Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculation?

Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculation?

Hey all,

I've gotten some really good fanfics and novels from you guys. Stuff that's both accurate to how the characters react and SO off-the-wall it's amazing to read. So, I was wondering if you guys knew any fanfics that involved the Scoobs (or Angel Investigation) just being..."people." No fighting but just living. Also, what do YOU think the Scoobs were like on a common weekend??

What are these teens/young adults doing when not fighting evil?? What makes them friends beyond the monsters, demons, and forces of darkness?

Did Xander, Oz and even a reluctant Angel ever go to the Bronze for a "Guys Night Out?" Did Buffy and Oz ever hang in a situation that didn't involve Willow? Did Cordelia ever coerce Fred to get all dolled up to go to Caritas only to see Lindey on the mike? Did Gunn ever run across Anya and go "What the actual hell???" Did Tara and Riley and maybe even Spike ever have a heart-to-heart about being being underappreciated loved ones??

What are some times these people we connect with are just people??

Re: Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculat

Your question reminds me of a bit from a sitcom, that I can't for the life of me remember which one it was; I feel like it's either How I Met Your Mother, or Friends. Quite possibly something else, maybe even Buffy... or Big Bang Theory (damn it, why I can't I remember which show it was??). It was definitely a show where there's a large number of main characters who all hang out together; and at one point one character points out to another how they never hang out together, "it's always me, so-and-so and such-and-such," and they start rattling off all the different combination of their group, sans the two in question.....

I figure it probably was fairly mundane. I'd say we got the occasional glimpse at some of those moments for expositional purposes; like when Riley, Buffy, Anya and Xander were all down in his basement apartment watching an old kung fu movie. Buffy was either studying stuff Giles had given her, and/or critiquing the defensive fighting styles in the movie (I could be thinking of two separate instances. There's a reason I've put Buffy back on my DVR que...)
Angel, at least on Buffy, seemed to be more of a homebody; especially as the series went on. Sit by the fire and read a book. I always liked the imagery of Angel always having a roaring fire going, sitting next to the hearth. It kind of conjured this idea that vampires gravitated to warm places; because at best they were always room temperature otherwise, which might get cold depending on the weather. That might explain why they would bother going to a place that's always sunny, like California, rather than someplace like, Wisconsin, where they could hypothetically walk around in the middle of the day nine months out of the year. Canada should just be overrun with Vampires - though that might explain hockey....

I see Cordelia convincing Fred to go out for drinks with her once; and Fred probably got plastered, for whatever reason Cordy ends the responsible one, not drinking very much, and trying to help her drunk friend not embarrass herself and get home safe. She then stays a while after they get Fred back to her room at the Hyperion, when Fred starts throwing up. After putting Fred to bed, which makes Fred laugh when she hears the rhyme, Cordelia runs into Angel on her way out; who's naturally still up, and had known about "girls night out." He asked how it went, only for Cordelia to scoff that she found the one person from Texas who can't hold their liquor. Angel says, "you're not going home are you? You live clear across town, and it's late." "I know, but I want to go to bed." "Then go upstairs, we've got like, forty rooms; most of them are still fully furnished." "Nah, this place is creepy at night." "Well, to be fair it was once haunted by a spirit who feasted on self-doubt, and now a vampire roams the halls, along with the occasional a six-foot-three greened demon with horns, but apart from that, what's so creepy?" "I hate the wallpaper. It's so old." "I kind of like it." "You would. Besides, it's cold; and I work for Ebenezer Scrooge, who doesn't like to turn on the heat, because he doesn't need to keep warm." "I like being warm. You never saw the last place I stayed at in Sunnydale; I had this huge fireplace, and I always had a nice roaring fire going...." "Angel.... It's 3 am, I'm tired, I was out all night with an inebriated woman who kept saying we should find some place with a mechanical bull; and right before we had to walk ten blocks home, the heels on my favorite knock-off pumps snapped in half." "Yeah, no, you can turn the heat on in one of the rooms. It's fine." "70?" "Well, I mean, 60's a pretty comfortable temperature, especially with a warm blanket...." Cordelia clears her throat and offers an unimpressed stare. "...But, now that I think of it, it is just for one night; and 70 would be okay, since you'll probably have the door shut...." "Night boss." "Make sure the door shuts tight, because this place is drafty, and doors doo fly open.... which I don't think are ghosts, it probably is just a draft, I hope; and she's gone, which means I'm just talking to myself now. And I know I'm talking to myself, because I'm the only one answering...."

I'd kind of like to see how things went after Buffy's breakdown with Tara. I don't think it would have been remotely eventful, per se, but maybe kind of touching; and I'm not even sure there'd have been a word spoken between them after that scene. I just sort of envision Buffy ultimately sat next to her, and Tara held her a bit. Eventually the tears subsided, but they just stayed there. Tara offered her presence as comfort, and for the first time since she was back, and in a non-sexual way, Buffy felt at peace. Simple human contact.
They eventually fell asleep next to each other on the couch; and when they woke up, Buffy tried finding words to thank Tara, but struggled to figure out what to say, and Tara just tells her she understood her befuddlement, probably better than most, and she knew what Buffy was trying to say, and she didn't need to say.

As a shot at the comic lore, I would guess Xander and Dawn's first date was probably at a burger join. Xander's making her laugh. Dawn says, "This is wild. I never thought I'd be out on a date with you." "Well, get used to it, because I don't know about you, but I'm having a great time, and foresee a lot of subsequent dates in our future." "Yeah, no, it is great; I am having a good time, and I'm happy you are too. It's just... well... I kind of used to have this stupid crush on you." "Yeah, I know." "You did??? Oh my gosh, that's so embarrassing! How did you know? Did Buffy tell you? Did she read my diary?" "No.... well, maybe, but I mean, you weren't exactly subtle about it whenever I cam over. Ha, remember the first time I came over to the house? It was so cute, when you saw me, your eyes got real wide and you ran upstairs." "Oh God, I was like, 10...." Both Xander and Dawn are kind of put off by the realization of how young she was; and brief awkward silence ensure. "But.... you're not 10 now." "Right." "You're an adult." "Yes." "I'm an adult." "Fair point." "We can do adult things, like.... sign contracts." "Yup, or... um... vote." "That's another one...... Ah...." "I could join the Army." "Me too. We can both rent a car." "Actually I'm not sure if I can; it might depend on the state. And I also can't buy alcohol yet, but I could smoke, if I wanted to... which I don't." "Me neither. I mean smoking, I don't do that. I tried it once when I was in middle school, but I dropped the lighter in my lap and burned a certain part of my body that's very sensitive, and important to a 13 year old.... but it's fine, it's... there's no scar or anything... I mean, there was for a while, and actually, there may be a faint scar, or so I'm told, but it doesn't affect anything. I'm not deformed or nothing. You wouldn't be afraid if you saw it... not that I except you to see that... yet... but maybe when you're older - I mean later, which would technically make you older than you are now......... I... I do buy alcohol though, because I'm old enough to do so. And I drink it. Mostly beer..." "Augh. I don't get people drinking beer, it smells disgusting. Does it taste any better than it smells?" ".....No...." After a prolonged silence, Xander interjects, "So...... the First..." "Yeah.... Pretty crazy stuff. Did he... it? ... ever appear to you as someone?"
(Flashback to an unseen scene during Conversations with Dead People. Xander's in bed, and wakes up to find Jesse standing in his bedroom.)
Jesse: "Hey bud. Long time no see. Did that scar ever heal right?"
(Back to the present)
Xander: "No...."

I think Buffy and Oz did hang out once, but in an unconventional way. Buffy falls asleep in class, finds herself in an unusual dreamscape with Oz as her guide. He explains that she's sleeping, but in knowing that she's asleep, she can control her dreams; and that it's called "lucid dreaming." "So does that mean you're not really Oz, that you're not actually here?" "Well gee, I don't know. I think I'm here, but that's probably something you would think I would say, if I wasn't really here and were just a dream; so I don't think I can say for sure."
They spend their time riding unicorns, watching "The Best of the Three Stooges" and listening to a manifestation of Jimmy Hendrix and Eric Clapton play a duet. Oz helps her figure out how to conjure something pleasant from her memory, like some obscure treat she had as a child, that always made her happy - like pop rocks, or something. There is of course a hidden room that's locked, that Oz tells Buffy she can't go in, with possible implications that his wolf self is locked up in there; with maybe a timer on the door, counting down to the full moon.
Then the bell rings waking Buffy up; she sees the teacher had written "lucid dreaming" on the board, and had apparently been talking about it as a topic of the class, so she assumes it wasn't real. She runs into Oz and Willow in the hall, and Oz is his usual discreet self, notsay anything about the experience. They stop in the commons and Oz goes to get something out of the vending machine, while Buffy and Willow chat. When he comes back, he says, "Hey Buffy, I got a two-fer; catch." Buffy looks down at the package to see a bag of pop rocks. She looks up at Oz, who's just looking off into space, no telling expression, nothing.


“He lied to us through song! I hate when people do that."

Re: Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculat

In case anyone is seeking fanfiction, I've read so much of it that it probably makes up a significant percentage of all the reading I've ever done (I should be deeply ashamed)... Well, it's been over a decade of reading them.

I only got around recently to actually reading the official tie-in novels (surprisingly good and quite refreshingly well-written and in character compared to the sh!thole that the comics turned into).

Admittedly, my 'shipper bias is blatant, but sometimes I find some really interesting off-the-wall fanfics that are just so different and unique that they're far beyond 'shipper or favorite character-type fanfics. Sometimes all that is left is the characters, while the universe itself goes pretty wildly AU or the world changes dramatically around particular characters (there are a few notable epic fics of that sort like http://reocities.com/Wellesley/garden/9091/PastPrologueFuturePerfect.html, http://archiveofourown.org/works/33071, http://archiveofourown.org/works/4441772, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1718749/1/Teenage-Wasteland, etc...).

Though I have a STRONG dislike of all-human, high school and non-fantasy element AUs, season rewrites that stick far too close to the original scripts despite a changed element or ones that have anything like "He's a... and she's a..." written anywhere in the description. Those are my big no-nos and usually a good way of avoiding crap fics. I have read a few good ones where Buffy wasn't a Slayer, but a fic where Angel isn't and never was a vampire is going to be a really hard sell for me (ditto the Doctor not being an alien from Gallifrey--it's on that level of just a big, fat NO). I like my vampires and aliens to be just as they are (and subsequently, even Shanshu fics even can be a bit annoying for me).

I LOVE Wishverse AUs, though (http://www.tangofic.com/puppy/index.html?x=site.html, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7807847/1/The-Butterfly-Effect, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6488910/1/Windows-to-the-Soul, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1153448/1/Tenebrae, etc...)! There are also some that branch off from Angel following Buffy in L.A., Buffy in the asylum and Buffy going to Cleveland instead (Wishverse, but not). I love those. There are even some Wishverse or never-went-to-Sunnydale AUs where Wesley gets written into them. Getting Wesley involved earlier or in AUs with Angel and/or Buffy always is a plus.

But I definitely mostly stick more to between-episode or missing scene vignettes that slot in canonically or canon divergence AUs that are fully in keeping with canon up to a certain point before they branch off. I have a massive soft spot for early seasons fics, because, even in the Bangel fandom, the majority seem to be seasons 4-7 AUs (yes, yes, I love IWRY as much as the next Bangel, but I can only read so many baby fics--and to be honest, I love the early Buffy so much more than the later version) and post-NFA fics (there are good ones, no doubt, but the output often makes me miss the earlier versions of characters). And when I find pre-Angelus fics (then there's that "Curse? What curse?" denial trope, which is as frequent as Shanshu), they really give me the warm fuzzies with the sweet innocence of everybody. There are a few alternative 1x07 events fics out there that can be quite fascinating (scenarios such as if Buffy found out about Angel being a vampire differently, if Angel was too late to save Joyce, if Angel was a little earlier before Darla acted, etc...). And I have a soft spot for post-episode comfort fics.

I've been branching into a lot of fics that involve Angel and Connor, meaning I've been jumping into the AtS and BtVS/AtS crossover sections of FF.net instead of just the BtVS section. And I just read one that dropped Buffy into The Ring. One of the most interesting fics I read wasn't Bangel at all, but an AtS fic where Angel Investigations is dealing with apparitions of Angel's past (including Kathy) becoming more and more corporeal (and scarier) in the Hyperion (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6108441/1/Bygones). Oh, and fics involving time travel are always fun. I love the fics where Angel is faced with Kathy and his family again. There needs to be more of those. There are also some sad fics of Angel actually outliving everyone and an exploration of that (some deathbed Buffy fics, but also ones well beyond that when everyone's gone). And then there are always the good ol' fluff fics where a character is turned into an infant/child and has to be protected by your good friends two hours away (Scooby/Fang Gang crossovers!) or the ever-naughty body-swap fics. Willow's spells misfiring is often the culprit in those. ;)

FF.net favorites: https://www.fanfiction.net/~nileqt87
AO3 favorites: http://archiveofourown.org/users/NileQT87/bookmarks

The thing is, a lot of Jossverse fanfiction has somewhat disappeared because of a lot of old websites that are gone (Wayback Machine to the rescue) or just hard to find on sites from before FF.net and AO3 totally took over. Bangels, of course, have the yearly tradition of the IWRY Marathon where a month's worth of fics are submitted by various authors as a collection every November (they've done so every year since 2004).

Anyway, here is my very Bangel-icious collection of fanfiction links, in case anyone wants them:

http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Angel*s*Buffy%20Summers/works
https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer/?&srt=1&lan=1&r=10&c1=216&c2=218
https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Angel/?&srt=1&lan=1&r=10&c1=674&c2=8326
https://www.fanfiction.net/Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer-and-Angel-Crossovers/13/255/?&srt=1&lan=1&r=10

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/htf5awdtdn8jzit/AAA7aI6fOSOSkNKzToC5mnima?dl=0
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=30883A0D03BF9E08%212952&cid=30883A0D03BF9E08&group=0&authkey=%21AIhmuQjbw3yisrY

http://web.archive.org/web/20150814040732/http://midnight.darkstarfic.com/
http://closeyoureyes.altervista.org/home.html
http://carlyinrome.livejournal.com/440788.html
http://www.oocities.org/trixie_alwayshisgirl/fiction.html
http://angeloracle.tripod.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/my/abtfanfic/authorsai.htm
http://www.bitchenvy.com/
http://ba-lyric-wheel.livejournal.com/
http://betterbuffyfics.fictionandart.com/stories_by_title.htm
http://www.geocities.ws/angelsbitca_69b/Buffyfic.html
http://archive.shriftweb.org/archive/AngelBuffy.html
http://buffyversetop5.livejournal.com/tag/pairing:%20buffy/angel
http://casslisa.tripod.com/fanfiction.htm
http://www.castlekairos.com/ballroom
http://www.chosenfics.com/
http://reocities.com/Wellesley/garden/9091/
http://www.fanforum.com/f64/book-clubbers-11-~-b-b-aus-fanfiction-club-62978572/
http://www.denialhaven.de/dh/bafics2.htm
http://destinysgateway.com/browse.php?type=categories&catid=322
http://www.chosenfics.com/e6s/fic-archive/
http://web.archive.org/web/20060421093021/http://www.geocities.com/kelso28a/
http://home.comcast.net/~vagabondsoul/fanfiction.html
http://www.secretsofangel.com/fanfic/index.html
http://www.and-then-some.com/index.html
http://burning-eden.com/bafic.html
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/shecomestome/Christine.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/bau/home.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/bau2/skylarfic.html
http://www.angelfire.com/vamp/fanfiction1/
http://iwry-marathon.livejournal.com/
http://peaches.indiefic.com/ficindex.html
http://www.geocities.ws/kittensinthedark/bamarathon.htm
http://iwry.darkstarfic.com/years.php
http://kitteninthedark.livejournal.com/tag/2%3A%20angel%2Fbuffy
http://inevitablestardom.com/lamia/
http://offline.buffy.de/www.landofdenial.com/index1.html
http://www.geocities.ws/kittensinthedark/bypairing.htm#Buffy/Angel
http://maquisleader.net/buffy/
http://www.octavesoftheheart.com/
http://bite-or-avoid.livejournal.com/
http://www.oocities.org/index.html?cx=partner-pub-8125734003905602%3A8492870096&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=buffy%20fanfiction&sa=Search&siteurl=www.oocities.org%2F&ref&ss=6000j2644546j20
http://scribes.darkstarfic.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/shecomestome/index.html
http://www.sinfularchive.com/10-09/main.html
http://www.trinitylast.com/thedge/archive1.htm
http://tangofic.com/fanfiction.htm
http://magicboxprompts.tumblr.com/post/117448824648/sweetorganza-im-sad-why-is-there-so-few
http://www.warriorsandlovers.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20080807163207/http://yseultspassion.com/fanfiction.html
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/zettazofia/frames.html

Re: Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculat

I read this great one by Anaross. About Spike as a professor teaching poetry in university.
http://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewstory.php?sid=4100

Also a really funny one that took up from OMWF. But Sweet actually took Xander with him. Very cleverly written with lots of songs from musicals interwoven. I just noticed that it's been finished - yay!!

http://www.bloodshedverse.com/stories.php?go=read


Re: Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculat

Buffy without monsters is essentially That 70s Show? Most teen dramas are 'pretty rich white kids with problems' and Buffy is no exception it's just that their problems are much much greater. The only ones I've ever read where the characters are normal are the ones where Buffy wakes up in the asylum after the end of Chosen and goes back to Joyce and Hank and all of her friends from Hemery High.

Re: Call for Fanfiction/Discussion: Any good "non-slay" fanfics/speculat

The bronz. Maybe Willow and Buffy hang out at the mall. Xander hanging out on the good court. Normal teenage stuff
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