I really meant to go to bed at nine
Well, the menagerie got a clean bill of health, though Cairo needs to go back in and get his teeth cleaned. Remind me never to schedule all three cats at once again. Churro and Silly weren't too bad, but Cairo started hissing and growling the minute he saw the cat carrier, and it took both Kathy and I a good fifteen minutes to get him into one. At one point I gave up and tried putting him on a leash, but he freaked out at that, too, spinning around and screaming like we were choking him to death. Once we finally got him into the carrier, he wailed and struggled all the way to the vet's, emitting every bodily fliud that it is possible for a cat to emit. At one point he managed to pop open the zipper and half escape before I could pull over and cram him back inside. Once at the vet's he crouched there wild-eyed and panting, awaiting his doom at the hands of the crazed cat-killers we were callously handing him over to. On the way home he busted the zipper entirely and spent the trip wandering around the back of Kathy's Suburban mrowing. Obviously we're going to have to find some other solution before we take him back for his cleaning. Possibly kitty Valium.
All the others were angels in comparison, and our vet went into raptures over Bo, who bore up under the prodding and poking with his usual good temper. She thinks Churro is a little older than advertised, which wouldn't surprise me - considering it's easier to adopt out kittens than cats, I wouldn't entirely blame a shelter for estimating low, or listing a cat at the age it was when they took it in rather than updating to whatever the age is when someone finally adopts it.
The other day, prompted by gabrielleabelle's post on ships vs friendships in fanfic, I was thinking that I really wanted to do a sort of buddy fic with Faith and Buffy. I've wanted to do more with Barbverse Faith for awhile, but haven't had any specific ideas. A little earlier, I'd been reminded that I need to work out what happens to all the Potentials who get cut out of the Slayer loop, so to speak, by Buffy's deal with the demon dust. Tonight when I was walking the dog, it struck me that I could kill two birds with one stone: Someone/something is activating some or all of the Potentials, and Faith and Buffy have to investigate.
At first I thought that maybe the Council was doing it, but I decided that that would mess with the Alicia plotline too much. So perhaps it's Wolfram & Hart. That would fit in with their having studied Buffy. I need to work out exactly how many Slayers the Council could reasonably field and how quickly they can field them - even if they start their program within five years of Buffy changing everything, it's going to take a minimum of 12-13 years before the first 'crop' of Slayers is old enough to be effective. So let's say this story would have to be set a minimum of 15 years post-POM, and let's say that the Council retained control of, oh, twenty of the thirty-some Slayers that Buffy activates at the end of POM. And they're able to harvest an average of three eggs per Slayer before they die or decide against further donations. (I don't want the Council to be total monsters here, so it's definitely donations.) And because we're talking magic, I think we can probably go with an abnormally high rate of successful surrogate pregnancies and say that at least ninety percent of those eggs go on to become baby Slayers. (Hmm. Now, do I want the Watchers to ensure only females get conceived in vitro? They can't really afford to waste any eggs, so possibly that makes more sense.)
So by 2020, the Council has more than fifty Slayers coming online, plus whatever number of the original twenty have survived, plus any children that those Slayers may have had the old-fashioned way. Makes sense that W&H might feel that some kind of counterforce is necessary. And there are a couple thousand middle-aged ex-Potentials, some of whom may feel aggrieved at losing a chance at power. And of course there's all their children, as well, some of whom may have inherited whatever it is that makes one a Potential. Oooh. This could be how Bill meets Toni. Since she's still a normal(ish) human as of "Little Sister," obviously all the Potentials don't get switched on, but that just means that whatever W&H is doing is selective. It would make sense that they'd screen their candidates carefully before giving them power beyond their wildest dreams.
Or, hmm, it could be a wizard type among the ranks of the potentials themselves that's doing it, just because they're pissed off at having missed out on being the Slayer. That might be better than making it some evil controlling power, actually. I think I may go with that. Then it can be all ambiguous and shit when Buffy and Faith find out who's behind it. The main question then becomes where are they getting the power to do this? It can't be Axecalibur; the Guardian still has it at this point. The original Slayer power isn't available to call on anyway; it's become part of the active Slayers. So they'd need to find a source of really old, really powerful demon essence elsewhere. The Deeper Well? Can I rearrange some of the Lilyria plotline to fit this in?
To ponder: it's strongly implied in canon that whatever it is that makes one a potential 'expires' at the age of 19-20, as Kennedy, who's supposed to be nineteen, fears she's too old. Do I want this to hold true in my 'verse? In which case, only the children of those Potentials would be eligible. Something thematic about parents living vicariously through their children, but with Buffy on the parent side of the equation this time? The total pool of potentials at any given time seems to be under two thousand... huh. Not sure where I want to go with this, if anywhere. Need to check the timeline - when does Giles die, and do I want to set this before or after? It would be nice to do some interaction between old!Giles and middle-aged!Buffy, but then again, it would work to have Buffy trying to get Faith into the investigation as a distraction from Giles's death.
Shoot. This could easily make for another novel, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME!!!
Rants Talk to me
All the others were angels in comparison, and our vet went into raptures over Bo, who bore up under the prodding and poking with his usual good temper. She thinks Churro is a little older than advertised, which wouldn't surprise me - considering it's easier to adopt out kittens than cats, I wouldn't entirely blame a shelter for estimating low, or listing a cat at the age it was when they took it in rather than updating to whatever the age is when someone finally adopts it.
The other day, prompted by gabrielleabelle's post on ships vs friendships in fanfic, I was thinking that I really wanted to do a sort of buddy fic with Faith and Buffy. I've wanted to do more with Barbverse Faith for awhile, but haven't had any specific ideas. A little earlier, I'd been reminded that I need to work out what happens to all the Potentials who get cut out of the Slayer loop, so to speak, by Buffy's deal with the demon dust. Tonight when I was walking the dog, it struck me that I could kill two birds with one stone: Someone/something is activating some or all of the Potentials, and Faith and Buffy have to investigate.
At first I thought that maybe the Council was doing it, but I decided that that would mess with the Alicia plotline too much. So perhaps it's Wolfram & Hart. That would fit in with their having studied Buffy. I need to work out exactly how many Slayers the Council could reasonably field and how quickly they can field them - even if they start their program within five years of Buffy changing everything, it's going to take a minimum of 12-13 years before the first 'crop' of Slayers is old enough to be effective. So let's say this story would have to be set a minimum of 15 years post-POM, and let's say that the Council retained control of, oh, twenty of the thirty-some Slayers that Buffy activates at the end of POM. And they're able to harvest an average of three eggs per Slayer before they die or decide against further donations. (I don't want the Council to be total monsters here, so it's definitely donations.) And because we're talking magic, I think we can probably go with an abnormally high rate of successful surrogate pregnancies and say that at least ninety percent of those eggs go on to become baby Slayers. (Hmm. Now, do I want the Watchers to ensure only females get conceived in vitro? They can't really afford to waste any eggs, so possibly that makes more sense.)
So by 2020, the Council has more than fifty Slayers coming online, plus whatever number of the original twenty have survived, plus any children that those Slayers may have had the old-fashioned way. Makes sense that W&H might feel that some kind of counterforce is necessary. And there are a couple thousand middle-aged ex-Potentials, some of whom may feel aggrieved at losing a chance at power. And of course there's all their children, as well, some of whom may have inherited whatever it is that makes one a Potential. Oooh. This could be how Bill meets Toni. Since she's still a normal(ish) human as of "Little Sister," obviously all the Potentials don't get switched on, but that just means that whatever W&H is doing is selective. It would make sense that they'd screen their candidates carefully before giving them power beyond their wildest dreams.
Or, hmm, it could be a wizard type among the ranks of the potentials themselves that's doing it, just because they're pissed off at having missed out on being the Slayer. That might be better than making it some evil controlling power, actually. I think I may go with that. Then it can be all ambiguous and shit when Buffy and Faith find out who's behind it. The main question then becomes where are they getting the power to do this? It can't be Axecalibur; the Guardian still has it at this point. The original Slayer power isn't available to call on anyway; it's become part of the active Slayers. So they'd need to find a source of really old, really powerful demon essence elsewhere. The Deeper Well? Can I rearrange some of the Lilyria plotline to fit this in?
To ponder: it's strongly implied in canon that whatever it is that makes one a potential 'expires' at the age of 19-20, as Kennedy, who's supposed to be nineteen, fears she's too old. Do I want this to hold true in my 'verse? In which case, only the children of those Potentials would be eligible. Something thematic about parents living vicariously through their children, but with Buffy on the parent side of the equation this time? The total pool of potentials at any given time seems to be under two thousand... huh. Not sure where I want to go with this, if anywhere. Need to check the timeline - when does Giles die, and do I want to set this before or after? It would be nice to do some interaction between old!Giles and middle-aged!Buffy, but then again, it would work to have Buffy trying to get Faith into the investigation as a distraction from Giles's death.
Shoot. This could easily make for another novel, and I DO NOT HAVE TIME!!!
Rants Talk to me