Re: FIC; Life; Version 2.0

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

[Re: blinviz:

[Nice catch on Willow not knowing about Angel's chat with Jenny. And
I'm with you about "he was kidding about the inscription", since the
next ep ("Killed By Death") Joss dropped in the CYA bit about the
hospital being a "public building" and thus fair game. And, if the
school was protectable, the gang would have put up a recission spell to
prevent the vampire incursion of "Becoming, Part 1"]

["Prophecy Girl", "When She Was Bad", "Lie to Me", "Becoming, Part
1"--I'm pretty sure not **all** of those vamps were "knowledge
seekers". Surely not the elementally stupid Lyle, Tector, and Candy
Gorch ("Bad Eggs", "Homecoming"), anyhow :) ]

[Also agree about Willow's having had to do a lot of frowning to age the
face overnight.]

Kirayoshi,

Like many others, loved this too. The shorter temper is unfortunate,
but much as I want Season 2 Willow back, I understand she can't go back
there, emotionally.

A few nitpicks (to be expected in such a canon-dependent fic): the
letter about Snyder was a nice touch, but actually, I believe the hard
drive survived. (Angel knocked it all off the desk, but only the
monitor caught fire; the drive's casing should easily survive the
bump.) In fact, I think that's where Willow found the lesson plan she
adheres to at the end of "Passion." Also, the translation application
itself would be on the hd; what Jenny saved to the floppy was the
results that had taken so many iterations of the program to generate.

(Also, while Snyder blamed the school board for Buffy's reinstatement in
"Faith, Hope & Trick", it's possible that the Mayor has them under his
thumb, and Rat-Boy actually caved to prevent a reprise of the
"convincing" Giles gave him in "Dead Man's Party".)

And while I'm picking the microscopic nits, let's note that the "pajama
party with weapons" sleepover was unplanned, so Buffy can't be upset by
it's non-occurence; it was an emergency response to Angel's intrusion
into Willow's room and his killing her fish.

Capping off the "total continuity freak" section, Jenny couldn't have
died on the 23rd, because that was a Monday, and she was killed on the
second of two consecutive school days, i.e., Tuesday through Friday,
somewhere in there.

Anyway, back to the creative stuff:

Loved the Giles/Jenny scene, and Cordy not believing Willow (she
wouldn't). Jonathan should be an interesting problem: does she get him
to shape up asap, or does Willow simply make sure no one finds that
letter in Freddy Iverson's inbox? I hope Willow cues them into the
several evils (later revealed in "Killed By Death", "Go Fish" and
"Anne") that are already taking their toll, albeit currently
undiscovered.

But the best of the best was, naturally, the B/W stuff. When Buffy laid
her hand on Willow's shoulder and said she would always trust her, I
spat "Liar!" (I guess, while I still hate the whole Evil Willow
concept, what that exchange actually makes me mad about is that
Joss/Marti/et al chipped away at the relationship to the point where it
didn't seem like such a huge betrayal; Season 6 Buffy was nowhere near
as hurt emotionally by Villow turning on her as Season 2 Buffy would
have been, which sucked both 'ship-wise and dramatically.)

When Willow told the story of her sins, it was painful, because I wanted
Buffy to still have "her Willow" as long as possible; I was worried the
disillusionment would come four years earlier. But Buff seems to be
trying to hang in there, anyway, and there's nothing like a good "I love
you" scene to give me hope.

Oh, and I know you'll be likely to do better than "What if?", since I
doubt you'll fall into the "it's not the real Marvel continuity, so
let's kill a whole bunch of characters" pit that swallowed many an
inferior issue of that book. Okay, granted, none of our fanfics are the
"real" BtVS continuity, either; but since you can kill whomever you
want in any story you write, it's not like this is your one chance to
kill Spidey, as "What If?" was for too many creativity-challenged
writers.

Which isn't to say there won't be tragedies here; I'm almost certain
the Law of Unexpected Consequences is going to bite someone's ass along
the way.

Looking forward to more, 

Dan

wondering how Willow feels about wearing miniskirts again...

(I know how **I** feel about it <g>)