The Dream Quest of Unknown Me

Ever wonder what happened to the baby in "NFA"? To be perfectly honest I never did because I was so upset by the cliff-hanging ending and cancellation but powerofthebookhas. She's come up with this sweet Spike-centric interlude fic called Flight to Egypt. If you're cold on this wintry day go read it and get a nice heart-warming feeling.

Crazydiamondsue has finally finished her Spander fic Sunday Morning Coming Down. It begins after "The Gift" as our bois grow closer during that summer until the events of an AU "Bargaining" threatens to ruin everything. Another long unfinished fic has now been completed--maybe there's a trend here? *keeps fingers crossed*

I'm really not into Spuffy but  anaross has an intriguing post-NFA fic which I've mentioned before called My Life Closed Twice wherein Buffy had located Spike teaching a college poetry class. Today's chapter 13 has Spike teaching a demon poetry class where one of his students says, "We can do it," said the little blue demon in his surprisingly deep voice. "We're demon poets. We can do it." I immediately pictured a rock group called Spike and the Demon Poets. Lol.



BTW Has anyone else noticed that when you update your lj it automatically goes into rich text these days or is it just my lj?

ETA I found out was was wrong with my updating going automatically into rich text.

I'm responding to a "how did you get your name?" meme & tag from alice23kate via lit_gal. The answer is I love cats and a long time ago I began to collect "cat" names and not just the obvious ones like Cathy and Kathleen but more exotic ones like Catriona, Kathea, Katri etc. One day I was reading Planet of Exile by Ursula K. LeGuin and came across the name Shakatany who was the mother of Rolery. I fell in love with that name and knew that one day I would use it for something special. Years later when I needed a name for fan activities I became Shakatany.

In other BtVS news:
spikeylover has posted this terrific new video Addicted to James. I'm sure you know which James *g*

xanfan27 has written He's Xander, a touching tribute to our Xander.

Last night was the season finale of "Smallville" and the last new episode on the WB though it's pretty certain that it will be on the new CW. Professor Fine (our James) was in full villainous mode as he/it released the evil Zod's personality into Lex, imprisoned Kal-El in the phantom zone and unleashed destruction upon humanity. Since this is a cliffhanger it's highly probable that JM will be back in "Smallville" at least one more time for the concluding episode in the fall.

tabaqui recced this a few days ago and I'm seconding her rec. If you're in the mood for a nice long (17 chapters), completed AtS/BtVS ensemble fic go read elgrey's TempsPerdu (Time Lost). The focus is on Wesley as in this AU, the Senior Partners unleashed the apocalypse before Angel had a chance to assassinate the Order of the Black Thorn so to prevent the destruction of LA, Wesley threw himself into a demon dimension and Angel went after him. The Scoobies and the remaining AI gang unite to get them back. This actually happens early on, leaving the remaining chapters to tell of repercussions and some beautiful introspective analysing and tying up of loose ends of the past several years. I always thought that it was a pity that BtVS and AtS were so heavy on the action and that there was no time (partly due to legalities and logistics) for the 2 groups to get together and reminisce. The author truly gets the characterizations of Wesley and the others beautifully. Go read.

In my days of trawling the Internet I have come across 4 sites where the creators are attempting to continue our shows by writing their own "seasons". They are:

AtS: No Limits with a full 6th season of AtS
Heroes where BtVS combines with AtS in a truncated season of 12 eps with one to go
Spike: Soul Survivor of NFA who, with Xander, guides a Slayer in her quest.
Three Deep has only 3 eps so far.

There are others out there but most of them are in script form where I prefer prose. Let me know if you've come across any others.

Both Carl Kolchak and Barney Fife aka Darren McGavin and Don Knotts have passed away. RIP.

I've come across a lovely Spike/Fred post-NFA fic called The Ashcraft Series by sockmonkeyhere. There are 2 complete stories with a third one just beginning. The author has come up with some very original notions. I rarely read het but if I do it's one where Spike finds happiness with Fred or Tara (unless it's by nandibble *g*).

A friend passed this "You May Be a [Christian] Fundamentalist" questionnaire from the Freethinkers on to me. It's ( here )

Came across one more fic that I like in an old e-mail. It's Follow the Yellow Brick Road by kindred. Dawn (the character--I think all BtVS fanfic writers should avoid starting sentences with Dawn when they mean the sunrise otherwise it's confusing)comes to LA in AtS S5 to visit Spike. I always loved the friendship between Dawn and Spike (and was thoroughtly miffed when ME decided to do away with it) so I'm pleased that kindred decided to do something about that.

I came across a thought provoking ficlet the other day. It was How It Ends by nasty_shrew. Since I've read it I've been thinking of other possibilities that might have been, leaving us with the BtVS canon as we know it.

Also yesterday I read a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." This put me to thinking about all the Spander fics with feral Spike or freed-from-chip Spike who, out of love for Xander, limits his eating to bad guys (in effect he's tamed). Does that make Xander from then on responsible for Spike? Probably not as Spike is a sentient being who can revert back to pure untamed vampire. But if Spike behaves for love of Xander wouldn't that make Xander, the white knight, have stay with him even if he falls out of love with Spike, impossible as that is to conceive?

I just discovered this very intriguing Africander fic by nemo_gravis called Light-blinded. Xander is MIA in Africa and who comes looking for him--Buffy and Tony Harris! I rarely come across TH doing anything but abusing Xander so this makes an interesting change.

Gakked this from spikedluv who got it from someone else. It's an article called The End of the Internet? by Jeff Chester and published in The Nation. I asked a friend about it who's a bit more in the know and he replied "Some of what he talks about is directionally possible, but I'd say he's being somewhat alarmist. In the short-to-medium term the worst-case scenario is probably that the access providers who control the pipes will succeed in charging major content providers more to deliver their content over the Internet, the costs of which will ultimately be passed along to the consumer (i.e., higher costs for you and me)." What is it with these people who want to despoil every good thing out there? Virgin wilderness--oh let's dig it up for oil. Beautiful mountains in West Virginia--let's level them for coal. Free internet--that's not good we must be able to charge for it. Mammon worshippers--boo hiss!

I've been reading about Gohan and Aochan (here). Aochan is a 4-foot long rat snake and Gohan is a hamster who was placed in the snake's cage to be it's next meal. The snake decided not to eat the hamster and they have shared the cage ever since. A friend has a 5-foot long corn snake (close relative to the rat snake) and I cynically think that the hamster is simply too big for it to eat--at the moment. One day there may be a follow up announcement of Gohan's demise at the jaws of the snake. On the other hand I hope it's true, that it's a case of cross-species friendship--I love such stories whether it's hamster/snake, hippo/tortoise or human/vampire *g*

A very sweet fic is being written by spikes_heart and liliaeth. It's called Heartsongs. It's post-NFA and Spike has shanshued and become a human child growing up as Angel and Nina's adopted son. A lot of characters from both series are present. There's some plot and angst and schmoop and great writing. Check it out.