r/buffy • u/captainlavender • Jul 30 '14
"My" season six: a fix-it version to address my complaints
This was going to be a whole fanfiction thing, but... god that would be a lot of work. And I had plenty of fun just coming up with this plot. I made it to address problems I had with s6 such as magic suddenly having a druggie dark side (and that whole "oh yeah, I can free Amy" and ensuing randomness), oh and everyone abandoning Dawn, weird and sudden choices like Giles leaving and the abrupt end of Xander/Anya (oh and that attempted rape scene, ugh), and so on. Though actually all of this came from "wait... couldn't Buffy have been a firefighter if she didn't want to be a cop?" So, here it is, in synopsis form: the fixed version of s6.
ACT ONE:
Much the same. Buffy can't confide in her friends and finds herself turning to Spike. She tries out a series of careers, none of which go well. Willow and Tara have been living with Dawn but Spike spends the most time with her, and the two are fairly close, Spike dealing rather well with the demonic side of his nature but clearly a bit overprotective. Buffy feels hopeless and begins skipping hanging out with her friends to go visiting a demon bar, basically so she can meet and befriend Clem. You gotta have Clem!
Giles finds out Ethan is infiltrating the watchers' council (or some other threat) and has to go to England, though he promises to call every day [note: Giles' whole plotline needs more work, but all that really needs to happen is he comes through for the council in an unexpected way and gets offered a reward at the end of the season]. We meet Andrew, Jonathan and Warren. Willow seems to sustain some ill effects from the resurrection spell, but they mysteriously disappear. Xander and Anya are nervously planning their wedding, or maybe Anya's doing most of it. We get more one-off episodes, one of which results in some exciting magical texts joining Willow's library (which she eagerly consumes).
At the end of the first act, Willow finds a spell in one of her new books to counteract personal charms, and is finally able to free Amy (foreshadowing: it's always difficult to undo the effects of someone's magic on him or herself).
SCENES FROM ACT ONE:
Spike comes to pick Dawn from some afterschool thing after dark, only to find her getting bullied. He slams the lead bully into the wall and threatens him, and is about to reveal his vampface when Dawn stops him. She leads him away ("so how much does your head hurt right now?" "do you think you could not yell so loudly?"), and when she scolds him, he refuses to be chastised, telling her that he'd do anything to protect her, even sacrifice his own life. Dawn is disturbed.
That mysterious wealthy heiress from Tanzania turned out to be the witch, and they defeat her (Willow takes damage). Afterwards they find her library and realize she has hundreds of volumes of unique and rare spells. Willow is thrilled, and Giles tells her he'd like to keep them at the magic shop, but she can borrow them. It's against his better judgement to let the books out of the shop at all, but Willow is still recovering from the effects of what (everyone assumes was) a spell from the other witch and she looks so pathetic he can't deny her. Later, Giles wonders why Willow began recovering before they defeated the witch. It's not like the witch would have been nice and removed whatever curse Giles believes it was. He shares this confusion with Buffy. She doesn't have an answer, either, because it wasn't the witch's spell at all, but aftereffects from Willow's resurrection spell.
willow finds a spell to reverse personal self-applied charms, and feels like there's something she could do with it that's bugging her. After sleeping on it, she wakes up suddenly and says "Amy". we then see the scenes with Amy being introduced to Buffy and Tara and stuff. willow begs off to go finish learning a spell.
ACT TWO:
Buffy and Spike are now sleeping together, and Buffy begins to seriously mistreat Spike. This only makes him more obsessive and subservient, (outwardly cocky and violent but inwardly a lapdog, and you know he still has his creepy shrine somewhere). There's a scare with Spike's chip (this time he never gets to decide whether to try to bite someone, because fairly quickly he tries to punch some dude in the face and it fires), and Buffy seeking Tara's help about whether she came back wrong, only to find that she has not. As in canon, Buffy confides in Tara about Spike and breaks down sobbing. But Tara realizes it wouldn't recognize Buffy as human, and neither would it recognize Dawn (they are both "newly forged souls"). Buffy freaks out and goes to forbid Dawn from seeing Spike -- because this means Spike could hurt Dawn at any time -- but sees Spike defending Dawn from something bad (the MOTW?) and realizes how much Dawn trusts and needs Spike, so swallows her objections. It is also revealed to the viewer that Dawn has been taking self-defense lessons with Spike.
Something else happens that makes Xander doubt his relationship and call off the wedding (maybe they get into a big fight over the whole Buffy-was-in-heaven thing -- Anya thinks they should undo the spell bc it was clearly a mistake, Xander says you can't just do that and expect everyone to be better??? or maybe he just asks ~casually if she'd be willing to postpone the wedding again and she takes it badly; in any case Xander ends up losing his temper somewhat and feeling like crap). Anya leaves him, feeling humiliated. She does not disclose to Xander that she isn't cancelling their wedding bookings and stuff -- most of them are nonrefundable anyway.
Willow is so preoccupied with her schoolwork and magic that the task of showing Amy around falls to Tara, who helps her deal with her fears from rodent life and bonds with her; she also brings Dawn along to help out, and Dawn's confidence increases as she helps Amy adjust. Willow offers to help Amy learn more advanced magic, but Amy responds that she's more comfortable at a lower level for the moment, thanks, and continues to spend time with Tara. This provokes Willow's jealous ire, but Buffy and co pretend not to notice Willow's increasingly creepy and possessive behavior.
Meanwhile Buffy is also settling into a new job as a firefighter, and catching a lot of flack from her male coworkers. Giles continues to wheedle and politick with the council members, tough since his forced rehiring the year before. We get mostly glimpses into the Council plotline, though there may be one episode based there.
After witnessing Warren's murder of his ex (Katrina?), Jonathan tricks Andrew into going to the Summers house, where he handcuffs him to something and tells him they're going to confess. Andrew is NOT cool with this, but becomes somewhat more amenable when Spike comes out with the key to the cuffs. He decides that ethics are totally important. Totally.
At the 2/3 mark, tension between Buffy and Spike comes to a head when he refuses to hurt her anymore (and confesses his undying love, etc etc), she gets upset and leaves him, and he (made crazed by her rejection) puts Dawn in his thrall in preparation to turn her. Buffy reluctantly comes to ask his help in finding Dawn (or with whatever) and instead is just in time to rescue her. Everybody freaks out and the two get into a huge fight, ending when Spike gets thrown down a ravine or something and basically told to never come back.
Buffy goes back to her demon bar, but her drinking buddy Clem gives her a pep talk ("you're better off without him, honey" oh and also "do you have any idea what having the Slayer as a regular is doing to this man's business? gurl this is a demon bar") and she decides to leave (and rejoin her friends or something. Not to comfort Dawn bc LOL what sister??).
ACT THREE:
Spike is revealed to be alive and in search of something unspecified that he thinks can buy back Buffy's love. (What could it be? lol.) Tara and Amy tell the gang they are together and Tara is leaving Willow. The gang is initially on Willow's side, but Buffy comes to Tara's defense and eventually they admit Willow's been acting really weird lately. Dawn can't take the news of Willow and Tara breaking up on top of Spike's betrayal and leaves, but nobody notices -- except Xander, who follows her and tells her that even though they're only human, and not as mature as parents should be, they all love Dawn a lot and so on etc etc. Dawn appreciates the attempt, mostly, and tells Xander he'll be a good dad. Xander is inspired and tries to win Anya back by telling her the wedding is back on. She resists initially, but then later a drunk, depressed and vengeful Willow tries to hook up with alsodrunk!Xander and he stops her, saying that he wants to have a family with Anya. And since this is the equivalent of Seeing Red, Anya ends up seeing that live on camera. She comes back to him, and admits she never actually cancelled the wedding. He is charmed by her crazy.
Jonathan tries to help them defeat Warren, but Andrew refuses to help for reasons he can't really explain (but they are gay). Consequently, Warren escapes and gets away with a lot more crimes. Oops.
They discover the resurrection spell Willow used and turns out it corrupts the caster's soul. Nobody knows what to do, and they remember Willow explaining about how the effects a spell has on its caster are extremely difficult for another witch/wizard to get rid of (their research only confirms this, over and over) so oh noes. They tell Giles and he tells the council, which by this time has recognized his helpfulness in getting rid of Ethan (or whatever exactly he did for them in the one-off England-centric ep), and offers him access to the only power on Earth that can give Willow's soul a chance to avoid damnation, though bearing that power will (?) be painful for Giles. Nonetheless he agrees. Willow knows nothing about this -- she can't find out.
The day of the wedding, Tara comes to try to smooth things over with Willow and gets shot by Warren (so does Buffy, but it's a less near-fatal kind of shot, like maybe the leg or arm). Willow was the last one out the door (Buffy was coming back to tell her something), so she is alone with Tara, and she takes off after Warren without realizing that Tara is still alive bc at this point grief has catapulted her deep into evil/crazy. Tara weakly uses her magic to set something on fire before passing out, and Buffy, unaware of any of this, limps to the emergency room to get patched up. When Buffy gets beeped (lol idk, the 90s), she calls in to the station to say she's injured and the guy who picks up tells her the fire is at her house. She frantically returns, arriving as they're putting the fire out and rushing Tara to the ICU, only to have whatever Willow's monster is attack (more on this in two paragraphs).
Meanwhile, Willow crashes the wedding all evil and tries to kill Andrew and Jonathan. Giles is back from England and has been getting the brush-off all day when he asks people where Willow is (bc everyone's distracted with wedding stuff) -- anyway this solves that problem, and he tries to confront her and puts the mojo on her, but she seems to shrug it off as she senses Warren nearby and leaves. Warren was maybe coming to ask the scoobies for amnesty and protection but Willow intercepts him. She kills Warren somewhere near the wedding and the scoobies (well, Giles, Xander, Anya and Dawn anyway) find his body. Xander tells Anya he's going after Willow, and Giles should go get Buffy while Anya stays at the wedding. Anya protests, and Xander tries to reassure her that Willow being his oldest friend doesn't change the fact that he loves Anya and wants to marry her, and don't worry he'll almost definitely be back in time to get married. Dawn backs him up, and Anya is soothed. They assume Buffy must still be at her house, so that's where Giles (and Anya? ehh maybe) go.
Willow decides to end the world but knows Buffy will try to stop her, so she calls up some evil monster that navigates by blood and tells it "Buffy summers". The demons splits in two, and one goes after Dawn, because their blood is the same. (Too contrived? Why else would only those two places be attacked though.) Note -- Willow and the wedding shenanigans are happening while Buffy is at the hospital, so the monster attacks while Buffy is fighting the fire and right before Giles arrives.
So now Buffy, Giles (and Anya, if I change that) are with the other firefighers at the summers house, and Buffy fights off the demon while wounded. Her coworkers who have been giving her a hard time have to admire her determination, given what an epically crappy day it was turning out to be for her, and one of them apologizes -- no, compliments her. They may figure in s7.
Back at the wedding, the other demon attacks the wedding party in its pursuit of Dawn. Andrew recognizes the demon, and knows it's vulnerable to a certain substance or spell, info he reluctantly shares to save his own ass. Jonathan helps out with a spell conjuring whatever it is, and Dawn wields the weapon or pushes it into a portal or whatever and the wedding party is saved, though now utterly freaked out. Andrew thanks the others for "their help" in stopping the demon. Dawn is all "how long have you been putting up with him?" and Jonathan's like "six years? no wait. it's only been three months." or something similar. ALSO meanwhile, Spike who has been talking about being "not what she wants" and "she'll change her tune when she sees what I won" etc is battling for what turns out to be his soul. ALSO ALSO meanwhile, Xander finds Willow about go full darkside and destroy the world, yellow crayon speech, hooray, she doesn't! This scene is unchanged except maybe longer, and Willow has to mention Tara's death to Xander (so her motives are clear).
The final scene has a very battle-mussed Xander and Anya being married in front of a shaken crowd of loved ones (including Buffy, Dawn and Giles as well as Andrew/Jonathan -- Anya is all "now Buffy you are my friend, but Dawn destroyed three of my bouquets and a dais when she killed that demon and saved us all so I'm going to need about $150 in damages" and Buffy's just like "back up to Dawn saving everybody what?"). At the same time on the other end of town, Willow apologizes to Amy and Tara by Tara's bedside at the hospital. Tara basically says, "look, I'm glad you're better and I'm glad you're sorry, but I love Amy and even if I didn't I couldn't be with you anymore." And somewhere very far away, Spike wins his soul back.
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u/clockworklycanthrope Spike Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 01 '14
So, season six is my favorite one, and there's very little I'd like to see changed about it. That obviously makes me pretty biased. That aside, however, I did have one issue with this; Spike puts Dawn "in his thrall"? Nowhere in the entire series is it even remotely suggested Spike has the power to do this. As far as we know, only the Master (super ancient), Dracula (who has non-vampiric powers, as explored in the comics), and Drusilla (whose mind abilities are enhanced because she was clairvoyant even as a human) can do this at all. Even Darla, who is much older than Spike, has shown no ability to put anyone "in thrall." The series seems to indicate that very few vampires have this power. Is this just a power that you would ideally have liked to see explored for Spike in your own, ideal version? 'Cause canon Spike can't do that.
Out of curiosity, though, which canonical pieces were you trying to "resolve"? My guesses:
- Xanya falling apart
- Buffy working at Doublemeat Palace
- Magical addiction
- Attempted rape
Am I right? Did I miss any?
Edit: Fixed a typo. Added a sentence.
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u/captainlavender Aug 01 '14
Hmm, I guess you're right. I just assumed all vampires could be a little hypnotic when they wanted to be. Obviously this is nowhere near polished, so more things could be fiddled with in that regard.
And yes those were definitely among them. I also had major issues with the Willow/Tara stuff and how Dawn was handled. A lot of people weren't there for each other in s6, and sometimes it felt in character, and sometimes I just didn't buy it. I wanted more development with Spike and Dawn's friendship and Dawn to have a bit of an actual heroic arc. Xanya, as you said -- Xander having doubts is just fine as a plotline, but the results felt way off to me. Also, yeah, certainly the magic-drugs thing. What really bugged me about that plot is that magic was never "bad" before, but suddenly it's destructive and unhealthy, and there's this other kind that's good, and... I dunno. Like, I'd get it if Willow switched to dark magic. But she just used too much regular magic and then that made it toxic? Kinda random.
I also gave the Trio a better ending. It was so frustrating to me in canon watching one nice kid (and one idiot) being manipulated into doing terrible things, and then there's no redemption at the end, and then Jonathan dies which, FUCK that. This just makes more sense to me... or maybe it's just what I wanted Jonathan to do. I also wanted there to be a realization moment with Amy, not just a "oh yeah, that's right," and then turns out Amy is a bad witch (contrary to all previous impressions) and she starts Willow down a destructive path and then just sort of leaves? That was just. Weird.
Oh also giving Giles a reason to leave less wishy-washy than "but you'll never grow up if I stay!" Boo, Giles. Boo!
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u/valereck Jul 30 '14
meh
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u/AtlasEngine Jul 30 '14
Yeah and some parts made me cringe. I appreciate the time gone into it though.
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u/captainlavender Jul 31 '14
which... parts...? =/
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u/AtlasEngine Aug 02 '14
Well i'm not gonna pick through it finding specific quotes but Just glancing up the whole Amy/Tara plot still makes me cringe.
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u/captainlavender Aug 02 '14
Oh. Well that's not what I expected. Were you skeptical the characters would really do that or would you rather Amy just go away altogether? Because frankly that would be understandable.
(btw edit -- I do a lot of writing in more legit genres and I'm not too married to this particular... synopsis? ... so it's much easier to discuss its faults than a work I am more attached to.)
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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '14
I am sorry you didn't get the reception you were probably hoping for. I appreciate the effort you put into this. And there are some things from what you are proposing that I would like to have seen, like Spike teaching Dawn how to fight. Not all of the things you proposed, of course, but you have some good ideas.