Season Six - A Kitten Rewrite - Discussion Thread

[LostWithoutTara]

'Carrion' is a good title.



I'm sketching out part three at the moment and have written a few of the non-key scenes.



With regards to the spell, should Willow still need the vino de madre and other ingredients? It might be interesting to rewrite the scene with her killing the fawn but actually having her thoughts on having to do it.

Edited by: LostWithoutTara at: 7/22/03 1:32 pm

[LostWithoutTara]

Oh, double post.



Anyway, I'm keeping this a separate post as I've had an idea for later on. Due to the call for Tara to get some slaying action and also the bringing in of outside characters to help ground the gang, I'd like to suggest that Warren ( ) gets killed and vamped ( ) and Tara dusts him. I feel it would be rather karmic. What do you think?

[justin]

Regarding the vino de madre, I think we should keep that. I think it would be good to read Willows thoughts about it would be good. Willow seemed to calm as she was doing it on the show.



As for Tara staking vamp Warren, I like that idea.



A better idea would be for Tara to cover Warren in bar-b-q sauce then set a hoard of flesh eating ants on him. Though thats probably not a very Tara like thing to do.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[LostWithoutTara]

Quote:

---

Tara to cover Warren in bar-b-q sauce then set a hoard of flesh eating ants on him.

---

[chilled monkey]

I very much disliked the vino de madre, so if it was up to me only I would probably leave it out. However, as you are showing how Willow feels about it, maybe it won't be so bad.



As for Tara dusting vampWarren, I say go for it!



On a similar note, as vampires are being brought back into focus, I think we should have some new vampire characters (characters, not just nameless cannon-fodder). Perhaps some of them could be recurring villains. A Jared Nomak type villain would be really cool.

[LostWithoutTara]

Here's the 6.3 layout so far. Lots of scenes, but the majority will be fairly short.



-Open on Willow killing the fawn to obtain its blood. Her thoughts, feelings etc. She now has all the ingredients for the spell except the Urn Of Osiris and some powder.



-Tara dropping Dawn off at school while Willow is (secretly) obtaining the blood. Bonding with D/T. Dawn slips away from the school building once Tara has driven away.



-Giles at the Watcher’s Council. Filling in the gaps of the Slayer mythology, general discussion about what will happen now Buffy is dead.



-At home, W/T hunt online for the Urn and discover that the final one is actually believed to be located in Sunnydale. Willow is quite shaky following the events of the morning.



-Janice in class at the school. Dawn is absent from roll call for the 3rd/4th time.



-Dawn at Buffy’s grave. Her thoughts and feelings about B’s death.



-W visits ‘The Alibi’ to try and obtain info on the Urn’s location. She obtains info on a man named Gabriel after threatening Willy the Snitch.



-Tara at the MB buying the powder for the spell, general apprehension from X/A.



-W goes to Gabriel. He offers her the Urn in exchange for a talisman from the MB.



-T/D at home. Dawn is edgy when Tara asks her about her day at school following her absence.



-W goes to the Magic Box and takes the talisman, then gives it to Gabriel, in exchange for the Urn.



-Night’s patrol. The gang tries to help a group of young teens who are attacked by vamps, but Willow is still wiped from 6.1/6.2 and the use of powerful magics and some are killed. W is incredibly upset.



-W/T’s bedroom. T attempts to console W, who blames herself. W pretends to be okay for Tara’s benefit, but is still deeply upset.



Comments? Questions?

[chilled monkey]

I like it. It sounds very good. As regards the VDM, I think it would be a good idea if at some point in the series Willow confesses to Tara exactly what it involves.



Just to clarify, the talisman that Willow swaps for the urn is not the same one that she is given later in the series, is it?

[justin]

I like the layout you've got. It looks very interesting.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[LostWithoutTara]

I'm glad you like the layout. With regards to the talisman, I think it would be okay if the one Willow gives to Gabriel would be the one he gives to her (if that makes any sense whatsoever). We'll just have to make sure to keep up with the continuity. I might revise the season layout slightly to include the other ideas we've had since the last one.



Side note - Justin, did you get my second beta? My computer went funny when I hit send, so I don't know what happened to the message and if you received it.

Edited by: LostWithoutTara at: 7/27/03 11:55 am

[justin]

I haven't received it. I guess that it must have gotten lost in the ether.



Edited to add, I hope that I'm not jumping the gun but I've been thinking about the fourth episode and I'd just like to go over my ideas for the tests.



My idea is that each person has to perform a task which relates to resurrecting Buffy and they each have a guide who helps them with the task while challenging them on their beliefs.



Tara has to ring a bell in order to open the door to the halls of death. She'd guided by Dark Magic Willow who questions her on the different types of magic. In particular they talk about the difference between ritual magic and snappy finger magic and where the energy for the spells comes from.



Anya has to find the book of death. She's guided by Halfrek and has visions of people she has cursed in the past and also people that she's going to curse in the future.



Xander has to find the book of life. He's guided by Anya and after getting the book he has to watch as she's killed by vampires. Basicaly I was thinking that later when we get to the episode where Xander dies, this scene would be repeated but Xander would sacrifice himself to save Anya.



Willow has to erase Buffy's name from the book of death and write it in the book of life. She's guided by Buffy, who is enraged over having been pulled out of heaven and attacks Willow.



What do you all think?

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

Edited by: justin at: 7/28/03 2:43 am

[chilled monkey]

Justin: I really like that idea! I think that it's a lot more interesting if all of the Gang have a specific role rather than Willow having to do it all herself.



My knowledge of mythology is limited, but I like the use of the Books of Life and Death.

[LostWithoutTara]

Justin: That sounds excellent. The Egyptian mythology would work perfectly - after all, we are using the Urn of Osiris. The Xanya vision would also be good foreshadowing.

[darkmagicwillow]

I like the scene breakdown too, though I wonder if you plan to make Janice a regular viewpoint character. I like the vino de madre myself as it's such a powerful scene coming from innocent "avoid the horsies" Willow, and it should evoke some strong emotions from her as well as Tara when she discovers it.



CM, I like the idea of vampires with personalities, who are more than random monsters. Sunday in The Freshman is an excellent example of how to create such a character within the space of a single episode. What do you think of a snobby, fashionable Cordelia-like vampire as Willow's nemesis for a single episode or so?



Justin, I sent off my second beta to you a few minutes ago. I think your ideas for involving Egyptian myth are well thought out, and interestingly, it works in with the ghoul story of chapter 2 as Set tore Osiris' body apart to prevent his return.



I'd like to see a richer myth for Willow's test though I like the basic concept of moving the name between the books of the dead and life. What about having her tests follow the idea of the Book of Gates, which describes resurrection in terms of Re passing through 12 gates, the 12 hours of night between sunset and dawn? In particular, the evil serpent Apophis bars the way at several of the gates. He's slain by a cat in another book, which offers MKF a place as Willow's animal spirit guide, very appropriate given the role of cats in Egyptian myth.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[justin]

I've received the betas from both Lost Without Tara and Dark Magick Willow. I'll work on the final revisions over the next couple of days.



Regarding Willow having a Cordelia like Vamp nemesis, what about Harmony? The fact that she knows Willow and used to be a Cordette means she'll be able to hurt Willow a lot more than other vampires.



Also I think that being reminded of her geek infested roots in such a painful passion would push Willow to using more powerful magic in order to prove that she isn't that person any more.



DMW, those are some good ideas. I'll look into them. I like the idea of MKF being Willow's animal guide.



Though I have to confess that when you mentioned the book of Gates I immediately had the idea of Willow being set some impossible task involving Windows



Maybe something like

Set: In order to resurrect Buffy you must configure the network card on this computer under Windows NT 4.0



Willow: That's easy



Set: Without rebooting.



Willow: Nooooooooo!



Or perhaps not

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[darkmagicwillow]

Harmony could be a great idea if we can show that she learned something while she's been away from Sunnydale, that is, if she's learned to grow from a follower Cordette to a full fledged evil Cordy who knows how to use her past history with the Scoobies to push them off balance.



And no, I had nothing in mind quite as evil as that Gates.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[chilled monkey]

I think you could be on to something here. My only request would be that Harmony gets dusted by Willow. Perhaps Willow could kill her in an especially painful way as foreshadowing?



And I like the use of Miss Kitty. Does this mean that she is going to be featured regularly in the series?

[justin]

I've decided to scrap my origional idea since after doing some research it turns out that the idea of the book of death/book of life is Hebrew in origin rather then Egyptian.



I'm still working on the details of the ritual but I have a rough outline.



The spell to resurrect Buffy was found in a copy of the Reu nu pert em hru. This literally means The book of coming forth by day, though it was initialy mistranslated as The book of the dead.



This was a book of spells and rituals regarding the afterlife that would be buried along with the body, the size and quality depending on how wealthy they were.



The spell will also involve the book of gates, the book of am duat and the book of caverns.



The main theme of the ritual will involve the scoobies having to find Buffy's ba, ka and akh - the three parts of her soul - and reunite it with her khat, her body.



I am going to keep the scenes involving Willow and Tara arguing about types of magic, Anya seeing past and future victims and Xander seeing Anya die.



Any comments to the outline so far or pointers to reference material will be greatly appreciated.



ETA, I've posted part 2



Tags LostWithoutTara back

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

Edited by: justin at: 7/30/03 8:41 am

[darkmagicwillow]

I like your revisions of the ritual. While I'm not an expert on Egypt, I recently asked Triscuit, our resident kitten Egyptologist, about which books I should buy on Egyptian myth and she recommended:

    David, Rosalie,  various books

    Redford, Donald, _Oxford Essential Guide to Egyptian Mythologies_

    Redford, Donald, _Ancient Gods Speak_

    Armour, Robert, _Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt_

    Jacq, Christian, _Egyptian Magic_

    Alston, Ervin, _Egyptian Cinderella and Other Fairy Tales_

    Shorter, Alan W, _Egyptian Gods: A Handbook_

    Spence, Lewis, _Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends_

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 7/30/03 4:35 pm

[LostWithoutTara]

Hi everyone. I just wanted to say that I AM writing part three, I'm just suffering from some awful writer's block at the moment which is why things are a bit slow. Hopefully, I'll have it finished by Sunday, but possibly sooner.



DMW and Justin - are you still okay to beta it for me?

[chilled monkey]

No problem, take all the time you need. I hate writer's block.



One idea that was discussed earlier would be to have Tara's 'challenge' include her and Willow's different attitudes to magick. Tara sees it as something sacred (a religion and a way of life). Willow sees it merely as a source of power. I think it would be a good idea to include that.

[justin]

DMW, thanks for the references. I'm not sure that my local libraray has any of those books, but they'll make good starting points for web searches.



LWT, yes, I'll be glad to beta part three for you.



Chilled Monkey, I'm planning on their different attitudes to magic being major part of Tara's challenge.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[darkmagicwillow]

As of today, I'm still up for beta'ing, but that status might change later in the week.



I like the idea of their different attitudes towards magic being part of the challenge; I like to see an episode which avoids the mistake that so many fics make of making one of them clearly right and the other clearly wrong on this subject.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[LostWithoutTara]

W/T's attitudes to magic will be good to examine. If Willow is to act as Tara's guide during her test, I think it would be good if Tara first sees Willow as the woman she knows and loves, but during their conversation Willow's appearance would gradually change to that of her dark magic persona. It would act as a good metaphor for Tara's fear that Willow is slipping away from her ("Tough Love") and provide some foreshadowing of Willow's eventual transformation later in the Season.

[LostWithoutTara]

Hi everyone. Just so you know, ep three is two-thirds done. I would have finished it sooner, but family stuff combined with my general apathetic behaviour due to the UK's current heat wave has wiped me out a little. Will definitely be finished soon.

[darkmagicwillow]

I'm eagerly anticipating the next episode and I think this season has a lot of potential, but I'll be too busy to beta any episodes for the rest of the year.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[LostWithoutTara]

Hi everyone again. At the moment, I've almost finished the part. Now that the A-Level results have finally been published and I don't have the huge weight on my shoulders as to if I'll get in to uni (I will - got all 'A' grades - woo-hoo!) things should move faster.



Still a few scenes to go. I'm having trouble with some of it, but I'm sure we can iron it out with betaing once I finally finish the damn thing.



Speaking of betaing, will anyone be able to be second beta?

[Devious One 2003]

I was just wondering, have you all posted the first episode yet? Or is it still in the works?

[justin]

The first and second eps are here

Socialism is all very well in practice, but does it work in theory? - Stephen Fry

[darkmagicwillow]

Sorry about not being able to help further, but I'm really busy with my new job and moving; you might want to look over at the beta readers' thread.



Oh, and LWT, could you link the first post to the thread where the actual updates are being posted?

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[LostWithoutTara]

I've posted the link to the thread in the first post.



DMW - No problems. I'm going to be moving soon myself, so I get the time-consuming nature of it. All the best with the move and your job.

Edited by: LostWithoutTara at: 8/16/03 2:48 am