FIC: Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has A Broadsword) - part 2 (end), BtVS, Faith, mostly gen

[lettered]

Author: lettered
Title: Hope Has Wings (But Faith Has A Broadsword)
Pairing(s): Gen-ish. Faith, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn, with mentions of Dana, Angel and Spike (including B/A, B/S). Hints of femmeslash without much squinting required
Summary: Wing!fic. Faith gets wings. Buffy doesn't believe in angels. Xander and Dawn make a bunch of really geeky

Comments

[seraphcelene]

Geez, I love this. The entire thing is a song: a love song, an elegy, even a little bit of a ditty around the edges. Xander and Dawn were phenomenal. I LOVED all the comic book references. They were perfectly apt to the texture, tone, and themes within the fic. The way that you used them nuanced the story in really unexpected ways. The reference to Warren Worthington as Angel and Archangel, for example. I had all these thoughts, not only the more obvious good and evil references that you point out, but I also thought of Psylocke, Apocalypse, and the end of the world.

I loved the tension between Faith and Buffy. I loved the way they dance around each other. Buffy is constantly skirting while at the same time almost begging for some sort of acknowledgement until she finally just says it, and it just killed me. Faith's isolation in the face of an inclusive community, and the way that gets exacerbated by the wings, was just so true to who she is, and the way that she interfaces with the world. I am FLOORED by the Orpheus use and the way that she just goes there for Dana, but how it doesn't work and it felt so painful and desperate and needy. guh!!

Willow's unwillingness to help, colored by her acknowledgement of what that spell in Chosen really meant to the women it changed, just hit my spot RIGHT there. Consequences, you KNOW how I love that.

What can I say, I really love this fic. You've done this amazing thing where you say a lot in a very little space. The fic is almost sparse, there's not alot that's ornate or unnecessary. It works beautifully. And it is so unexpected.

Then there were turns of phrase that made my jaw drop, both for the sentiment, as well as the use of language:

Prayer encompassed the belief that the finite could connect with the infinite. Buffy already knew that to be true. Faith was proof.

Buffy still used the scythe. It glinted red in morning sun, but seemed to work the best under the moon. Sometimes, Buffy thought of harvests.

A thousand girls stood in the night, like stalks of wheat, brought to their knees by a blade. Packed in sheaves, they gave us this, our daily bread.

Survival.

In all the books, bread was life. It was a miracle, but it was not mystical; it was real, not abstract. It wasn’t gods or angels or to be worshiped, it was seed grown from the earth, like wife in a woman’s womb, consumed. When they ate, they ate themselves.

The scythe was red because of blood.

Buffy held it high, and the angel opened his eyes.

[lettered]

Oh, man, thanks so so so much, L. The truth is, I wrote this fic really fast, but I'd been thinking about it for months, and I'm really happy with it, now it's over. And I was sort of afraid no one would read it, and this comment totally makes it all worth it.

Hee. I love X-men, but actually don't really know that much comics canon. Mostly I watched the cartoon and the movies, so I don't really know much about Psylocke. I was afraid that the references would become too dense for people not familiar with X-men at all--and then there's all the Twilight/Coleridge/Neruda/It's A Wonderful Life/etc! So I'm really glad you enjoyed the references :o)

As for the Orpheus, I stole it from another story I started way back when. It was also about Dana. It was actually a Angel/Xander fic--less about getting them together in a romantic sense and more of a meta take that explores their parallels. But anyway, it's very dense and difficult to write, but I found it some time last year and was really depressed about the fact that I never finished it. I feel like it's quite good, so maybe I'll go back and give it a try. I'm glad the Orpheus element worked for you!

Willow, in my head, is either unable to accept the consequences of what she's done or else utterly crushed by them--for some reason I'm never able to think of her as accepting them and moving on . . . and Buffy always does.

Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm really glad you liked this :o)