I Will Remember You Fic Marathon

[librarian2003]

Goodness me, it's a whole year since I posted anything here. It's been a really trying year, and maybe I'll post something about that another time, but for now, it's all about the I Will Remember You Fic Marathon.

Today, the story is mine, and it's all about remembrance. It's here:

Remembrances of the RoseIf you've missed all the other stories

Comments

[taaroko]

This story is amazing. I always love when religion plays a strong role in stories about Angel, because forgiveness and redemption mean so much to him, and the question of whether or not God wants him comes up in canon multiple times. The framework religion gives this is a particularly beautiful use of it. As a vampire, a creature considered to be damned by nature, the eve of his unavoidable death would likely be earliest he would be able to overcome his fear of God's wrath enough to go to pray for forgiveness. Canon never actually came out and said it, but it did strongly imply that he felt unworthy to approach God, so Buffy became his salvation. I love how you worked with that, too. I cried, reading this. I don't believe that forgiveness and salvation are as unattainable as he fears, and it always makes me ache to watch him despair that he will never have them and that hell is where he's going no matter what he does. But that's part of what gives him his great worth as a character--believing himself doomed in the next life and not even permitted happiness in this one, he still fights the good fight.

I also like the way it unfolds. At first, I thought this was an Angel in the far future who had Shanshued decades ago, but when it got to the real explanation, that was even better, partly because it was so original. A virus that ages vampires until they can't even move, but doesn't actually kill them? Effective, perhaps, but so, so horrible. Poor Angel. Of course he would try to free as many as he could from that fate, even if that meant giving them death instead. That was mercy, not murder.

I don't think a more perfect ending for this could exist. Even the strength to die eludes him, but Buffy arrives, the angel coming to release him and bring him home. Oh boy, there I go again with the crying. Thanks so much for this.

[librarian2003]

I made you cry? *Happy now*... :~))

Thank you for such lovely feedback.

Like you, I think that he isn't beyond forgiveness - we have to believe that no-one is beyond forgiveness. But, it's so true that he's the Hero because he has no hope for himself after death, and no hope of anything better than low-grade misery in life, and yet he carries on fighting. That's why we love him...

I'm so glad you liked this.

Jo