Taking the Initiative

[menomegirl]

The third entry for The Algerina Memorial Summer Fan Creative Writing Contest is....

Taking the Initiative

Author: Leather JacketFandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Comments

Taking the Initiative

[anonymous]

Excellent--dialogue, action, everything. Parts of the ending reminded me of "The Road," but people enslaving their own kind at the end of the world is pretty much what you'd expect to happen, no matter what story it is. My only question was the ending--why would Angel get happy finding out the apocalypse wasn't one event? I understand wanting to end the story before you get into the whole Buffy-finds-out-Angel-is-human thing but it confused me.

All in all, a great read! Really, really good!

Re: Taking the Initiative

[chrismarlowe]

I'm always happy to see Illyria, she doesn't appear in fanfic much and I loved her appearance here.

A pretty exciting story and I like the idea of the apocalypse not just being one event.

[zanthinegirl]

Very interesting idea; I like the concept of a multiple-cause apocalypse. Neat!

Good effort

[anonymous]

This story started off very strong - very good description of the devastation of an apocalypse.

Then around the middle it started to get confusing - I felt I was missing important information, as if it'd been removed - and by the end it felt rushed, as if the author had to wrap it up to keep within the page/character limit.

I was losing track of which demon was which and who was fighting which one.

I did, however, like Buffy's entrance and she was quite quippy.

The last line reminds me a lot of Xander's "Yeah, especially since Angel's back" line from the end of "Pangs." I can just see Buffy staring blankly at Zack as the camera fades to black.

[anonymous]

author responses:

first commenter: Angel got happy that the apocalypse didn't have just one cause because it wasn't all-his-fault. He'd been beating himself up since the fight and the end of the series. It was really more relief than actual happiness, but I think Buffy would respond with the line she did.
Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Thank you for the "excellent", and yeah, enslavement is kind of an obvious probability for a post-apocalyptic world; that's probably why I wanted to do it.

chrismarlowe, zanthinegirl: Thanks.

fourth commenter: Originally I imagined a much more complicated tale with a "cast of thousands" but knew that was beyond the scope of the contest, so I did pair it down considerably, but that was before I started writing. At any rate, that may be what you were sensing ... or missing.
I wonder what the next scene would be.

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[anonymous]

Yeah, I got that, Angel realizing he didn't destroy the *entire* civilized world *just* by bringing down the Circle. Good wrinkle.

And oop,s I thought Illyira was *one* of the slave traders at first. Liked what you did with her.

Multiple apocalypses is an interesting, and very plausible idea.