#I'm just now noticing but I don't think we've mentioned giles like at all since my first response

[camellcat]

life is slightly kinder in this au and therefor having kinky vampire sex is NOT a bad thing she deserves to be crucified for!! big wins for the buffster. (#normal again is such an interesting ep because i dont hc buffy as feeling any shame about these relationships but i think the psych ward#that alternate buffy is in would pathologize and shame her SO MUCH for having poly queer vampire relationships. lmaoooooo though this has me laughing a bit. yeah omg psych!buffy would be losing her SHIT)

I like that you include xander onto that list of people buffy would be open with. surprised me a bit but honestly now that we're not dealing with a xander that had to watch angel and buffy date in high school yeah he probably wouldn't be such an ass about her vampire lovers. xander is her best friend, he would get to know. anya would know bc she's downright nosy, and, hey, a bit of gossip is always fun, even when the gossip is just you talking about yourself. anya would totally be fun to talk to, and honestly probably informative for buffy. jenny!! oh my god I've said this before that I don't think giles should've been their only trusted adult and I'm just now realizing like JENNY JENNY HELP THEM!!!!! thank god for jenny. I don't think buffy would talk with her but yeah jenny would know that makes sense to me. and love tara she would totally know the most bc for some reason buffy and tara just really seem to connect over topics that no one else would get

now willow is interesting. she SHOULD be someone buffy can turn to, because it's been willow and buffy since the beginning, but she's not. I loveeeee love love love how you described about willow's reaction to buffy finding just a bit of fucking happiness in her relationships. and jenny's reaction to willow. so good so good

#**ALSO it is real to me that xander and anya have their wedding planned out as per canon and then instead of breaking up they elope#to vegas. and then shortly after being married they separate and the plot continues much the same as canon only they are semi-divorced

OWWW you're still breaking them up? I mean I'm glad we're not having xander walk out on anya because that was ATROCIOUS behaviour from mr loyal over there and I couldn't believe my eyes watching that episode, but ouchie. but also I think this is potential for funnies. it'd still work with their dynamic now that xander didn't leave her in a god-awful way

spuffsilla dynamic oooo oo oo oo. the scene where riley finds them being even worse thanks to dru also being antagonistic is amazing. cause yeah no they should be actually fuck that guy get your kicks in you silly vampires. but also, buffy is NOT appreciating it. still unhealthy but not as bad as canon..... yeah I can take that. as long as we're not talkin buffy's fun fisticuffs and spike's misery manipulation I'm down. also duh it's rough buffy's bored without at least a little bit of a fight somewhere in there whether that's just in the sex or part of the relationship itself. I mean doesn't have to be abusive but she needs to be challenged and spike and dru will CERTAINLY give her one

GAH?! omgggg the scenes with angel are melting meeee. ofccc angel would get all I don't think I'm good for you :( good on buffy reminding him that's silly stupid. sooo cute.

and darla, ha! <3 wonderful wonderful. buffy would totally sputter and snap about it, until spike and dru get in their claims too. gotta let everyone know that girl is TAKEN! I think angel would be too embarrassed to kiss her like that in public but he makes up for it in private. beginning of the infamous vampire harem indeed

theres an au somewhere in which the romani spellcaster that curses angelus doesnt just curse angelus, but rather curses every vampire of the aurelian line in a, say, twelve mile radius to get their soul back.

it's rough, especially for the first few years. spike's the weepiest, but angel takes it the hardest, oddly enough. dru's absolutely nutty over it, but she's always nuts, and anyway, having the three of them to wrangle gives darla something to focus on other than the weight of her sins. they manage.

(one thing she does is research what, exactly, has been done to them. when she finds out about the loophole - even a moment's happiness - there is a gut-lurching second where darla thinks to herself, i can end our agony. and then she thinks of her last kill, a young couple and their toddler. the father had begged darla to spare the little child's life, to take him instead. the mother had clawed at darla, covering her child with her body, screaming as she died.

rather than find that moment's happiness, darla begins new research, looking into ways to secure an immortal soul to a vampire's body permanently. closing the loop, as it were.)

spike eventually gets it into his head that he wants to do the slayer thing - not kill them, like he'd planned, but to help the poor girls. dru gives him the idea. angel leaves them, at that point, in the dead of night, without telling them where he's going. darla lets him go.

there's a girl in peking - xin, her name is, and she's understandably skeptical, but she accepts their help. they fight with her until she dies, a few months later, at the hands of an apocalypse. it breaks spike and dru quite badly - cuts spike's face up, too. darla gets them out, gets them back to europe. leaves them in italy. looks for angel.

she finds him eating rats in new york city, of all places. she shakes some sense into him and gets him some clean clothes, some blood, a place to sleep out of the sun. he's wallowing, which is to be expected, but how does he figure he's going to atone for his sins if he's rotting in the gutter like so much trash?

she's too practical, he tells her. he's too fucking dramatic, she tells him, and makes him eat some more pig's blood, cold.

darla tells him about spike and dru, what they've been up to these past few decades. he shudders when she tells him about xin, her throat ripped out by enemy fangs. angel's intrigued by the concept of helping slayers, but he confesses quietly to darla that he's not ready for that yet.

so they part ways again, with the understanding that they'll stay in touch. darla bounces around the americas, running into spike and dru - sometimes just dru, as spike is off chasing rumors of slayers - until the late 1990s, when she gets a call from angel.

angel's found a girl, and he wants to get the gang back together.