#slayerverse

Following the events of Civil War, the Avengers are disbanded, scattered and in hiding - and not coping all that well. The rise of anti-superhuman feeling continues, and it's not only the Avengers who are feeling the effects. Steve Rogers and team are about to discover a whole other world, and with it comes what might be the biggest threat they've ever faced.

Whispers from the Hellmouth

“Whole town, devastated, on the whim of a child.”

A New Threat

Agent Riley Finn, waiting in the shadows of the Hagia Sofia with his recon team, takes a deep breath as he watches Captain America dust a vampire.

The Carter Girl

“Carters are Watchers,” he intones, and Peggy turns to face him, fascinated against her will to hear her father’s words from her little brother.

Conversations with the Dead

“We’re not super, Xander,” she says, a brief flash of annoyance colouring her eyes before she rolls them at him. “We’re nothing like the Avengers.”

Death of a Slayer

He had had such high hopes for this one. Had thought that she had been the key, the girl that he had been waiting for, the one to fulfill the prophecy. And yet, as they all had before, death had claimed her. This one was the same as all the rest.

The Things You Never Knew

“Last set of people I ‘had to meet’ turned out to be Nazis,” Steve returns flatly, but she’s been in the game long enough to be able to detect the note of underlying interest running through him as he says it.

Behind Enemy Lines

“What is - what is your work?” Peggy asks, curiously. “What could the Council possibly want with a scientist?” Erskine sits back in his chair and rubs at his chin, feeling the beard that has grown there over the long months he has been kept at Kastel Kaufmann.

Confessions of a Sinner

“Vampires, right,” Scott yawns again, waving a sleepy hand in Steve’s general direction. “Tennis vampires, or-” He pauses, hand out-stretched towards the kitchen counter, frozen in the act of reaching for what passes for a clean mug these days. “Wait, what? Like Dracula? Bleh, bleh, bleh?”

City Under Siege

She has strength enough to focus on the task at hand, to despatch the three vampires that come at her fast, one after the other with teeth bared and bloodlust in their yellow eyes. As they explode into dust at the point of her broken chair leg, the men who watch at the window are silent, but their eyes see all.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

The girl wakes in a new sort of darkness, gasping for air that is thick and heavy and does not fill her lungs the way she needs it to. For a moment or two she feels as though she is more than one person - that in one body exists more than there should, a jostling within herself - themself? - she shakes her head, blinking into the gloom and the feeling starts to recede.

Got a Secret, Can You Keep It?

“I’m guessing you all recognise Steve,” Maria says, nodding toward him as she speaks.

“Don’t you, uh, usually come with real shield action?” Xander mimes throwing an over-large frisbee, and the little redhead - Willow, Steve reminds himself - beside him puts a hand to her face with a grimace.

The Chosen One

“Here’s to making history,” Erskine says, nudging the small glass tumbler back across the desk toward her, and raising his own.

“A history no one else will ever know the truth of,” she says, ruefully, as she toasts him in kind.

The Will of the People

“We don’t need your kind here,” a grey haired man steps forward out of the crowd. With a sinking feeling, Kennedy notes that he’s carrying an honest-to-God torch - the preferred accessory for all the best baying mobs.

Little Eva

“Remind you of anything?” Peggy asks, looking across at him as they stand in front of the uninviting grey wall, the bunker door falling slightly ajar.

“Feels a lot like Azzano,” Dugan notes. “Out of the way, hidden in a forest, so lots of cover and hard to see from the air. Exactly the kind of place you’d look to hide your bodies.”

Friction Burns

“Hey, I’m not the one running around dropping whole cities from the sky,” she says, raising an eyebrow toward the captain, who shakes his head whilst his fists clench at his sides.

“I mean, we did blow up an entire town,” Willow murmurs.

“Miss Summers-” Steve begins, and that’s as far as he gets.

The Potential

“We have come to offer you a place at our school,” he says smoothly. “It’s a very special school, for very special girls. Girls who have potential, who are gifted - smart, and athletic. Who aren’t the same as everyone else. Although-” and here he pauses, flicking his eyes over the girl, still cradled in her father’s arms. “-it’s only for brave girls.”

Lies and the Other Things That You Told Me

“And you,” Sam straightens, looking up at Maria. “You knew, too, right?”

“I didn’t know it was you,” she answers, arms folded over her chest. Her face is closed, measured, almost calculating - like she’s trying to weigh all the probable outcomes of this scenario at the same time.

Inheritance

She can’t put her finger on what’s changed. It’s like her blood is fizzing under her skin, and somehow it makes her feel stronger, even though she can’t understand why it would feel that way.

Coming up:

We Didn't Light the Fire

A Tangled Web, Indeed

Red Sky in the Morning

Sliding Doors

A couple of expression sheets I made for artfight this year, plus more OC art

Continuing on my very first binge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I have finished season 2! I liked season 1, but I loved season 2. Until the end. If you also haven’t watched this show, beware of spoilers below. This time I decided to write some thoughts about each episode of the season. It was quite the rollercoaster. S2E1 When She Was Bad Okay, but did she have to be mean? I really disliked Buffy in this episode. Yeah, okay, her sexydance was hot. But she was downright cruel to Xander. That was not okay. I thought, though, that it was a very smart move opening the season getting back to Buffy’s vampire-slaying roots. S2E2 Some Assembly Required I really enjoy the Frankenstein trope! (Not Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; that book bored me horribly! But it was a buddy read and I refused to DNF.) There was a serial killer in Dragon Age 2 that did the Frankenstein thing and it. was. horrifying!!! But also fascinating. I really dug the concept. And while I always liked Cordelia, she grew on me more and more with every episode this season. S2E3 School Hard FINALLY, Spike has made his appearance! I like him a lot. Not in a shippy way with Buffy, but as his own character. Drusilla, I hate. I like her madness but she’s obnoxiously whiny. I do not like the way she pouts like a baby to get her way about things. I also hate Principal Snyder A LOT. Buffy’s mom was super cool in this episode, though. I was shocked when she took an ax to Spike! S2E4 Inca Mummy Girl This episode was almost perfect! When I was a teenager I took 4 semesters of Spanish and loved it so much. I was very interested in the native peoples of South and Central America. The Maya were my favorite, but second were the Inca. I really liked the mummy princess who came back from the dead. Aside from having to drain the life from others to sustain herself, she was a really nice girl and easily made friends with everyone. And she wasn’t a fake friend or secretly evil; she seemed like a genuinely good person who didn’t want to do what she had to do to survive. So, to me, it seemed that Buffy was so remorseless in taking her out. It made me sad. S2E5 Reptile Boy I wasn’t the biggest fan of this episode. I really do not get the whole Illuminati thing and I didn’t like how rapey it all seemed, with the frat boys drugging girls. It gave me a yucky feeling. I could have lived without seeing this one. S2E6 Halloween Okay, this was absolutely my favorite episode up to this point. Willow really stood out to me. And the plot was so cool! Everyone turned into whatever they dressed up as for Halloween. That’s so fun! I liked finding out that Giles had a dark past, too. This episode was so cool. S2E7 Lie to Me I really enjoyed this one, too! I didn’t like Buffy’s friend but the reasons for what he did became apparent. I really, really love the trope of vampire-worshipping cults/vampire wannabes/groupies. I just do! S2E8 The Dark Age Again, nice to see Giles further developed as a character. It broke my heart that Jenny Calendar pushed him away, though. They were so cute together. The plot wasn’t my favorite and I’m not sure how I feel about the creep from Giles’s past. I have a feeling he’ll be back. S2E9&10 What’s My Line (1&2)? The only thing I really liked in this episode was Angel ending up in a cage and also burned to death by the sun. I just love that kind of danger-drama! I also loved that since Buffy was technically dead for like three minutes, another slayer was granted slaying powers. That was so cool! But I’m not sure I liked Kendra. She was just mean all the time... A bit two-dimensional. And that accent kept jumping back and forth between Jamaican and Irish. lol The actress was beautiful but the character was not my cup of tea. I did think, though, that she improved by the end of the episode and would have been interesting to see grow in future episodes, but...well...you know. Cordelia was hilarious in this episode. And I KNEW IT. I KNEW she and Xander were going to make out because of how much they’d been fighting. Hahahaha!! I love it. S2E11 Ted I gasped aloud with glee when I saw John Ritter! I adored John Ritter. Then I saw how evil he was and BLEH!! That Ted guy was the worst. lol Actually, I mostly hated Buffy’s mother in this episode. She literally walked in on Ted in her teenage daughter’s bedroom, actively choking her, and still blamed Buffy for “killing” him. I knew he was going to come back as something evil, but it still hurt to see Buffy so depressed, thinking she had murdered someone. Even if she had...he was in her bedroom, choking her! Ew, ew, ew! Kill him dead. lol I didn’t suspect he was going to be a robot, though. I really liked this episode! Sometimes I’m not sure Sarah Michelle Gellar is the best actress, but she was brilliant in this episode. S2E12 Bad Eggs Um...eggs hatched into mutants, which latched onto humans and turned them into drones to do their mother’s bidding. Sooo gross. They were so hard to look at. Also, again, I saw this exact scenario in a video game (Breather of Fire II, which I realize is so ancient that I have really dated myself), and they even looked exactly the same. lol Still, this was pretty entertaining. If hard to watch. *shudder* S2E13&14 Surprise/Innocence Interesting that Buffy is having some precognitive dreams. I liked the way they pieced together the Judge villain character and brought him to life. I am a hardcore Buffy/Angel shipper (at this point) so them sleeping together melted my heart! But THEN--! No, no, no! I mean, I’d read a spoiler at some point that Angel was going to revert to the evil vampire ego Angelus at some point, but this was the worst possible time! Okay, actually I enjoyed that drama. But I also cried literal tears because it just hurt so bad! Loved Buffy getting her hands on a mini rocket launcher at the end to take care of the Judge, and I appreciated her kicking Angelus in the balls for what he did to her. At this point I was starting to pity Spike while enjoying the way Angelus was stealing his thunder. Still want Dru dead, though. S2E15 Phases Okay, I admit I’m streaming a lot of these episodes while I’m at work, so I don’t necessarily have my eyes on the screen while I’m watching. But seriously, did I miss something? In this episode there’s a werewolf killing people. They discover Oz is a werewolf (which unfortunately I already knew was coming because I’m reading Kendare Blake’s new book, In Every Generation, and it’s loaded with spoilers), and everyone is just okay with that??? Was he or was he not murdering people? I know Angelus murdered one person, but not all of them, right? WHY DID BUFFY KILL THE CUTE INCAN MUMMY GIRL BUT NOT OZ THE MURDERING WEREWOLF? I do like Oz a lot, though. And I adore him with Willow. (Yes, I KNOW. But, for now, I like her with Oz.) S2E16 Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered I like Oxford commas. I loved this episode. Hilarious! Okay, it was creepy when the adult women were coming onto teenage Xander, but the way Cordelia stood up to her friends and openly admitted Xander is her boyfriend? UGH! SO GOOD!! I love them! S2E17 Passion I was really not okay after this episode. First I thought it was sweet Angelus sneaked into Buffy’s room in the middle of the night, sketched her sleeping portrait, and left it for her. But then he started doing it to her friends and it got creepy. And no, it wasn’t nice what he did to Willow’s fish, but...! That was a good kind of creepy. Who would think to do a thing like that?! What he did to Jenny was taking it too far, though. It absolutely broke my heart when he broke her neck. Poor Giles! Poor Jenny! I really loved her character. I was furious when it was revealed her family had a hand in Angel’s curse backfiring like it did and taking him away from Buffy, but her death left me shook. S2E18 Killed by Death I liked this one. It’s nice to see a decent monster-of-the-week episode that involves a classic horror monster like death (or IT, if you will), rather than a stupid egg-laying tentacle monster or rapist Illuminati frat boys. I liked learning something new about Buffy’s background, too. S2E19 I Only Have Eyes For You Sometimes...I’m a little bit into the student/teacher thing. In a fictional way, not in real life. I thought this story was well-done, and in the end, the way Buffy and Angel became possessed by the dead lovers and reenacted their final moments, and gave the ghosts closure? Oomph. Heartwrenching.

S2E20 Go Fish I loved this episode! I think in part because Xander really got a chance to shine, and Cordelia’s feelings for him were proven to run more than skin-deep. The skin-peeling thing was gross but cool, and I liked how the coach was administering DNA-altering drugs through the sauna. Just really interesting plotting! S2E21&22 Becoming 1&2 So this is why people love Spike. I liked him at first but he just let Angelus beat him down to a pitiful pulp that I lost interest. I loved him in the season finale, though I wonder why he showed a few shreds of humanity if he has no soul. Still don’t ship him with Buffy. lol But I hate Dru and am very disappointed she didn’t die by the end of this! Poor Giles getting tortured, but the way Dru impersonated Jenny Calendar to mess with his heart was too far! She’s gotta die. I am furious they killed Kendra off. She could have been an excellent character if she’d had time to grow and build bonds with the other members of the Scooby Gang. The ending to this serious absolutely killed me. Finally, it appears Willow is a witch! But after she returned Angel’s soul, Buffy sealed him away. I guess she was prepared for being without him, after all the angst this season, but...man. That just broke my heart for her. And for me. lol That was my favorite ship since the moment it began between them. I know he comes back (saw the poster for season 3, and I know he has his own show that I’ve been recommended to watch concurrently with season 4), but WHY COULDN’T THEY JUST BE HAPPY!

Inheritance (Chapter 18)

Following the events of Civil War, the Avengers are disbanded, scattered and in hiding - and not coping all that well. The rise of anti-superhuman feeling continues, and it's not only the Avengers who are feeling the effects. Steve Rogers and team are about to discover a whole other world, and with it comes what might be the biggest threat they've ever faced.

The choices of a few have far-reaching consequences.

Everything will be different, if Buffy and Willow’s plan pulls off. It’s beyond audacious, a Hail Mary that’s somehow grasping at straws whilst it spits firmly in the eye of tradition. They intend to not just rewrite the rulebook, but set fire to it and then run it over for good measure on their way out of town. Dawn has seen Giles’ left eye twitching, though he keeps quiet about it. She thinks that, even though he too has turned his back on tradition and the rigid jurisdiction of the Watchers Council, this must go against everything he’s ever been taught to believe.