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Post by Riff on Apr 28, 2005 11:56:56 GMT -5
But we already fit an extra 6 Wednesdays into our week! Now you want spare Thursdays too? Sheesh! For the record, Riff finished Happy Endings before submitting it to the masses. It was the decision of the staff (read: me) to dole it out over weeks. It's really a win/win situation for us all. The spreading out helps make the story feel like a "season 6" and keeps those lacking self-control from eating it all in one sitting, thereby providing entertainment over weeks instead of an hour or two. Let me jsut say that I believe you will find each chapter more engrossing and entertaining than the last all the way to the conclusion. Thank you, Riff, for providing us with this great diversion. I now return this thread to the author. Vlad *takes back the thread* ;D Thank you for all your kind words, Vlad. Riff.
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Post by Riff on Apr 28, 2005 11:57:59 GMT -5
I loved the whole thing! You captured each character's voice superbly and kept me hanging on for more. Not much with the physics in RL, but wow! I am impressed. Thank you for a wonderful work, Riff! We need more. Please? Thank you so much, Onjel. It’s fantastic to know that the writing has worked for you. There’s one more chapter to go, a sort of epilogue. There may be a surprise or two left. Riff.
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Post by Riff on Apr 28, 2005 12:01:43 GMT -5
*laughs* Perhaps you’ll feel differently after you read next week’s (final) chapter. I still have time to kill everyone. ;D Seriously and sincerely, thank you for your appreciation. {{Anne}} I saw and heard it all quite vividly in my imagination, and it’s good to hear that the language managed to convey that. Thank you again, Anne! Riff.
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Post by Riff on Apr 28, 2005 12:07:53 GMT -5
I'm so late in commenting on Chapter 6, sorry! *laughs* {{Karen}} Really? I thought he was portrayed as quite a sympathetic character. ;D ;D *smiles* Knox just brings that out in people. It seemed right, somehow. And, BTW, I also have an AtS ringtone. Just imagine what a combination of vengeful Fred and Illyria would be like, or what Illyria as a weapon in vengeful Fred’s “hands” would be like… You’re cleverer than Wes! It felt appropriate to have Feigenbaum as the key to Illyria’s paper, and it also made quite a bit of sense. *smiles* I like Vic. In some ways, the chapter is about ambiguous morals. Angel and Spike’s demon selves are allowed to come (a little) closer to the surface when they confront Knox. We see Fred/Illyria’s vengeance and a vampire with no soul who is presumably clean of human blood. The point, I think, is that Vic may be less evil than Sparrow, who was human. Thank you, Karen!! I hope you enjoy Chapter Eight. Riff.
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Apr 28, 2005 13:23:33 GMT -5
*laughs* Perhaps you’ll feel differently after you read next week’s (final) chapter. I still have time to kill everyone. ;D Seriously and sincerely, thank you for your appreciation. {{Anne}} I saw and heard it all quite vividly in my imagination, and it’s good to hear that the language managed to convey that. Thank you again, Anne! Riff. I can only imagine... I trust you, though, as much as I'd trust any writer of Joss's angst-filled universe. Whatever happens, I'm sure it follows logically and is appropriate to the characters.
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Post by Riff on Apr 28, 2005 14:34:26 GMT -5
I can only imagine... I trust you, though, as much as I'd trust any writer of Joss's angst-filled universe. Whatever happens, I'm sure it follows logically and is appropriate to the characters. Thank you. I don't think there's much to worry about.
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Post by Aboynamedduke on Apr 28, 2005 17:58:54 GMT -5
Seriously Riff, all I can say in response to this episode- thats right, I think of them as episodes now- is Thank You! The whole time reading this series I've been engrossed but still a little worried about how it was gonna turn out. Your ability to write these characters is so accurate and your interpretation of them is so similar to mine that I was very hopeful you'd do right by me (and do right by Wes and Fred). However, there was always the lingering fear that your Happy Endings title would be an ironic one. I'm aware that theres another chapter to come, but after Freds return in this one, nothing can be too bad again. Even if they all die at the end, I will consider it happy because Wes and Freds souls will be together as they deserve to be. Really man, reading this and considering it the sixth season relieves the depression that has crept into the Angelverse since Fred's ghastly "death" mid-season five. Can't wait to read the final episode and once again, Thank You!
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Post by William the Bloody on Apr 28, 2005 18:30:30 GMT -5
<snip> *laughs* Perhaps you’ll feel differently after you read next week’s (final) chapter. I still have time to kill everyone. ;D <snip> Oh that's just mean! Really! Besides, I thought the decision for Wesley to come out of the shower and find Fred in his bed and the whole fifth season jsut a dream to be a marvelous bit of imagination. Vlad
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Post by Lola m on Apr 28, 2005 21:03:45 GMT -5
Well – another four chapters caught up on! And may I say bravo, sir!
Loved it all.
All the funny bits, like: Pammy the double agent (“what was it with him and robot girls, anyway?”); Angel and Spike being all nonchalant with each other after the robot attack; “You know Barry didn’t write that, don’t you?”; “I’ll just wait outside then”; “We were doing good cop, bad cop?” “Well, yeah. I thought you knew.” “I’m the bad cop, right?” “I’m the bad cop”; Spike’s Simpsons playing phone getting calls from Forehead Boy; Angel and “we have to do math?”.
All the sweet and sad bits, like: Spike thinking he’d like it if Dawn and him were still friends and remembering Fred in a similar sister/only friend kind of way; Wes talking about how Fred knew how to endure, how to hide; Wes thinking he knew how the function-less robots felt and thinking “He’d already failed her with self-indulgent despair; he wasn’t about to do the same thing by wallowing in joy” (that’s just so Wes); Lorne and Frillyria singing RESPECT; Lorne and Spike all smiley and happy and “She’s got soul”; Angel thinking Wes would always have a whisper of dark around him; Illyria telling Knox “You condemned me to live in this shell, diminished, in this place”; Wes and Fred in Pylea and the Hyperion and then, real and alive and here.
How you pulled together the science and the history of the show to make a workable, plausible (for the Jossverse) solution! Two auras, Illyrian and Fred both in there, both of them throwing a spanner (or a butterfly) into the works of the unknown big big big bad that’s been putting all this in motion. Mandelbrot fractals and the coming together of chaos theory, string theory, and quantum mechanics – the observer creates the results – the cat is both dead and alive – all possibilities exist at the quantum level, eh? Billy to Skip to Wes to Jasmine to Connor to W&H to Frillyira. An arrow shot from season one (heck, season one of BtVS) right to now. You really did an excellent job of working with all we’ve seen over the years and putting all the pieces together to make a puzzle picture all your own. Very very very nice.
But . . . . are we really in happy land? We’re close to the end, but . . .. Are we gonna have trouble with the folks who’ve been pulling the puppet strings? Hmmmmmmmm. May 7th, May 7th May 7th. Gosh. That’s coming up pretty soon isn’t it? Should I be worried?
Lola
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Post by Riff on Apr 29, 2005 13:00:09 GMT -5
Seriously Riff, all I can say in response to this episode- thats right, I think of them as episodes now- is Thank You! The whole time reading this series I've been engrossed but still a little worried about how it was gonna turn out. Your ability to write these characters is so accurate and your interpretation of them is so similar to mine that I was very hopeful you'd do right by me (and do right by Wes and Fred). However, there was always the lingering fear that your Happy Endings title would be an ironic one. I'm aware that theres another chapter to come, but after Freds return in this one, nothing can be too bad again. Even if they all die at the end, I will consider it happy because Wes and Freds souls will be together as they deserve to be. Really man, reading this and considering it the sixth season relieves the depression that has crept into the Angelverse since Fred's ghastly "death" mid-season five. Can't wait to read the final episode and once again, Thank You! Hello, again! It sounds like we very much see eye to eye about the latter part of AtS Season Five. You know, I think some characters may have too strong a hold on our imaginations for them to be lost. As far as I’m concerned, there is overwhelming evidence suggesting Fred’s continued survival. That linked in my mind with the puppets/shells theme, because it seemed baffling to me that none of the characters had even considered the possibility, when it was being continually waved in their faces. As for what you say about Fred’s and Wes’s souls, they are perfect partners, after all. I agree that things became rather unwholesome after Fred’s apparent demise. But I can’t help feeling that, had AtS continued, we would have seen that relieved somehow. The fic is just my take on that, but the events of the story seem completely logical to me. Thank you!
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Post by Riff on Apr 29, 2005 13:01:03 GMT -5
Oh that's just mean! Really! Besides, I thought the decision for Wesley to come out of the shower and find Fred in his bed and the whole fifth season jsut a dream to be a marvelous bit of imagination. Vlad *gasps* Vlad’s posting spoilers! ;D
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Post by Queen E on Apr 29, 2005 13:06:40 GMT -5
*gasps* Vlad’s posting spoilers! ;D Yes, and I'll come right out and say that your next fic is a BtVS/Falcon Crest crossover.
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Post by Riff on Apr 29, 2005 13:08:13 GMT -5
Well – another four chapters caught up on! And may I say bravo, sir! Loved it all. All the funny bits, like: Pammy the double agent (“what was it with him and robot girls, anyway?”); Angel and Spike being all nonchalant with each other after the robot attack; “You know Barry didn’t write that, don’t you?”; “I’ll just wait outside then”; “We were doing good cop, bad cop?” “Well, yeah. I thought you knew.” “I’m the bad cop, right?” “I’m the bad cop”; Spike’s Simpsons playing phone getting calls from Forehead Boy; Angel and “we have to do math?”. Thank you, Lola! It’s feels good to read that you enjoyed those moments – I certainly had quite a few laughs writing them! One of many exceptional things about the Jossverse is its humour, so I find it a real compliment that some of the attempts at humour in the fic were successful for you. *smiles* The AtS characters practically wrote the story themselves. Some of those moments you mention brought a tear or two to my eye. {{Lola}} That sounds about right. And you picked up on the quantum cat – Schrodinger's Fred! The “butterfly” element of (quantum) unpredictability and uncontrollability, operating against determinism, appeals to me. I started to think about the causal flow of events in the series, and what events might be seen apparently opposing it. It was fun. Not unduly. There are one or two surprises to come, but as for what sort of surprises they are – I’ll never tell. I realised a while ago that the last chapter would be going out on 5th May. Shall I ask Vlad to delay it for a couple of days? ;D BTW, the dates come from various sources. We know from Fred’s “Missing” flier that she disappeared on 7th May 1996. We learn in “Belonging” that Fred vanished five years ago, one episode later (“Over the Rainbow”) we hear that Lorne came to this dimension five years ago. Thinking about what the significance of that might be, I realised that at that stage we are five years into the Jossverse. Hmmm. Looking further, I noticed that “Seeing Red” and “Home” were both originally aired on 7th May. This is all conspiracy-theory type pattern-making, but I think I’m allowed, since this is fiction. Many, many thanks for your wonderful feedback! Riff.
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Post by Squeemonster on May 1, 2005 16:39:19 GMT -5
"Her eyes became more focused and she looked at them all, a grin starting to appear. 'I knew you'd come through for me, boys.'"
*happy sigh*
This was such a beautiful chapter, Riff! Lola and Aboynamedduke pretty much summed up everything I feel about this chapter, so I don't have much more to add.
But, I will say this--any story that can make me feel angsty, and make me laugh, cry, and finish it off with a big, goofy smile on my face--all in one chapter--is a very good story indeed.
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Post by Riff on May 1, 2005 18:28:02 GMT -5
Yes, and I'll come right out and say that your next fic is a BtVS/Falcon Crest crossover. It could happen. Remember Simon McCorkindale (how could anyone forget that name?) in Falcon Crest? Well he starred in the air-bladder extravaganza that was Manimal! He would arrive in Sunnydale as a wereomnianimal and… ;D Riff.
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