Fic: Development Hell, chapter 1
Dec. 4th, 2012 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyRight, so here we go! Turns out the last-minute plotbunny I got for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
letsgetitdone opened up to a multi-chapter fic, which doesn't happen often. I think we're looking at something like 4 or 5 installments here, which should hopefully be posted over the next 2 weeks or so. Seriously, I have an outline and everything.
ETA: Something very weird seems to be happening with LJ right now, so if you've commented and your comment disappears, or this entire fic disappears, don't blame me, I didn't do it. Best comment at DW, I guess.
Title: Development Hell
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Fandom: Buffyverse, post-"Chosen"
Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~900 (this chapter)
Characters/Pairings: Let's see, there's Buffy, Andrew, Lorne, and a couple of OCs. Various other characters as well as canonical pairings will be alluded to, played with, and lovingly frosted with glucose. Also, any similarities to actual Hollywood actors are entirely coincidental, I swear.
Summary: While killing time in Rome, Buffy runs into a new Slayer with a shocking secret. Now, she's going to have to face her past to keep both herself and those around her from a Fate Worse Than Death... Hollywood.
Development Hell
Chapter 1: In which something funny is going on
Rome. The seven hills. City of kings, senators, emperors, popes, and fashion models. A city so old nobody even knows how deep down it goes. A city where you can, technically, toss a pebble without hitting something (and occasionally even someone) older than Columbus, but if you do, the pebble you threw will probably turn out to be part of something dating back to Caesar and worth a ton of dough.
At least it seems that way if you grew up in a town where hardly a single building is more than 20 years old.
So it seemed a bit weird to Buffy that there'd be an entrance to the catacombs in an ordinary apartment building. Sure, it didn't look as if anyone had bothered painting the facade since the war, but it was just an ordinary, slightly dilapitated apartment building on the edge of the centre of town, with people passing in and out even at this time of night, so they had to keep their weapons hidden. Buffy wondered if she'd already been in Rome too long, when the idea of heading down into catacombs dating back thousands of years seemed like an everyday chore.
Still, this wasn't the place to get philosophical. She had three new Slayers with her, looking to her for leadership and role modelness.
"Right... you," she started with a voice that hopefully sounded like she'd been here a hundred times before. After that thing two months ago she'd given Andrew very specific instructions not to hand her any girls who didn't speak English, so she should be in the clear language-wise (even if her Italian was getting pretty good - she'd already figured out "spaghetti", "pizza" and "espresso"). The tricky thing was always getting back into Buffy The Vampire Slayer mode every two weeks when she spent the rest of the time being Buffy The Expat on extended vacation. Not to mention keeping track of stuff like... names and backgrounds and stuff, and to stop mentally referring to the three girls with her as Huey, Dewey and Louie. But that's the reason she only handled simple recon missions where she could basically be a tour guide; the point wasn't to get them almost killed, but simply to give them a few hours with the original Slayer. A morale thing, according to Andrew. Buffy had a sneaky suspicion Dawn wanted her to do this because she thought Buffy would get cranky if she didn't get to kill things every other week, but of course that was ridiculous.
So, "Right... you," she said, "this is where we get into the catacombs. I want you to keep your weapons hidden until we get through the door, after that, keep them ready. Things could get ugly fast. Questions?"
"Uh, yeah." Dewey... One of the girls raised her hand; a blonde American wearing a top that Buffy would have been impressed with a few months ago, SoCal by the dialect. "What's our motivation in doing this?"
Buffy looked at the girl. "Well, um..."
"MacKenzie."
"Sorry, MacKenzie. We're going to kill vampires."
The girl actually picked up a notepad and wrote that down. "Yeah, but why? I mean, what do the vampires represent to us?"
"Um... they kill people by sucking blood and we have a sacred calling to stop them?"
MacKenzie shrugged and pocketed her notepad after a few quick scribbles. "I can work with that."
Buffy nodded. "Good. Alright then, Ashanti."
Huey and L... The Ugandan Slayer and the Russian Slayer exchanged a quick look behind Buffy's back as they headed into the perfectly normal 20th century lobby, went down a perfectly normal 20th century set of stairs, pushed a perfectly normal 20th century brick, and stepped into a secret passageway to a creepy old catacomb full of ancient bones. And this was where things started going seriously off-script.
Not that the vamps themselves (four scrawny-looking youngsters in t-shirts, probably former tourists who really should have been ashamed to nest in a place like this) should have been all that problematic. Two of the Slayers handled themselves perfectly, engaging their vamps without needing or expecting Buffy to help, not showing off more than they needed to. MacKenzie, however, wasn't quite as impressive. To be specific, she fumbled with her sword and dropped it as if it weighed way more than she was used to, and when she saw two vampires in gameface turn on her she ran screaming into a dead end, where she sat cowering as they advanced on her. "Hey!" Buffy tossed her a stake, which to her credit MacKenzie tried and failed to catch. "Oh, for the love of ..." Buffy rolled her eyes, pulled out her backup stake and dispatched the two vamps in roughly 1.9 seconds.
MacKenzie sat in her corner, wide-eyed with shock. "Those were... those were real vampires!"
Buffy pulled her to her feet. "Uh-huh. And if you're a Slayer, I'm the pope. Who are you, and how did you get on this..." She almost said 'tour.' "...mission?"
MacKenzie looked at Buffy as if that was the dumbest question she'd ever heard and finally responded: "You mean you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"I'm you, of course. I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
To which Buffy could only gape in open-mouthed surprise for a few seconds before retorting, "Chi cosa come eh?!?"
On to chapter 2
letsgetitdone opened up to a multi-chapter fic, which doesn't happen often. I think we're looking at something like 4 or 5 installments here, which should hopefully be posted over the next 2 weeks or so. Seriously, I have an outline and everything.ETA: Something very weird seems to be happening with LJ right now, so if you've commented and your comment disappears, or this entire fic disappears, don't blame me, I didn't do it. Best comment at DW, I guess.
Title: Development Hell
Author: Beer Good (
beer_good_foamy)Fandom: Buffyverse, post-"Chosen"
Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~900 (this chapter)
Characters/Pairings: Let's see, there's Buffy, Andrew, Lorne, and a couple of OCs. Various other characters as well as canonical pairings will be alluded to, played with, and lovingly frosted with glucose. Also, any similarities to actual Hollywood actors are entirely coincidental, I swear.
Summary: While killing time in Rome, Buffy runs into a new Slayer with a shocking secret. Now, she's going to have to face her past to keep both herself and those around her from a Fate Worse Than Death... Hollywood.
Development Hell
Chapter 1: In which something funny is going on
Rome. The seven hills. City of kings, senators, emperors, popes, and fashion models. A city so old nobody even knows how deep down it goes. A city where you can, technically, toss a pebble without hitting something (and occasionally even someone) older than Columbus, but if you do, the pebble you threw will probably turn out to be part of something dating back to Caesar and worth a ton of dough.
At least it seems that way if you grew up in a town where hardly a single building is more than 20 years old.
So it seemed a bit weird to Buffy that there'd be an entrance to the catacombs in an ordinary apartment building. Sure, it didn't look as if anyone had bothered painting the facade since the war, but it was just an ordinary, slightly dilapitated apartment building on the edge of the centre of town, with people passing in and out even at this time of night, so they had to keep their weapons hidden. Buffy wondered if she'd already been in Rome too long, when the idea of heading down into catacombs dating back thousands of years seemed like an everyday chore.
Still, this wasn't the place to get philosophical. She had three new Slayers with her, looking to her for leadership and role modelness.
"Right... you," she started with a voice that hopefully sounded like she'd been here a hundred times before. After that thing two months ago she'd given Andrew very specific instructions not to hand her any girls who didn't speak English, so she should be in the clear language-wise (even if her Italian was getting pretty good - she'd already figured out "spaghetti", "pizza" and "espresso"). The tricky thing was always getting back into Buffy The Vampire Slayer mode every two weeks when she spent the rest of the time being Buffy The Expat on extended vacation. Not to mention keeping track of stuff like... names and backgrounds and stuff, and to stop mentally referring to the three girls with her as Huey, Dewey and Louie. But that's the reason she only handled simple recon missions where she could basically be a tour guide; the point wasn't to get them almost killed, but simply to give them a few hours with the original Slayer. A morale thing, according to Andrew. Buffy had a sneaky suspicion Dawn wanted her to do this because she thought Buffy would get cranky if she didn't get to kill things every other week, but of course that was ridiculous.
So, "Right... you," she said, "this is where we get into the catacombs. I want you to keep your weapons hidden until we get through the door, after that, keep them ready. Things could get ugly fast. Questions?"
"Uh, yeah." Dewey... One of the girls raised her hand; a blonde American wearing a top that Buffy would have been impressed with a few months ago, SoCal by the dialect. "What's our motivation in doing this?"
Buffy looked at the girl. "Well, um..."
"MacKenzie."
"Sorry, MacKenzie. We're going to kill vampires."
The girl actually picked up a notepad and wrote that down. "Yeah, but why? I mean, what do the vampires represent to us?"
"Um... they kill people by sucking blood and we have a sacred calling to stop them?"
MacKenzie shrugged and pocketed her notepad after a few quick scribbles. "I can work with that."
Buffy nodded. "Good. Alright then, Ashanti."
Huey and L... The Ugandan Slayer and the Russian Slayer exchanged a quick look behind Buffy's back as they headed into the perfectly normal 20th century lobby, went down a perfectly normal 20th century set of stairs, pushed a perfectly normal 20th century brick, and stepped into a secret passageway to a creepy old catacomb full of ancient bones. And this was where things started going seriously off-script.
Not that the vamps themselves (four scrawny-looking youngsters in t-shirts, probably former tourists who really should have been ashamed to nest in a place like this) should have been all that problematic. Two of the Slayers handled themselves perfectly, engaging their vamps without needing or expecting Buffy to help, not showing off more than they needed to. MacKenzie, however, wasn't quite as impressive. To be specific, she fumbled with her sword and dropped it as if it weighed way more than she was used to, and when she saw two vampires in gameface turn on her she ran screaming into a dead end, where she sat cowering as they advanced on her. "Hey!" Buffy tossed her a stake, which to her credit MacKenzie tried and failed to catch. "Oh, for the love of ..." Buffy rolled her eyes, pulled out her backup stake and dispatched the two vamps in roughly 1.9 seconds.
MacKenzie sat in her corner, wide-eyed with shock. "Those were... those were real vampires!"
Buffy pulled her to her feet. "Uh-huh. And if you're a Slayer, I'm the pope. Who are you, and how did you get on this..." She almost said 'tour.' "...mission?"
MacKenzie looked at Buffy as if that was the dumbest question she'd ever heard and finally responded: "You mean you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"I'm you, of course. I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
To which Buffy could only gape in open-mouthed surprise for a few seconds before retorting, "Chi cosa come eh?!?"
On to chapter 2
no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 07:21 am (UTC)Buffy had a sneaky suspicion Dawn wanted her to do this because she thought Buffy would get cranky if she didn't get to kill things every other week, but of course that was ridiculous.
Bwahaha! Oh, Buffy.
All the little language bits were hilarious, and built beautifully. I didn't think you were going to be able to top "Ashanti", but then you did!
"Chi cosa come eh?!?"
So say we all. *wipes eyes*
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 01:16 pm (UTC)Got to give Mackenzie props for using the method.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-12-08 08:04 pm (UTC)"What's our motivation in doing this?"
The girl actually picked up a notepad and wrote that down. "Yeah, but why? I mean, what do the vampires represent to us?"
"Um... they kill people by sucking blood and we have a sacred calling to stop them?"
MacKenzie shrugged and pocketed her notepad after a few quick scribbles. "I can work with that."
Oh god that was CHOICE. (I didn't get until five seconds ago that Mackenzie is an "actor")
"Chi cosa come eh?!?"
That is just SO very Buffy. This must be the multi-chapter fic you mentioned to me in a convo the other day? I can't wait to read the rest of it. (I tend towards angst a lot of times in my reading, so this is a refreshing palate cleanser, like lemon sorbet, in comparison.)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
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