Re: FIC: Ascension's Shadow (2/?)

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Alan,

Wow, you gave me serious cred in that preamble, I'm just glad you liked
it and pleased if I helped in any way.  

Let me deal with the story first. The opening scene with NakedWoman who
does magic was strange and compelling. My guess is that this is a
resurrected Jenny, which is good because the girls need all the help
they can get against Wilkins, Angelus, Spike, Dru, Oz and assorted
vampires. Not to mention the new Watcher and his cronies, who I
wouldn't trust further than I could throw the "Vampyr" book. And the
"how" of the resurrection should prove interesting.

Nice plot recap from Dru of all people. I can almost see Juliet Landau
doing the "Previously&" bit. Well, maybe not.

The G/C/We political intrigue plot should prove interesting, and also
seems to indicate that we've got a looong series looming. Well, now we
know why you put Cordelia there.

The Fred Durst song (so he does solo work, besides Limp Bizkit?) was
good, but the paragraph that followed seemed, I don't know, is
"tendentious" the word I'm looking for? Kind of recappy, anyway.
We're all fans, and this is Chapter 4; I don't know that you have to
explain the Scooby Gang concept here. Still, if I'm only ragging on one
paragraph in the fic, you know you're doing something right.

The Ira Rosenberg P.O.V. was nice. Good pickup on Spike being a common
denominator in Willow's ("Becoming, Part I") and Cordy's ("Lovers Walk")
injuries, and the Big Bad would certainly seem to most parents as a
"punk". Well, except marshmallows-in-the-cocoa Joyce, I guess. And the
mayor's first stratagem is smart: I was expecting him to use
bone-controlled Oz against Willow, but it's simpler for him to just
arrange a disappearance and have her hauled down to the police station,
where I'm sure something bad will happen. I assume it won't work, but
clever strategy, anyway.

Now to the nitpicking, and let's start with a brand new one: while
Giles SHOULD drink gin, when he's actually sotting around in Season 4,
it seems scotch is his preferred poison. Maybe the Watchers' Council
plane has a crappy bar?

On the Xander bit, I admit "except now I live in the basement and pay
rent" could be read as "whereas before I used to live there rent-free",
except that in that case, you should stress the "and" and I remember
Nick Brendon stressing the "now". Are you calling Nick a bad actor?
Hey, let's you and him fight!

On the Elizabeth question, I google-searched both the Buffy Shooting
Scripts Site ( www.mustreadtv.com/buffyscripts/ ) and Psyche:
Transcripts and Sounds (www.psyche.kn-bremen.de) and the only use of the
name Elizabeth in an episode comes when Angel is reading a book of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems in "Helpless". So neither Buffy nor
anyone else is ever called "Elizabeth" on-air. But the words
"certificate" or "birth certificate" aren't there either, so the fellow
who claimed that as backup must have been mistaken. And the only
reference to "Buffy Anne Summers" is on the gravestone, which I still
think is enough.

So I can't absolutely say it's Buffy Anne Summers, but I have to believe
it, because of the gravestone, and because, if it were Elizabeth,
shouldn't it have come up even once, in all the hundreds of times
Buffy's been referred to (perhaps by Principal Flutie, when he meets her
and is looking at her Hemery High records? Or the cops when they put
out the A.P.B. on her?). I've got to go with "Buffy" on this.  

(Did you know, for example, that Buck Henry's first name is "Buck"?
Although the full name is Buck Henry Zuckerman; like Jon Stewart
Liebowitz, he ditched the too-Jewish last name.)

And thanks for pointing out that I'd missed a fourth canon divergence:
Buffy's not getting accepted into UCS (not UCLA, as you keep writing).
So, you've a plot secret that explains all of these, even Buffy's not
being accepted? Cool. (I guess I have to give nitpick #5 hereI
think students have to confirm their admissions before Grad Day rolls
around. Maybe Buffy thinks she's going to Northwestern, after all?)

Keep it up,

Dan