Comments! Sorry it's taken me so long to post this.
You brought Spike and Buffy and Dru (!) to my neighborhood. That's awesome. : )
But seriously, the local details are lovely. Given, as a San Francisco local, I'm kind of a non-representative audience, but you've really made Buffy's reactions more realistic simply by giving her a real location to react to. The explanation of the Colma cemeteries, the way she tells her junior Slayers not to accept drinks in the Richmond bars... I can believe in this Buffy. I understand her.
She’d give them a five-minute head start, and then do rooftop surveillance. Clambering up and down buildings kept her from getting too antsy in her supervisory role. Plus, when a bad guy did appear, she got to swoop down in an intimidating manner. It’s the little things.
Nice.
The reaction to Drusilla is perfect. Her followup reaction to Spike, ditto. More confusion and a feeling of being thrown off-balance than soaring violins, which feels totally right.
The very idea of souled Drusilla is an intriguing one. I'm really curious to see where you take it. And I like the way you're using her as a seer, communing with the animals - the scene with the sea lions is so evocative.
They’d been through a lot together. They’d done the whole Bonnie and Clyde thing, then the Sid and Nancy thing, and now they were doing the Liz and Dick thing.
Oh, that is nice. And it's new. Haven't seen it before, either in the show, any of its followups, or fanfic. I like that.
In addition to everything, she was now forced to face the fact that she, Buffy, was more high maintenance than Batshit Bessie.
Hah! That is definitely something that would occur to Buffy, with her habit of self-blame. I'm loving your take on the inside of her head.
They’d had a comfortable bolt-hole in the Haight ever since the summer of love, when Dru had inspired the seemingly never-ending devotion of a Paxulis demon, name of Gordon, who owned a 20-room pile right on Buena Vista Park.
I think I may know which house you're thinking of here. If memory serves, it might even be the same one Anne Rice used as the based for her vampire coven in Queen of the Damned, which I find rather pleasing, because there's just something fun about the idea of hippies and vampires hanging out together. The counterculture aspect, maybe? It just seems natural.
He decided he’d had enough of a brood for one night. He drained his beer in one go, stood and stretched. He was still undead, Dru was tucked snugly into bed, and Buffy was a gorgeous bitch who was going to make his existence a glorious torment. All was right with the world, so he toddled off to bed just as the birds began to wake and twitter in the pre-dawn darkness.
And the inside of Spike's head is just as enjoyable as Buffy's. They really feel like two adults who have individual lives, but who bounce well off each other and are just plain fun to see interact. That's what originally drew me to the pairing, that tension and sense of fun.
In fact, I think the thing that I'm liking best about the whole story so far is that I like everyone. I feel like I get where they're coming from and I'm sympathetic to all points of view - there are no strawmen, and nobody's being set up as the obvious "wrong" party (this is disappointingly rare in fanfic, or even profic these days, for some reason). Plus, the mystery is genuinely mysterious; I don't have that feeling of being set up for pointless intrigue with no answers on the way. Everything is so filled with positive energy! If Buffy is to have a legacy, I would be very happy if it were something very like this.
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You brought Spike and Buffy and Dru (!) to my neighborhood. That's awesome. : )
But seriously, the local details are lovely. Given, as a San Francisco local, I'm kind of a non-representative audience, but you've really made Buffy's reactions more realistic simply by giving her a real location to react to. The explanation of the Colma cemeteries, the way she tells her junior Slayers not to accept drinks in the Richmond bars... I can believe in this Buffy. I understand her.
She’d give them a five-minute head start, and then do rooftop surveillance. Clambering up and down buildings kept her from getting too antsy in her supervisory role. Plus, when a bad guy did appear, she got to swoop down in an intimidating manner. It’s the little things.
Nice.
The reaction to Drusilla is perfect. Her followup reaction to Spike, ditto. More confusion and a feeling of being thrown off-balance than soaring violins, which feels totally right.
The very idea of souled Drusilla is an intriguing one. I'm really curious to see where you take it. And I like the way you're using her as a seer, communing with the animals - the scene with the sea lions is so evocative.
They’d been through a lot together. They’d done the whole Bonnie and Clyde thing, then the Sid and Nancy thing, and now they were doing the Liz and Dick thing.
Oh, that is nice. And it's new. Haven't seen it before, either in the show, any of its followups, or fanfic. I like that.
In addition to everything, she was now forced to face the fact that she, Buffy, was more high maintenance than Batshit Bessie.
Hah! That is definitely something that would occur to Buffy, with her habit of self-blame. I'm loving your take on the inside of her head.
They’d had a comfortable bolt-hole in the Haight ever since the summer of love, when Dru had inspired the seemingly never-ending devotion of a Paxulis demon, name of Gordon, who owned a 20-room pile right on Buena Vista Park.
I think I may know which house you're thinking of here. If memory serves, it might even be the same one Anne Rice used as the based for her vampire coven in Queen of the Damned, which I find rather pleasing, because there's just something fun about the idea of hippies and vampires hanging out together. The counterculture aspect, maybe? It just seems natural.
He decided he’d had enough of a brood for one night. He drained his beer in one go, stood and stretched. He was still undead, Dru was tucked snugly into bed, and Buffy was a gorgeous bitch who was going to make his existence a glorious torment. All was right with the world, so he toddled off to bed just as the birds began to wake and twitter in the pre-dawn darkness.
And the inside of Spike's head is just as enjoyable as Buffy's. They really feel like two adults who have individual lives, but who bounce well off each other and are just plain fun to see interact. That's what originally drew me to the pairing, that tension and sense of fun.
In fact, I think the thing that I'm liking best about the whole story so far is that I like everyone. I feel like I get where they're coming from and I'm sympathetic to all points of view - there are no strawmen, and nobody's being set up as the obvious "wrong" party (this is disappointingly rare in fanfic, or even profic these days, for some reason). Plus, the mystery is genuinely mysterious; I don't have that feeling of being set up for pointless intrigue with no answers on the way. Everything is so filled with positive energy! If Buffy is to have a legacy, I would be very happy if it were something very like this.