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AU Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Way It Should Have Been

Joe Washington

Joe Washington

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
This is a sequel to the AU Smallville thread, only this time taking on the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This thread was inspired and aided by my friend, Admiral Young. Seasons of the show will have a mix of the original and alternate differences:



SEASON ONE
  • In the series premiere, Buffy Summers moves to Sunnydale with her mother and her little 13-years-old sister Dawn.
  • Buffy makes friends with two of the students from her high school, Xander and Willow. Xander has an instant crush on Buffy.
  • Buffy also meets the school’s librarian, Giles, who turns out to be a Watcher assigned to guide and protect her since she is the latest in the long line of Vampire Slayers. She learns from Giles that there is a Hellmouth beneath Sunnydale that attracts supernatural activity.
  • Buffy embracing her role as the Slayer, reluctantly or otherwise, is very vital because of the recent telling of a prophecy received by the Watchers’ Council. The prophecy predicts an end to all magic and demon kind and that a Slayer will play a major role in that end. The prophecy is inspiring some in the supernatural world to step up and grab as much power as possible so they can survive that apocalypse and some to try to kill Buffy to prevent that end from happening, thinking she may be the Slayer from the prophecy.
  • One of them is the ancient vampire, the Master, who has heard about the prophecy and is determined to free himself from his underground confinement so he can grab what he can to survive what is coming.
  • Dawn is jealous of Buffy’s streak of luck when it comes to attracting handsome men like Xander and the mysterious Angel.
  • A flashback episode late in the season reveals how Buffy came to learn about being a Slayer and what led to her arrival in Sunnydale.
  • In the season finale, after finally being freed from his prison, the Master takes the opportunity to kill Buffy. Buffy is brought back to life thanks to Xander. Buffy kills the Master. The Anointed One escapes before Buffy could get her hands on him.
NOTE: The prophecy is the major arc of the series.
 
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Joe Washington said:
Dawn is jealous of Buffy’s streak of luck when it comes to attracting hot men like Xander and the mysterious Angel.
Click to expand...

Uhh, Dawn would've been ten years old at the time.

NOTE: The prophecy is the major arc of the series.
Click to expand...

The whole series? Wouldn't that get tiresome, knowing what's going to happen from the beginning? Prophecy is an overused plot device as it is.
 
The prophecy is more of an underlying major arc of the series like Sam's destiny is one of the underlying major arcs of Supernatural.
 
As far as prophecies go, I think open ended ones are pretty cool, the kind that are extremely vague on how things will play out, just that the characters we are coming to love may play a role/part in the end result. Kind of like in Angel if memory serves, there was just an implication that Angel is somehow involved in the apocalypse, but the level of his involvement and the reasons of his involvement are somewhat vague. I think for a while there, it was even considered that Spike (of all people) was the one the prophecy refereed to.

The only real lame thing I find about them right off, is if they seemed shoehorned in, like they/it was created after the fact to give some sort of story.
 
This prophecy is leading somewhere...in fact it motivates several characters and entities within the alternate universe to do the things they do. As Joe mentioned in his post the prophecy is something that is underlying and will be brought up occasionally until it is dealt with at it's end point...kind of like how Smallville likes to do their event episodes on the Superman mythos or bringing in DCU characters.
 
BtVS could easily go from 7 mediocre seasons into 5 knock out ones. Much like Smallville going on to 10 seasons could be fit into 5 knock out seasons. IMHO.
 
Joe, I like some of the concepts you're playing with, but making the 'Fray' prophecy the underlying 'focal point' of the series really takes away, like Skywalker says, one of the fundamental things that made Buffy what it was. If you're set on incorporating the Fray prophecy into things, it should be handled in the same manner that ANGEL handled the 'Shanshu' prophecy, which, although an element of the series, wasn't the 'focal point' of its mythology or overall narrative.
 
I would never pair Xander with Buffy.

Xander and Willow belong together, when Willow turned lesbian it was a heavy blow to the show. Not that lesbians are a bad thing. Rather that the Xander and Willow relationship was so obvious and pitch perfect within the show.

I still think that someday Willow will wake up, decide she was just going through a phase in college, and get back together with Xander.
 
To those who have read this thread earlier, I've changed Dawn's age in the first season which would have been 10 years old at that point in the series to 13 years old which would make her 14 in Season 2.


SEASON TWO
  • After her near-death experience, Buffy throws herself into her duties as a Slayer with a fiery determination, believing she can take on anyone or anything that bumps in the night. Buffy’s friends are concerned by this change in attitude.
  • Word of the prophecy centered on Buffy is spreading like wildfire and has attracted the attention of Angel’s old buddies from his Angelus days, Spike and Drusilla. They have arrived in Sunnydale to kill the Slayer of legend so they can be celebrities in the supernatural world. And killing another Slayer would add a notch to Spike’s belt. But when their attempt to do that doesn’t go as well as they planned, Spike and Drusilla are forced to think of other ways of achieving the same goal. The Anointed One, the Master’s creation who’s been plotting behind the scenes since the Master’s death, brings Spike and Drusilla into his fold already having a plan in mind for Buffy.
  • Xander tries to take another shot at Buffy after nearly losing her in the Season 1 finale. But he gets shot down again when he notices that Buffy still have strong feelings for Angel. So he ends up having a relationship with Cordelia.
  • Willow falls for werewolf Oz.
  • Dawn discovers Buffy’s secret life as the Slayer and is forced by Buffy to continue keeping it a secret from their mother.
  • Buffy meets Kendra, a Slayer made possible by her “death” in the Season 1 finale.
  • There are those in the Watchers’ Council who don’t want the prophecy fulfilled, afraid that if such a thing would happen, their role as Watchers would become irrelevant. Giles becomes aware of those elements and finds himself in a fight not only against the monsters who threaten his Slayer’s safety but some members of his order as well. It is suspected that they may have had a role in directing Spike and Drusilla to Sunnydale and helping the Anointed One in his calculating plot against Buffy.
  • Thanks to the exchanging of information between the treacherous Watchers and the Anointed One, the Anointed One sets things into motion to pull the trigger on Angel’s turn to the dark side brought on by a single moment of happiness between Angel and Buffy. Unfortunately for the Anointed One, he doesn’t get to see the damage Angelus gets to inflict on Buffy and the others after Angelus kills him to take his seat of power.
  • When Angel turns evil, Xander becomes extra-protective of Buffy and finds himself torn between his feelings for Buffy and his feelings for Cordelia.
  • Giles suffers an emotional loss when Angelus kills Jenny Calendar.
  • In the season finale, Buffy’s mother uncovers the truth about her daughter being the Slayer. Drusilla kills Kendra and Principle Snyder suspects Buffy had a hand in her death. Xander lies to Buffy about the spell that would give Angel back his soul, letting his feelings for Buffy cloud his judgment and seeing Angel as a threat to Buffy and the others, with or without his soul. Buffy ends up killing Angel to prevent the world from being swallowed up by Hell and runs away from Sunnydale to get away from it all. Xander feels the weight of what he has done.
 
For my own 'fanon', if this helps, Dawn finds out about Buffy during 'Bad Eggs'.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5848935/1/The_Younger_Miss_Summers

Also, it is important to remember : Xander's motivations in keeping Angel's possible resouling mum may have tended selfish, but they also had a positive. Buffy had hesitated all along to deal with Angelus on the hope that Angel could come back, and this time the stakes were too high. Even with determination, Buffy barely held her own against him before the spell took. So Xander's choice was cruddy on one level, strategic on another. Even JW called him her 'general' in that moment, forcing the monarch to act in ways they knew they had to.

Suggest you also have it so that the Anointed One and The Master were so linked, the Master's destruction has begun to age the AO, explaining away his growth spurt.
 
Oh--and adding to her dickery, Joyce shakes Dawn after learning she knew :

J: Why didn't you say anything?!

D : (Pushes her off and pulls away, bitter) Because Buffy said you'd freak (runs off, leaving Joyce alone with how her ultimatum backfired)

She had reason to be upset, mind you. But the end of S2 and 'Dead Man's Party' were prime time for Joyce The Flake.

Oops--and maybe when Ted threatens Buffy with being put away as nuts, there is a foreshadowing of the asylum.

Must--stop--retroficcing!
 
stonester1 said:
Jetfire said:
BtVS could easily go from 7 mediocre seasons into 5 knock out ones. Much like Smallville going on to 10 seasons could be fit into 5 knock out seasons. IMHO.
Click to expand...

I'll stick with the seven kick ass seasons we got.
Click to expand...

:wtf:

I don't know what BtVS you were watching. Season 1 & 2 could easily be 1 great season instead of 1 mediocre and 1 good. Season 3 could be left alone that was fine season 4 & 5 could be merged with most of 4 being forgettable and I love season 5...but take out a handful of the ones that didn't work and add the ones from season 4 that did and season 6 & 7 could be merged as well to salvage the series...season 6 was bad but 7 was awful...and well I guess you only need 4 seasons of BtVS. I love the show but there is a lot not worth re-watching. :shrug:
 
SEASON THREE

  • Xander has broken up with Cordelia and has been using his time-off to track down where Buffy has gone. Cordelia is left bitter by the breakup and tries to go back to the way she was before hooking up with Xander.
  • Xander tracks Buffy down in LA and tries to convince her come back to Sunnydale. When Buffy returns to Sunnydale, Xander is happy to see her again.
  • Buffy is allowed back into high school thanks to some convincing on Giles’ part. Buffy's sister Dawn also joins Sunnydale High as a freshman. She uses her time at school partially to take closer peeks into Buffy's Slayer life which has her very interested. An interest that is giving Buffy headaches. Eventually Giles was able to convince Dawn to keep her snobbing to a mininium when he offers to teach her the ways of being a Watcher like himself so she could one day look after her sister if god forbid something happened to him. Dawn is overjoyed by the idea and gives close attention to Giles' mentoring.
  • Giles has cut off his ties with the Watchers’ Council after losing his trust in them following the reveal of traitors within the group who threaten Buffy's safety. But Giles refuses to hand Buffy over to another Watcher as long as those traitors are still out there. So the Watchers’ Council get their hands on another Slayer who was made possible by Kendra’s death: Faith. The Watchers’ Council assigns a Watcher named Wesley to Faith’s care and sends them off to Sunnydale to take Buffy and Giles’ places in Sunnydale, by force if necessary. But somehow Giles makes a deal with Wesley to let him and Buffy stay in Sunnydale and continue doing what they doing as long as Wesley and Faith are included. Wesley makes up some story to make the Watchers’ Council to settle with this decision for now. But Giles fears there’s just a matter of time before the Watchers’ Council finds an excuse to kick Buffy off her place as the Slayer. So Giles warns Buffy to be very careful.
  • Xander becomes someone for Buffy to rely on since what happened to Angel. Xander eventually convinces Buffy to have a casual date with him but that was shortly before Angel returns from Hell. All of sudden, Buffy cancels her date with Xander and starts keeping him at a distance. Xander is at a loss over what caused this reaction from Buffy. Determined to find out, Xander ends up following Buffy to the place where Angel is living after his return from Hell. Xander is hurt by Buffy keeping Angel’s return a secret and shares it with the others.
  • During the confrontation scene between Buffy and her friends, Buffy is hurt when Xander blurts out about his knowledge of the re-souling spell before Buffy’s confrontation with Angelus.
  • The Mayor of Sunnydale is aware of the prophecy on Buffy and has factored it into his plan which he has chosen this year to set into motion after many, many years of planning.
  • Under the guise of a typical high school student, Anya becomes friends with Xander so she can get close enough to finds out the weaknesses within Buffy’s group and use them to undermine the Slayer, to stop the prophecy from unfolding into reality. She comes to see Cordelia as one of the weaknesses after her breakup with Xander. She seduces Cordelia into making a wish which she could use to her advantage and eventually Cordelia makes the wish of Buffy never coming to Sunnydale creating an alternate reality. But the plan backfired when things went back to normal thanks to the Giles from the alternate reality. Anya grows frustrated with her lack of progress making her vulnerable to Xander. Xander and Anya form an intimate bond.
  • As Willow delves herself into witchcraft; she fears what would become of it in the future since it was prophesized that a Slayer will bring an end to magic such as this.
  • Like the original, Faith goes bad and joins forces with the Mayor.
  • Late in the season, Xander finds out Anya is a demon creating a rift between them.
  • In the season finale, Buffy and her friends face their high school graduation. Anya leaves Sunnydale out of fear of the Mayor’s impending Ascension but before leaving Sunnydale, she confronts Xander with his feelings for Buffy. Angel does the same for Buffy before leaving Sunnydale after the battle with the Mayor.
  • Cordelia comes to terms with her breakup with Xander.
  • Buffy and Xander kiss among the ruins of Sunnydale High.
  • The season ends with Willow taking a tape that films the battle with the Mayor and sending it to the media for it to air which would expose the existence of vampires and demons to the general public. She thinks something like that happening would distract Buffy hopefully long enough so she won’t a chance to fulfill her destiny.
Thoughts?
 
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Sorry, Joe, but you completely missed the point here with this one on several levels:
1) Changing Faith's backstory completely nullifies the point of having the character involved in the story at all: she's meant to be a darker version of Buffy (she's what Buffy could have become without having 'grounding' elements in her life like a caring, if somewhat overbearing and clueless, mother, a mentor figure who was able to relate, at least in part, to her, and friends).

2) Changing the circumstances of Giles leaving the Watcher's Council also does severe damage to his character development because the circumstances under which the rift between him and the Council forms are the 'crux' upon which his entire relationship with Buffy going forward is based around.

3) Changing the nature of how Giles leaves the Council also changes Buffy's characterization substantially because she distances herself from the Council because of her loyalty to Giles, and because they deliberately put her life in danger and forced Giles to betray her trust.
 
Well, first of all Faith's backstory hasn't changed. She's still the troubled, unbalanced Slayer who had no one who cared about her in her life. A representation of Buffy's dark side.

Second, though Giles cuts off his ties with the Council because of the traitors within the group, he also does it because he has grown to care about Buffy the way a father cares about his daughter. And that love has changed him from a by-the-book Watcher to a rogue Watcher willing to sacrifice a lot to protect his surrogate daughter from harm and manipulation.

And third, Buffy distancing herself from the Council because of her loyalty to Giles still happens although it happens during Season 2 when Giles comes to believe that the Council isn't to be entirely trusted and its members may have been responsible for Angel turing evil which brought a lot of misery to Buffy's life. So that adds plenty to her distrust of the group.

So the reasons and backstories are the same, just not the causes.
 
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