Top 5 Stories with Other Slayers and Watchers

[dragonyphoenix]

Let's meet some Slayers we didn't see in the series

1. Geometry of Chance: Only Ethan could get his pocket picked and end up with a Slayer. I adore Frankie and any story that makes Ethan care, well, what can I say, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.
2. Chosen: Seven dark vignettes. They are amazing.
3. Six Thousand Miles: Another dark one. Hard to say anything about this one because spoilers.
4. Theses on a Philosophy of Power: I love this look at how unaware Watchers can be. It's set during the Bolshevik Revolution and the Slayer's a Red.
5. Dreadful Duty: I still can't believe I'm convinced by George and Lydia Wickham as a Watcher and Slayer pair.

Top 5 Dark or Sad Stories

[dragonyphoenix]

Let's wrack up those negative emotions, shall we? 

1. Twelfth Sister: The Council's always known kill one Slayer you get a new one, but now they realize they can kill one Slayer and revive her. It's so dark but so beautifully written. I just love this story. Here's a snippet: "Because, gentleman," he replied, his voice now tinged with a hint of acid, "why should we simply settle for another Kendra? Why should we settle for just one, when we could have a dozen? When we could have a hundred?"

2. Falling Like Icarus: Oh, this is so sad. I don't want to give anything away so I'll just say Xander/Anya and share the summary: She'd come so close to the sun, to joy, but now her wings are melting and she's falling, like Icarus. Xander and Anya's world is shattered with just one word.

3. Extinction: A drabble from Open on Sunday. I'm not sure anything I say here could do it justice. Powerful.

4. Mission Accomplished: Poignant. The unexpected difficulty of a Watcher's last duty to his Slayer. I adore the juxtaposition of the explanation of this terrible duty in Watcher training vs. the reality of having to face it.

5. Blackout: A dying Xander brings his daughter to Spike and Angel. Every time I read this - every time - I cry at the end. This story takes a tragic even and makes it heartwarming.

Top 5 videos

[dragonyphoenix]

1. Brave New World by kaydefalls refers to wish!verse where Anya asks "How do you know the other world is any better than this?" and Giles responds "It has to be." This vid asks the question: Is it really better? And the answer's somewhat ambiguous.
2. You may need to be as old as I am to get The Odd Couple (Giles/Spike). It takes the opening audio track from The Odd Couple tv series and puts it with images of Spike and Giles. Gives a great suggestion of them as opposite guy roommates.
3. I Belong to You makes a convincing case for a love triangle between Buffy, Angel, and Mr. Gordo (who is played by piglet).
4. You'd think that playing the robots in Buffy against the song Robot Girlfriend would make for a light-hearted video, but Robot Girlfriend is actually quite poignant at the end.
5. Transparent: Oh my Goddess. This Willow character study is just amazing.

Top 5 Older Buffy Works That I Stumbled Upon via Marginalia Search

[thenewbuzwuzz]

There's a search engine designed for discovering old-fashioned little websites, and I took it for a spin with some Buffy search terms. Here's some of what I found.

1. (maybe cross the country become a rock star) by Amy (Giles/Oz/Cordelia, PG-13) in Loaded, the Giles/Oz zone of the BtVS Writers' Guild.
This was amazing. The mood and atmosphere of this story has aged well, by which I mean it gave me something like pandemic lockdown vibes despite being pre-2007ish and not about any kind of lockdown. There is a bunch of clever lines and a quirky, semi-absurd concept at the core of the story, which somehow connects beautifully to Oz's unmoored state of mind.

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