently for so long with substance and quality.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
I wouldn't call it unfavorite, but I had a lot of trouble with Colors. There was less of a sense of it mattering in terms of consequences for the town and characters, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on at the core. If that was your intent, good job, but it's not my preference. The big choice between the Witch and the Wizard worked better than the one between Angel and Dracula, though, because it was a lot harder to figure out which one I liked, if either - Angel didn't act like Angelus, so i had basically zero problem siding against basically the ur-vampire, as not-terribly-threatening as he ended up being in his canon episode.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
It's been decent. The pictures have helped keep the cast in mind. I don't typically listen to any clip people post on a forum. I also don't check for invisitext. Colored text has been mildly interesting, but feels like it takes more work for you than it gives meaning to me. But without people trying things, we don't know what works, so keep going - it's never gotten excessive.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
As above, what you've been doing is working. I don't think it's fundamental to the fic, though; if you have something in mind that works better when we don't have Buffy's view as primary, give it a shot.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
The final conflict with Adam! Spike successfully breaking up the Scoobies, and then having to fuck it up again. Everyone contributing more or less equally to the last battle - and through that spell, Buffy pulling some straight-up bullshit.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: Harmony, to an extent. But her character was annoying in canon, so I'm happy with that.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs bad
What you're doing has worked so far, but the big thing is that stories can only support so many characters in the minds of readers, especially when, as is the nature of fiction posted as you go, people read one updte at a time and most of the fic fades away somewhat. Given that you have that cap, best that it be primarily devoted to canon characters, since they're the ones we read fics to see do stuff. Bringing in new people is fine when you have a role in the story that doesn't work for a canon character - the whole point here is to have Buffy as mayor, but the town's other politicians and senior civil servants can't reasonably be filled out by any of the Scoobies or adult characters.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
Beats the hell out of me.
Open Response) Have I messed anything up really badly in an obvious way? Point out plotholes great and small, and watch in amusement as I dance frantically trying to put out fires.
The one thing that does bother me is the notion that everything goes back to normal after this. Partly this is because I love disrupting canon, and dislike things amounting to 'it was just a dream' and 'status quo is god'. Maybe I've misremembered, but I do remember getting that impression.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
As pointed out by someone already, the problems with indy!Harry fics are that a. there are so goddamn many of them, b. they're generally very bashy, c. they're also frequently power fantasies that indulge fanon over canon, d. Harry is an everyman and generally pretty young and should not be all that independent. You're not treading muddy ground, not claiming Giles or Xander are assholes, Buffy is dealing with responsibilities and fitting into a larger structure (so not all that independent anyway), and there's solid backing for Buffy occupying her spot according to mystical/demon psychology and eing the One Girl in All the World etc etc, making her genuinely unique and powerful, where Harry lucked into unusual circumstances when he was a child and had his later status as leader be largely a matter of perception rather than a particular suitability.
- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
One thing I would recommend to do this is crosspost this as a piece of fiction on other major sites like AO3 (If you need an invitation, PM me) and fanfiction.net, along with the other XenForo site's you are on, like Spacebattles. tthfanfic.org might also help, though the site is pretty dead.
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1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: When People Talk With Grues
I found it really hard to pick just one favorite! I've ended up going with this one, though The Triumvirate and This Is Sunnydale were right behind. I've loved all the episodes where Buffy, as mayor, has had to make tough decisions for practical reasons that force her out of her old very black and white world view. I'm really looking forward to her interacting with The Initiative next season, there's going to be all sorts of moral and political drama there!
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
For pretty much the same reasons others have noted regarding lack of tension, disconnection from the rest of the story etc. I've just never been a fan of dream sequences.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
I don't really have hugely strong feelings either way, but I have enjoyed the occasional songs and images.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
As you've noted, the interludes being as rare as they are makes them all the more impactful, and I personally really enjoy the tight focus on Buffy.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] Hush, The Harsh Light of Day, Something Blue, Fear Itself, The Initiative, The I in Team, This Year's Girl
Spike and Faith stories are always good, I'm a fan of episodes with town-wide magical effects and Hush speaks for itself. I'm also quite rare in that I enjoyed the Initiative, especially earlier in the season when Buffy was first coming to grips with them.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: Not really
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good.
I like the OC's we've got but you probably shouldn't add too many more characters without shuffling off some of the more peripheral members of the current cast first.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the only Buffy fanfic of any sort I've read in years
[X] Favorite: When People Talk With Grues
I found it really hard to pick just one favorite! I've ended up going with this one, though The Triumvirate and This Is Sunnydale were right behind. I've loved all the episodes where Buffy, as mayor, has had to make tough decisions for practical reasons that force her out of her old very black and white world view. I'm really looking forward to her interacting with The Initiative next season, there's going to be all sorts of moral and political drama there!
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: In Color
For pretty much the same reasons others have noted regarding lack of tension, disconnection from the rest of the story etc. I've just never been a fan of dream sequences.
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
I don't really have hugely strong feelings either way, but I have enjoyed the occasional songs and images.
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
As you've noted, the interludes being as rare as they are makes them all the more impactful, and I personally really enjoy the tight focus on Buffy.
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was you favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] Hush, The Harsh Light of Day, Something Blue, Fear Itself, The Initiative, The I in Team, This Year's Girl
Spike and Faith stories are always good, I'm a fan of episodes with town-wide magical effects and Hush speaks for itself. I'm also quite rare in that I enjoyed the Initiative, especially earlier in the season when Buffy was first coming to grips with them.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: Not really
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good.
I like the OC's we've got but you probably shouldn't add too many more characters without shuffling off some of the more peripheral members of the current cast first.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] This is the only Buffy fanfic of any sort I've read in years
- Location
- Vancouver
1) What was your favorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
This episode was a dramatic shift, funny, and heartwarming, and I found it to be just awesome. It was really cool to see how Harmony's quest for love played out and neat to have the perspective shift from Buffy for this surprise chapter.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: This Is Sunnydale
Hard to pick an 'unfavorite' as really everything has been well written and enjoyable. This is Sunnydale felt a bit lacking as an episode, not being as 'punchy' in terms of drama or action, and while the humor wasn't bad it didn't feel quite as nailed there as it is other times, imo (also, kuddos on getting so much humor in there while still keeping up the action, high stakes, and other elements and making it always feel 'Buffy-esque' in nature).
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
Part of what made the Harmony episode so good in my eyes was how rare and unexpected it was (Harmony being a delight didn't hurt things either).
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: New Year Girl/Who Am I?
[X] S4: The Harsh Light of Day
The body swap between Buffy and Faith and their plans and battles in New Year Girl and Who Am I were great, one of my favorite parts of Buffy in general and definitely of Season 4. The two have great tension with each other and seeing the reach of Wilkin's plans, showing how a mastermind like him can be a danger even after being killed is great.
Harsh Light of Day was really good too, and helped show how dangerous Spike can really be. He can make for a good villain.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: None
Harmony and Warren seem a bit different than Canon, but their circumstances are very different, so they only seem different in ways that make sense. Plus we haven't seen a lot of Warren yet to get a good feel for him in the quest.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good
It's good as is, though I could see more getting unwieldy. The Cynthia/Vanessa thing was a bit confusing as was mentioned, but I think that'll get cleared up with time.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
I've been really liking the length of each episode and the breakup of votes, it seems to fit really well.
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] None that I know of.
I don't really even know that much of Buffy fanfiction to begin with, this being one of my first forays into it, and I have loved this quest so far. It's great, so thank you so much for writing this.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
I don't actually know of this term. What is an 'Indy!Harry' fanfic/what are those fanfics like?
[X] Favorite: Teen Vampire: Harmony!
This episode was a dramatic shift, funny, and heartwarming, and I found it to be just awesome. It was really cool to see how Harmony's quest for love played out and neat to have the perspective shift from Buffy for this surprise chapter.
2) What was your most unfavorite episode of Season 3.5 and why?
[X] Unfavorite: This Is Sunnydale
Hard to pick an 'unfavorite' as really everything has been well written and enjoyable. This is Sunnydale felt a bit lacking as an episode, not being as 'punchy' in terms of drama or action, and while the humor wasn't bad it didn't feel quite as nailed there as it is other times, imo (also, kuddos on getting so much humor in there while still keeping up the action, high stakes, and other elements and making it always feel 'Buffy-esque' in nature).
3) Successor has experimented with a lot of weird multimedia elements, including embedded pictures, music, invisitext, and most recently, a whole lotta colored text. In general, do you think this is good or bad? Feel free to expand on stuff you like or suffer from in words.
[X] Multimedia Good
4) Successor has so far been an experiment in very tight first person perspective, with an "interlude" only happening in one very special case so far. Should interludes continue to be the rarest of gems, or are people clamoring for a bit more viewpoint juggling?
[X] Buffy Only
Part of what made the Harmony episode so good in my eyes was how rare and unexpected it was (Harmony being a delight didn't hurt things either).
5) With Season 4 coming up, I'll be incorporating a lot of elements from it into Successor. What was your favorite S4 episode in canon?
[X] S4: New Year Girl/Who Am I?
[X] S4: The Harsh Light of Day
The body swap between Buffy and Faith and their plans and battles in New Year Girl and Who Am I were great, one of my favorite parts of Buffy in general and definitely of Season 4. The two have great tension with each other and seeing the reach of Wilkin's plans, showing how a mastermind like him can be a danger even after being killed is great.
Harsh Light of Day was really good too, and helped show how dangerous Spike can really be. He can make for a good villain.
6) Is there any canon character that has seemed specifically and consistently OOC in Successor? I've tried my best to match voices and motives, but this is a big cast and I want to know if there's anywhere that I've gone wrong. I might not be able to reasonably spring the character back right away, but being aware of it helps a lot.
[X] OOC: None
Harmony and Warren seem a bit different than Canon, but their circumstances are very different, so they only seem different in ways that make sense. Plus we haven't seen a lot of Warren yet to get a good feel for him in the quest.
7) I've acknowledged this before, but Original Character cast bloat has started to spiral completely out of control. Should I try my best to rein it in, or just let it continue like a radioactive pile gone rogue?
[X] OCs good
It's good as is, though I could see more getting unwieldy. The Cynthia/Vanessa thing was a bit confusing as was mentioned, but I think that'll get cleared up with time.
8) Episodes seem to be settling in at about six updates and 20k words each. Does the length 'feel right' for a BTVS ep?
[X] The right length
I've been really liking the length of each episode and the breakup of votes, it seems to fit really well.
9) Are there any other Buffy fics currently updating that I should really be reading?
[X] None that I know of.
I don't really even know that much of Buffy fanfiction to begin with, this being one of my first forays into it, and I have loved this quest so far. It's great, so thank you so much for writing this.
Extra Credit) Is Successor secretly an Indy!Harry fic? Or I guess it'd be better to call it an Indy!Buffy fic, maybe. What tropes from this troubled fanfic genre do you recognize littering this 260,000 word summer adventure?
I don't actually know of this term. What is an 'Indy!Harry' fanfic/what are those fanfics like?
Is Successor an Indy!Buffy fic?
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
So, people have a lot of good (read: flattering) points. But to play the demon's advocate for a minute, I think in the interests of fairness I should direct your attention to Exhibit I:
Successor was a BTVS Fanfic which started with the summer after one of the most popular volumes in the canon series. This summer somehow managed to last over a quarter million words, during the course of which which Buffy variously:
- Inherited an unlikely political position
- Gained mysterious new powers
- Amassed a huge library of ancient spellbooks and dark artifacts
- Hired dozens of new advisors and minions
- Oversaw the creation of an entirely new type of magic
- Took over and remodeled multiple properties
- Received suspect mentoring from a former enemy
- Won cash and prizes on a game show
- Traded for an ostentatious magical weapon
- Negotiated with the Dean of a new school
- Starred in a major motion picture
- Had a large scale battle in the streets of a metropolis
- Hooked up with a magical creature girlfriend
- Ran into Dracula, and then scared him away
- Bought an overpowered motorcycle on a shopping trip
- Had a confusing dream sequence with prophetic elements
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- Location
- Before the Ninth Gate
Sure, you used some of the tropes, but the problems of these tropes are avoided.
Basically, the problems of the Indy Harry genre are that they are overused
This is all one trope or consequences of that trope, which is the basis of your quest: Buffy becomes the Mayor. And the politics in this are relatively normal American ones, not arcane made-up magical Britain ones. Also, her being the Mayor causes more problems than it solves, so it is a good source of tension.
These all are things that are weird or unusual in a Harry Potter universe, but are tropes that are native to the Buffy Universe.
Buffy has always dated creatures, as have other characters. Battles in LA happen all the time in Angel. Getting affected by a weird magical power is a frequent episode topic, and for a long term affect, look at Dawn. They already have a huge library of spellbooks in the school library, so that's not much different. Willow did something amazing with magic: Obviously, it's Willow. Getting a magical weapon: Troll Hammer. Facing Dracula? That was in Season 5. And a dream sequence is built into the Slayer powers.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Agreed. The tropes aren't necessarily bad, it's their execution: in the aforementioned Harry fics it's almost without fail about making him super-powerful, super hot, always right and faces opposition fueled only by evil/stupidity -- aka a Marty Stu (aka every Ayn Rand story ever) and that's not what you're doing. Buffy still has the same self-doubt, and the potential to get her ass kicked or people she cares about hurt or killed; people aren't automatically wrong and/or nefarious to be against her on a given thing (best example being her mom); ethically dubious characters like Amy have their own motivations and uses, not just cardboard cutouts to be smashed by the 'hero'; and, let's face it, Buffy's life on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis has always been on the face of it patently absurd (an extra dimensional game show and a movie? no, these are bridges too far for a series that included a musical-inducing demon, alien moon demons, a hell-god with DID, and literal knights in armor crusading after a metaphysical key hidden in the shell of a teenager ).
Punchline is, using common tropes to tell a Buffy story is not remotely the same as people who use those tropes to railroad characters and worlds into utterly unrecognisable Stutopias. You can safely give yourself more credit than that.
). Punchline is, using common tropes to tell a Buffy story is not remotely the same as people who use those tropes to railroad characters and worlds into utterly unrecognisable Stutopias. You can safely give yourself more credit than that.
I wouldn't even say that the problem is that the relevent tropes are overused, although it does make them a tad stale, it is just the vast majority of authors who use them do a poor job in doing so. This in turn taints the reputation of the story set as a whole.
Except it doesn't. Just because something has a bill, webbed feet, lays eggs, and spends all day in the water doesn't make it a duck. The platypus exists after all.Now, for those of you that don't know what an Indy!Harry fic is ... well, the evidence rather speaks for itself now, I think.
Successor has a lot of the markers of a Indy!Harry fic but it is lacking the elements that makes those bad. The first is obviously bad writing but equally important is rebellion against authority. The fundamental premise of an Indy!Harry fic is that if he just stood up for himself and got out from under the control of the Dursleys/Headmaster/Ministry it would fix all his problems. Which is just silly if you actually consider the setting of Harry Potter and take into account things like his age in most these stories or the actual sources of his problems.
Successor meanwhile isn't about rebelling against authority and how freedom will solve all your problems. Successor is a coming of age story focused more on the end part of that journey rather then the beginning that most focus on. It is a story about Buffy moving on from the safety and comfort of high school life and having to cope with the confusing messiness of the real world. Sure there are fantastical elements to this (the superpowers, the job she would never get IRL, the hot vampire girlfriend) but using the fantastic to made the mundane problems we all face more palatable is a staple of the genre.
So far we've journeied with Buffy as she has had to confront her simplistic ideas of good and evil (human vs. demon) and evolve them into more complex yet (hopefully) superior ones. We've watched her finally move on from her last big teenage crush and start a more adult relationship (albeit with just as many issues as her previous one) based on compatibility and friendship then "He's tall, dark, and mysterious." We've seen her through her first major job interview (effectively what the election was) and her triumph despite her disadvantages and strong competition. Soon we'll be watching her struggle to balance her relationships (both romantic and not), college, and arguably two full time jobs (Slaying and mayor).