Chapter 21: Like the way you extrapolated the effect of Xavier's attack. Seems very logical.
Chapter 27: “I really hate prophecies,” he growled out. -- That about sums it up for me too.
Chapter 45: I know it's a long ways between reviews for chapters, but there wasn't anything that made me go Yea! or Yuck! This chapter had the Yea! for Dawn coming in and Buffy not knowing her. Well done with that.
General: What happened to that Rock guy? I forget what chapter he was in. But something about his master and whatnot. Anyway. Good story and I'm glad that I finally got around to reading this.
RE: Chapter 3. Someone on the internet is Wrong! And I must save them!
Chapter 7. I dislike prophesies. Any prophesies. Yours was better than average, but still gets negative points none the less. Which, are instantly erased by the scene with Joyce reading to Faith. Pure awesomeness there. (See? I don't just criticize. I tell you what I love too.)
Chapter 19. Well, other than cringing at the mention of the Kansas Slayer, I'm very much liking this fic. The battle was well written and I could follow everything that happened. Well done.
Review of chapter "Changes and Decisions" from Oxnate
Review:
I've been holding off on reading this one. Mostly for one mistake in the 3rd chapter: "Through his contacts in the Council, Giles was able to determine that a Potential named Kennedy had been Called the night Buffy died. Kennedy herself had died that same night fighting a nest of vampires when she was decapitated with her own sword. There was no evidence that she had made a single kill. A young woman named Chloe from Kansas was now the current Slayer."
-- Buffy's second (and third) death(s) did not call any additional Slayers. The Slayer line goes through Faith by that time. Coma or no. Not that I was sad to see Kennedy bite it.
But when I saw that it was finally finished, I decided to give it a go. I'll let you know about the rest.
EDIT: Then why not just take a Slayer, kill her, and revive her a hundred times? Bang! A hundred Slayers. That's why I say it was a mistake. It doesn't make sense.
Comments from author:
That was not a mistake but a different take on the what might happen if Buffy, or any other Slayer, died again after being revived.
EDIT: I know some stories that have gone that route.
However, if you try that too much you run the risk of the Golden Goose and not have any eggs available in the future. Before going off willy nilly one would have to investigate to see if new Slayers were just as powerful as the one revived or if there were other unwanted mystical side effects. Afterall, it has been positted that the Mass Calling Willow did kept Slayers from existing for a couple hundred years till Melaka Fray finally showing up.
It's a loaded word, I know, but it's the only one that fits. You've done a good job of showing Buffy's recovery, of portraying the long process of salvage necessary to rebuild her into a whole human being after what Stryker did to her. The relationship between Faith and Xander was reasonably well done, too. I usually hate Faith/Xander pairings, but yours actually seemed downright workable. But despite its potential, the story's got a major, major problem: a plot tumor in the form of 'the prophecy' that puts Xander in a position of deciding whether Faith or Buffy lives. In and of itself, that wouldn't be so bad. The fact that it's directly related to which one of them he's dating at the moment is incredibly problematic, but whatever. I'll grant you your starting place. But you invest so much narrative capital in the salvage of Buffy Summers that for her to then just drop dead is basically unthinkable.
There's actually a whole lot of story that could be mined out of that conflict. You could really play up the sheer waste of having Buffy, only just returned to some semblance of herself, now confronted with the death that awaits us all. You could have her rail against her fate, against the Powers That Be for their ridiculous dickishness in making it a "ONE MUST DIE" situation. If it's Faith who dies, you could mine that, too. She might take Xander's choice of Buffy as confirmation that she was only ever second-best after all. She might do some raging against the dying of the light of her own, and maybe decide to Screw Destiny ("If destiny is gonna make my life and its meaning and whether or not I get to keep livin' it come down to whether or not I'm the one screwing Xander at the end of the day? Then to hell with destiny.") She might even succeed. If you want to focus on Xander, you might play up the sheer unfairness of the situation, where the Powers are forcing him into a situation where he's going to be forced to let one of the two people that he loves die, and underline that even further with the whole "It's the one you don't choose." Because is that context, how could he possibly make that decision? And what awful secrets must now lie behind his haunted eyes for having made it? Will he ever be able to look himself in the mirror again? There could be any number of other scenarios I haven't thought of.
But you don't deal with any of that. You just kind of let it drop with a vague not-explanatory epilogue that doesn't even bother to tell us which one lived, and then further undermine any potential emotional impact the choice Xander had no business making in the first place might have had by saying, "Well, whichever one of them died, she got reincarnated as the other's daughter." Given that you appear to have no interest in exploring this, why did you even include the plot thread in your story in the first place?
So yeah. Maybe I should have left it with 'disappointing.'
Comments from author:
Your opinion is noted. Feel free to ignore the last chapter and write your own continuation. My muse for this story has run out of ideas after five years so your assertion that I had 'no interest in exploring this' is a bit off. I did not desire to just abandon it without some type of resolution. You are entitled to like or dislike that resolution.
Review By [Wise] • Date [13 Oct 12] • Rating [1 out of 10]
Okay, I have to admit that that was a *magnificent* way to summarize and close out this story without actually telling us who Xander ended up with.
And the fact that it was extremely evil and Machiavellian only makes me that much more jealous that I wasn't writing something like this and came up with the idea first. ;-)
Great ending to a great story, buddy!!
Excellent work!
Comments from author:
Takes bow and leaves the stage with a jaunty smirk on his lips.
Review By [Greywizard] • Date [6 Oct 12] • Not Rated
Just finally got the chance to read this, man, and I repeat once more, Joyce is NOT someone you want pissed off at you!!!
I like Joyce because she actively tried to protect her child against what she thought were delinquents or gang-bangers trying to roust the high school, and she actively tried to use an axe on Spike's head. ;-)
If only all mothers cared about their children like that. ;-(
I also loved the way the rest of the Scoobies followed her lead without any qualms, whatsoever, and also helped perfect her vengeance.
Good job, as always.
Review By [Greywizard] • Date [23 Sep 12] • Not Rated
Yeah, Joyce can be rather viscious about protecting her girls. I still grin every time I watch her braining Spike with the ax in "School Hard".
For Stryker, I liked the punishment. True, it's not all that bloodthirsty, but like you said, the psychological aspect lingers far longer than any kind of physical punishment.
Review By [ShalaDakiri] • Date [22 Sep 12] • Not Rated
