Five creepy stories for Halloween

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

For a supposed horror-influenced series, BtVS was rarely truly horrifying. Luckily, there are fans willing to correct that. Here are five fics that have stuck in my head for years.

The Twelfth Sister/The Twelfth Sister Revisited (AO3 link thanks to rebcake) by Rowan. What if the Watchers' Council had managed to put Faith in custody and keep her? This fic is truly disturbing and sad... and then you get to the end, which will stay with you forever.

Braids by ubiquirk. What if Dawn really had been in the series all along? Surely Buffy has better things to do while Angelus is on the loose than look out for her little sister...?

(Metem)Psychosis by mabus101. You'll never, ever, see the Buffybot as a joke again. The Buffyverse lends itself well to body and identity horror; this is one of the best.

Oubliette by spuffyduds. 158 words on Ethan. And absolutely nothing else.

Chosen by snowpuppies. OK, so we know that the Watchers' council have spent centuries kidnapping young girls and sending them to their death for the greater good. Snowpuppies gets into a few of those statistics and nails the horror that was always there in the series but never really brought home.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Nice mix here, and great to see the holiday theme :D

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

snowpuppies has written a number of very dark and creepy tales, and Chosen is definitely one of the best!


Gabrielle

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I love snowpuppies! She does incredible things with words.

Thanks for the other recs as well.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yep, really creepy. Great recs!

[shapinglight]

I really am not a creepy story fan, but wow! that Ethan ficlet packs a punch.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

For somebody who really likes the comedy, I have a surprising amount of attraction to the disturbing. Or maybe it's not that strange...

Anyway, these are among my favorites. I spent far more of my life than I like to admit searching for Rowan's "12th Sister" stories, which are short but will indeed stick with you. I was so relieved when she put them up on AO3, because I was sure they would disappear before I found them. Here's the link to them there:

http://archiveofourown.org/series/10475

So, yes. I agree. Excellent choices.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks for the link! Good to see she's still around (or at least was recently).