Fic: Went The Day Well?

Remember theohara, also known as Helga Von Nutwimple? She was a superb Buffyverse writer, with a gift for dialogue that no-one else has ever matched (not just in fandom, very few if any professional writers were up to her standard, and certainly not Joss), but she had a major flaw; she never finished any of her multi-chapter fics. Eventually she dropped out of fandom altogether and left several potential masterpieces abandoned.

We used to bounce ideas off each other; often we’d think of very similar things at the same time and it was a standing joke between us that we needed to wear tinfoil hats to stop our brainwaves mixing. For one particular fic, Present Perfect, she actively picked my brains.

In that story, a response to the same challenge as my fic It’s Got To Be Perfect, Buffy makes a wish shortly after the end of Tabula Rasa that changes the world. At first everything seems perfect; Joyce is alive (and married to Giles), Oz is still around, Riley never left her, and Spike is human. Bit by bit Buffy discovers that things aren’t as perfect as she’d thought. Angel was killed in 1900, Xander is a vampire, Willow is a werewolf, all of the Scooby Gang hate Riley with a burning passion and despise Buffy for dating him, and Spike – now theoretically an ideal partner, a human with a soul, and an integral part of the Scoobies – is Buffy’s stepbrother and regards the idea of dating her as incestuous and disgusting. Then Buffy finds out that history, in a world where Spike was never a vampire, went very differently and not for the better…

The big reveal, when Buffy sees a map of Europe and discovers just how different things are, was never written. theohara moved on to another story and abandoned Present Perfect. She gave me permission to finish it, if I wanted, but I could never have done it justice. Her style and her sparkling dialogue is impossible to replicate. I did a lot of work on the story at the time, helping her flesh out the details of the changes to the timeline that would have taken place, and it seems a shame to waste it.

The other day I saw a National Geographic documentary called Hitler’s Stealth Fighter and it reminded me of that research. I also read a story at the Pit of Voles parodying It’s A Wonderful Life with Spike as the central character; that author portrayed the world in which Spike had never existed as being absolutely identical to the standard Buffyverse world. Spike had made no difference whatsoever. I felt it was too ludicrous even to be funny (as anyone who has seen Becoming, Part 2 will no doubt agree) but the two events in conjunction stirred me to action.

This story doesn't use the same plot as Present Perfect; only the ‘Spike was never a vampire’ aspect, and the resultant changes to history, are used. It doesn’t feature quite the same version of alternate history but it’s another possible variation. I have made use of material from the aforementioned documentary, from a History Channel documentary called Luftwaffe ‘46, and from years of wargaming experience. Knowledge of AtS 5x13: Why We Fight is helpful. It starts during BtVS 6x19: Entropy. 5,400 words, complete. Rating R for multiple character deaths, slaughter on an epic scale, and massive destruction.
( Went The Day Well? )

Fic: Went The Day Well?

Remember theohara, also known as Helga Von Nutwimple? She was a superb Buffyverse writer, with a gift for dialogue that no-one else has ever matched (not just in fandom, very few if any professional writers were up to her standard, and certainly not Joss), but she had a major flaw; she never finished any of her multi-chapter fics. Eventually she dropped out of fandom altogether and left several potential masterpieces abandoned.

We used to bounce ideas off each other; often we’d think of very similar things at the same time and it was a standing joke between us that we needed to wear tinfoil hats to stop our brainwaves mixing. For one particular fic, Present Perfect, she actively picked my brains.

In that story, a response to the same challenge as my fic It’s Got To Be Perfect, Buffy makes a wish shortly after the end of Tabula Rasa that changes the world. At first everything seems perfect; Joyce is alive (and married to Giles), Oz is still around, Riley never left her, and Spike is human. Bit by bit Buffy discovers that things aren’t as perfect as she’d thought. Angel was killed in 1900, Xander is a vampire, Willow is a werewolf, all of the Scooby Gang hate Riley with a burning passion and despise Buffy for dating him, and Spike – now theoretically an ideal partner, a human with a soul, and an integral part of the Scoobies – is Buffy’s stepbrother and regards the idea of dating her as incestuous and disgusting. Then Buffy finds out that history, in a world where Spike was never a vampire, went very differently and not for the better…

The big reveal, when Buffy sees a map of Europe and discovers just how different things are, was never written. theohara moved on to another story and abandoned Present Perfect. She gave me permission to finish it, if I wanted, but I could never have done it justice. Her style and her sparkling dialogue is impossible to replicate. I did a lot of work on the story at the time, helping her flesh out the details of the changes to the timeline that would have taken place, and it seems a shame to waste it.

The other day I saw a National Geographic documentary called Hitler’s Stealth Fighter and it reminded me of that research. I also read a story at the Pit of Voles parodying It’s A Wonderful Life with Spike as the central character; that author portrayed the world in which Spike had never existed as being absolutely identical to the standard Buffyverse world. Spike had made no difference whatsoever. I felt it was too ludicrous even to be funny (as anyone who has seen Becoming, Part 2 will no doubt agree) but the two events in conjunction stirred me to action.

This story doesn't use the same plot as Present Perfect; only the ‘Spike was never a vampire’ aspect, and the resultant changes to history, are used. It doesn’t feature quite the same version of alternate history but it’s another possible variation. I have made use of material from the aforementioned documentary, from a History Channel documentary called Luftwaffe ‘46, and from years of wargaming experience. Knowledge of AtS 5x13: Why We Fight is helpful. It starts during BtVS 6x19: Entropy. 5,400 words, complete. Rating R for multiple character deaths, slaughter on an epic scale, and massive destruction.

( Went The Day Well? )