This whole situation is so sad and awkward, your writing really brings that home.
"We'll get through this together, Faith. I promise."
Man, did I already say I love Buffy, because I really do. She's trying so hard to get through to Faith, to be there for her and pull her back from the dark side.
I really loved Faith's smarts in making that phone call to Buffy and how well she sold it. as she provided all of the relevant info. I wanted to smack Buffy, but she finally caught on, so I take it back.
The fight was excellent with Buffy outnumbered and Faith just standing there watching. You wrote it chockful of tension and even though I knew Buffy wasn't going to get killed, I was still sweating it and visualizing Faith just watching as she sent her crew in to take care of the Slayer.
Author's Response:You hadn't mentioned that, no. I was beginning to think you were more of a Travers fan. What with your “World's biggest council groupie” t-shirt and everything (There were rumours). 0:)
lol. Poor Buffy. In her defence, it was a fairly odd phone call. And let's face it, the Scoobies and phones liked to keep their distance. I think Buffy has a mobile for like one episode (And seeing as she was talking about Faith at the time, I'm going to assume that's the only reason she bought it :p).
You can really feel the strain, tension, hope, and worry Buffy's dealing with while she waits to find Faith. The whole talk was great, but a few lines stood out for me, like this from Buffy:
"Fine? Look at yourself...Look at where you are. What you're doing. Do you honestly believe this is you being fine? Because I don't. Not for a second."
That offer of hope and belief that Faith can turn it around is just great.
Of course then there's Faith's heartbreaking:
"What's the point? Everything I touch falls apart. How long until I screw something else up and you realize I'm not worth it?" Wow, didn't that just say it all as far as Faith's self-esteem goes.
"Just give me something to work with." You've got to love Buffy and I do and did when she got pissed.
I'm glad she seems to have gotten through to Faith.
Author's Response:When you think about it, it was lucky she had Mr Gordo to help her through it. Err, and her friends of course. She got to nap all day while everyone else did the legwork. Slayer perk.
Of course then she got punched in the face. But you win some, you lose some. :p
Aww...Buffy was all tuckered out and comfy at the table. Slayer sleeping is not for everyone.
The Council...Is there any way to like them at all? Buffy's comments to Travers are hysterical and perfect:
"You know what, she did mention something about Disney Land." HAHAHA!!!
The humor in this scene is great. For example: right in the middle of all of this seriousness and tension, Buffy wonders to herself why she received a scowl from Travers, but Giles didn't. HAHAHA!!! It's so Buffy and so funny. I like Giles' refusal to play along in any way. Yea!!!
Is Wesley insane? It's perfect how Buffy intimidates him physically, then cuts him a break when he seems to honestly want to help, and he's all:
"Gee, I'm not sure if that would be appropriate given..." LOL!
What an idiot. It's like he's begging Buffy to murderize him. It actually makes me like him because he's such a clueless idiot, trying to do the right thing, but not knowing how to work outside the rules.
I really love in this story how everyone's at fault with the Faith sitch and that there's plenty of blame to go around. That also includes Faith's own wrong decisions, but Buffy's focus is on trying her best to fix her own mistakes and see where that takes them.It's a great approach.
It made me crack up when Giles and Buffy are waiting for Willow, who's inexplicably decided at the worst possible time to be "on time" instead of early. I laughed right out loud at the visual of Buffy lunging at her. HAHAHA!!!
Xander and Willow are right on the money for me, and it's easy to hear their voices. I like how Xander(and Willow too) assumes they're going to bash Faith in the head and turn her over to the authorities, then gets mad, but still listens to Buffy's explanation of how she might have been a lot like Faith if not for their support.
Aww...you've gotta love what good and kind people The Scoobies are. You wrote it so simply, yet so powerfully. You didn't bash the reader over the head with it, you just made it clear that Giles, Willow, and Xander are with Buffy all the way. It made me feel like cheering.
What a great story this is! I'm having a blast reading it :) :) :)
Author's Response:
Nope, nobody likes the council. They're probably the only humans on the entire show that don't have a single fan sticking up for them. I mean there's probably even someone out there who was all “Go Captain Hammer Caleb!”.
Wesley may be insane. But also, he has no backbone, so sometimes he just needs a helpful shove in the right direction. :p
I didn't really want to make anybody the bad guy because I never saw it as that black-and-white. None of them were perfect, and none of them were completely hopeless either; it was just an all-round sucky situation. So yeah, small amounts of blame all around!
Thanks again for the reviews. :)
Angel. I really love Angel and that even though they're broken up, he and Buffy are still friends. I like how you've written Buffy here too -- discouraged, sad, worried, hopeless, and yet Angel is able to talk sense to her while she goes from emotion to emotion, ending up at a pretty mean statement:
"You've both killed people --- maybe you can relate."
It's so shitty of her to say, but I think it's exactly where Buffy would go (and did on the show), and Angel reacts just like himself too -- with calmness as he refuses to back off or get sidetracked. He's a good friend, and his brand of "tough love" is just what Buffy needs. He even absolves her of her responsibility...by laying on the guilt with a trowel: "If you don't want to deal than that's fine: you can't save everyone, right?" HAHAHA!!! Poor Buffy :) Then he leaves her with such a simple mission: "Be there for her...That's all you can do."
Did I already swoon over Angel, because I really meant to.
Wesley's so irritating, just like he's supposed to be, but hooray for Giles': "Oh do shut up.", among his other English: "Shut the Fuck Up, Wesley, Before I Kill Yous". HAHAHA!!!
Loved this chapter :)
Author's Response:
I can't say I share in your Angel swooning (At least on Buffy), but I think he would have had the best perspective on Faith of anyone involved, so he had to be involved somehow. Plus I hear they even share a comic and stuff (Which I will eventually get around to reading, even if a Buffy/Faith comic would have been so much better).
lol. I don't remember writing that last line. :p
Obviously I didn't make myself clear on the "No Choking Buffy" thing. Or perhaps you just don't take me seriously? ;)
Faith saving Buffy was so wonderful; she's still reachable. WHEEE!!! And I loved Buffy tossing the knife back to her.
Their banter back and forth couldn't be any better, so much being said outright and bewteen the lines. I like the easy familarity they have, but the cautiousness and knowledge too, that at any second they could be fighting each other no holds barred. It's kind of like watching two tigers circling around a downed gazelle...if they had a previously friendly relationship and respected each other's abilities or something. You're the writer, you figure it out ;)
It's a tense scene, especially when you add in that Buffy's also trying to get through to Faith all while making it clear that she's not letting Faith leave with the shard. It's all so tenuous, and just one wrong word or phrase can screw the whole thing up and cost Fuffy dearly in a bunch of different ways.
They go very quickly from: "Wanna flip for it? I'll let you call." to: "So is that all it takes? Someone throws you a bag of gold and you ask how high?" and onward to: "...whore for hire", and then just like that, the nitty gritty is in their faces.It's a perfectly paced conversation.
I really like how you portray them, Faith's impassioned accusations, Buffy's refusal to take the bait and escalate to a fight, neither girl's heart really into having a physical confrontation. I think Buffy's very mature as she tries to reach Faith, even when she loses her temper a bit, she gets herself right back on track, and Faith responds favorably to Buffy's caring and understanding.
Um...In the future, no arriving cops.
Buffy distracting the cop from shooting at Faith is a wonderful moment and it makes it very clear how much Buffy cares about Faith. *sigh*
I'm a huge Buffy lover and I loved her in this chapter. I'm loving this story pretty hugely too, but then you probably already know that.
Great chapter! :)
Author's Response:
But technically Buffy hadn't been, err, unchoked yet, so that completely doesn't count. :(
lol, good analogy... I think. I'm not a tiger expert or anything, but I'm sure that happens sometimes. Like on the lion king, which I heard from a friend of a friend is basically a documentary.
Sheesh. No choking, no cops.... you're very demanding. Next you'll be telling me not to kill anyone off either. :x
Straight to the point:
I LOVED THE MUSEUM SCENE. Wildly! Every facet of it was just perfect, and I felt like I could see and hear it with ease. The whole set-up was great -- Buffy biding her time until it's the right time, trying to figure out how to handle the vamps and make sure she gets away with the Shard, and then...BAM! It's a bad sitch gone way worse with Faith now in the mix.
Faith's dialogue was great, her lines popping out just like Faith:
"Oh, and you might wanna think about running right about now. I'll even give you a head start."
I suppose that's stupid to quote, even though it's good, but when you add in how great you wrote the entire fight scene, well, it's fantastic.
Buffy watching the fight, then her way less than graceful Slayer entrance was just perfect too:
"Oh right," she muttered, as Giles' tale from the previous day surfaced in her mind. "Trio."
I like how the Slayers interact without saying anything: Buffy ready to jump in and save Faith, Faith smirking at Buffy's arrival, the way they fight, but pay attention to each other. It's really neat.
For future reference...No choking Buffy again.
Author's Response:
Haha, thanks. :) I was thinking two chapters for pretty much a single scene was probably leaning toward excessive, but I couldn't really find much to cut without upsetting the flow. So I'm glad you liked it.
I'll try and keep that in mind. But I can still choke Faith though... right? *makes furious edits* :p
I'd better warn you: I made some notes on Chapters 2-6 and um...I can never read my handwriting. Bear with me and just accept any compliments I give you on your -- "baseball gloves that sit sadly beside the purple tufted pizza beds". Like you could read these any better ;)
Anyway...
I loved how Buffy took her Faith troubles out on the newbie vamp. HAHAHA!!! Him suggesting that she needs some weed was fucking hysterical! HAHAHA!!! Chillax, B.
The whole idea of The Shards of Ursula and their Keepers (threes all 'round) was very clever and very "Buffy" show-like, in the best way.
Wesley driving Giles crazy was funny as was his: "I found one!". Hell, his eagerness to get credit and be one of the guys was really amusing throughout the scene, and it sort of made me like him a little bit. Yes, I live in the moment and how was I to know what was coming in the following chapters?
Author's Response:
Yeah, the purple tufted pizza beds was my fav.... wait, what? :p
I didn't really notice when first writing this, but I do seem to have some kind of innate obsession with the number three. I'm just going to say it's because the power of three will set us free. (And if you get the reference, you're no better than I am. Plus I only managed the first one and a bit seasons so don't judge me. :p)
I know some people hate Wesley, but he's one of my favourite characters (Especially on Angel) and he was never a total monster or anything, so I had to try and give him a little balance.
So I have this huge quandry, perhaps you can help? I'm finding so much to love in this first chapter, the only way I can express it properly is to copy and paste the whole thing back to you. That seems more than just a little impractical, so I'm going to just pick out a few of the things I loved.
"Miss Mentally unstable had blown into town ready to steal her boyfriend - OK, so ex-boyfriend, she begrudgingly corrected - and peel her skin off." It's not exactly funny, but it made me laugh. It sums up the sitch perfectly and it sounds just like how Buffy would be thinking about it.
"She gave Giles what she considered to be her best wide-eyed attentive look." and I loved when she explained that she wasn't shuddering, but was instead feeling cold. HAHAHA!!!
All of this feels like I'm watching the show. I can hear and see Buffy and all of the Scooby Gang, from Xander's jokes, to Willow practically salivating at the faint chance of catching a glimpse of "Naked" Xander.
Buffy listing out what Faith had done from working for the Big Bad, to trying to turn Angel, to being nothing but "eager to get in a few rounds of Buffy dissection", was exactly how I think Buffy would be processing what had gone down the night before.
The show didn't really get into it much, certainly not enough for us Fuffy lovers, but really: "Why the sudden anti-Buffy blow-out"?
And it was great how you had Buffy upset and wondering how Faith could have turned on her so completely. While not the "bestest of buds", they weren't exactly not friends either. They were together for the slaying every night, and from Buffy's perspective how did that not count?
I think that's a great point because when you actually go by what we were shown on the show, Buffy reached out to Faith quite a bit. They were becoming friends, but Faith had her issues too and the timing of various events didn't work in their favor. Anyway, I loved how you brought that perspective into it.
It cracked me up that Giles was 100% arguing with Willow and Xander. LOL! As with everything else in this chapter, I could actually see them bickering and Giles' embarrassment that he was behaving somewhat immaturely.
"Demkin!" HAHAHA!!!
Xander's comments/jokes are perfectly placed throughout the conversation, as are Willow's, and I found the whole thing very enjoyable and fun to read.
As it is with the show, there's humor mixed in with the serious stuff and for me it was a total "Awww" moment when Giles encouraged Buffy to take the night off. Faith's betrayal hit her hard and deep (not that way!) and it's nice to get a look at the impact it had on Buffy and also to think that Giles got it.
Obviously I loved this chapter and to say I'm looking forward to reading more of this fic is a huge understatement! I love your writing style, your ideas, your dialogue, the plot, the emotion, the humor, the little changes you've made to canon...
I think "copy & paste" would have been shorter.
Author's Response:
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
See, that's the problem with reading on a screen. Otherwise you could have just broken out the highlighters (Though I'm sure Giles wouldn't approve).
I agree that Buffy tried. She did show concern, and she did try to include Faith at times, but other things (E.g. Angel, dead deputy mayors) just seemed to get in the way. I think Faith just needed a little bit more from her, especially after Post, and it didn't help that a lot of the time they weren't really on the same page (understandably given their different backgrounds) – the Finch incident in particular.