Death's Second Self, Part 3 of 3

[desoto_hia873]

Title: Death's Second Self, Part 3 of 3
Setting: BtVS S5, post-The Gift
Word count: 2197 (this part)
Rating: PG-13
Written for adecadeofbuffy.
Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. He said so.

Hugs and smooches to flurblewig for making this better than it was.

Comments

[red_satin_doll]

Here from rahirah's rec - and from su_herald's link to her rec (which may explain how you got so many comments to this chap?) Also, new Buffy fan here (as in, less than a year), and this was new to me. THIS was one of the most chilling post The Gift and/or Buffy becomes a vampire fics I've read. One-setting stories can be tricky, especially more than one chapter of same) but this is perfect for it. It's like a stage set, but also clausterphobic - the reader, like Dawn and Spike, have very limited options.

The reference to Faith's line is PERFECT. I often think of those very words when watching Buffy in Smashed, etc; and my fanwank is that being inside Faith's body in WAY had lasting effects down the line (just as being inside Buffy's body affected Faith and probably is what started her on the road to redemption - very literally, when she leaves Sunnydale on the train.)

And the demon's obsession with finding and killing Dawn is really brilliant here. The only other story I've seen that in specifically is snowpuppies' "Fracture" and Buffy isn't a vampire per se; the tone and results are very different. But it makes perfect sense in this context - the writers of the show put Dawn in the place of a love interest in S5 as Buffy's focus and Buffy dies to preserve Dawn's life. So of course the demon that replaces Buffy would still obsessed with her - somewhat like Angelus' twisted obsession with Buffy. And of course that callback to After Life and Spike's accusation re: Willow knowing the possible outcome.

[desoto_hia873]

Wow. You leave great feedback!! Thank you so much!

I like your fanwank about the body switching--I hadn't thought about it that way. My motivation for having Buffy go after Dawn was different than what you said, but I like what you said! I haven't written all that much, but it's always interesting to hear what others see in what I've done. Makes me feel brilliant. ;-)

I think I have to go and read "Fracture" now.

[red_satin_doll]

You're welcome! I worry I overdo it with the comments. I need to pare back. (There's a lot of stories that I don't leave feedback for because they leave me "meh", so usually when I do it's something I've really enjoyed. So much fic, so little time.)

I think I've come across one other person who already had already fanwanked that about Faith and Buffy, and it sort of surprised me that it's not more common. But I'm talking mainly about this corner of fandom (LJ), and the people I interact with tend to be Spike-centric (I'm definitely Buffy-centric, if that makes any sense to you). For that episode, which I have watched more than any other S4 ep I think, the Faith and Buffy dynamic gets overlooked, oddly enough, in favor of the Buffy-Spike or the Spike-Faith dynamics: the sexual come-on at the Bronze, when Spike doesn't know it isn't Buffy (maybe all Slayers "feel" alike to vampire senses until you've shagged one, to be vulgar about it? More likely, the writers just needed the scene to happen.) And also the fact that this is the episode where Buffy's "dark mirrors" cross paths, signaling/foreshadowing the fact that Spike is taking over that role from Faith.

My motivation for having Buffy go after Dawn was different than what you said, but I like what you said!

What was your motivation? (Or is it right there in plain sight in the story and I just need to re-read it?) I guess you were riffing off the Angelus/Spike motif in which vampires first go after all their loved ones - which actually would fit my fanwank, so I'm really curious what you had in mind.

it's always interesting to hear what others see in what I've done.

One of the first pieces of feedback I can recall was to a story I wrote in high school, and another student described things in it that they saw but I didn't, and that thrilled me to pieces. I can't remember who said this, but I read an author say once "Believe the tale and not the teller" and I still believe that. The stories have their own stories (and influences) imbedded within that the author wasn't conscious of, and we bring our own stories to them and make it partially ours; when someone reads a story, the writer no longer "owns" it entirely. Stories are meant to be shared. And I think that all "good" writing - all good creative work, actually, including dance, music, etc - does that. It's part of what explains the appeal of BtVS I think - there are spaces in it that we can fill with something of ourselves.

[desoto_hia873]

You don't need to pare back your comments! Every fic, no matter how short, represents so much time invested--I've spent days writing 100-word drabbles. Long feedback like yours is the best reward!

I lovelovelove Faith's arc in BtVS S4 and AtS S1. It is without question one of my favourite parts of the two series. Eliza Dushku was born to play that role, and everyone involved in those episodes hit a home run. I cry every time I watch them, and I have watched them a lot.

"Believe the tale and not the teller." I like that. I really haven't written all that much, and I'm not claiming any real brilliance, but I'm surprised at how much of what I have written comes from somewhere other than the conscious part of me. People, like you, point out things that I didn't know were in there. I even find things I didn't know were in there myself when I go back and read them months or years later. Curious.

I'm trying to reconstruct how I came up with this fic in order to answer your motivation question (it's been a looong time since I wrote most of it). It started as a simple "what if?": "What if Dracula's blood turned Buffy after she died in The Gift? How would Spike react to that?" At first, I thought his reaction might just be glee--he'd run off with vamp!Buffy and they'd live happily ever after (wreaking mayhem in an evil, soulless way, of course). I debated on writing that, but there's not really a story there. I imagined Buffy preying on Xander, Willow, and Giles, but I couldn't really convince myself that Spike would care about their fates very much. But he would care about Dawn--partly because of the promise he made to Buffy, but also because he genuinely cares about Dawn. So I used Dawn as a tool to show that Spike really had changed in S5. Spike's initial reactions to vamp!Buffy were "Yay, she's not dead!" and "YAYAYAY, she'll have sex with me now!!!" But because he's changed, and because his love extends to Dawn, that turns out, much to his own surprise, not to be enough. I'd intended the fic to illustrate Spike's changing inner self, his devotion to the real Buffy (and his eventual realization that vamp!Buffy is not her), and his feelings for Dawn.

But I do love your take(s) on it--Buffy's obsessing over Dawn as a continuation of her love for her in S5 and that Buffyverse vampires go after their families when they're turned. I really didn't spend much time (if any) thinking of things from those angles. So that's another example of not being consciously aware of something when writing, but seeing it (or having it pointed out to me) afterwards. So cool!