Btvs: Seasons Rewrite is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fan Fic series written by Daniella Harwood
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The series is essentially an Alternate Universe Fic taking place after Season 2, rewriting different parts of the series the way "they should have gone," according to the summary of the first entry.
Thus far, the author has adapted Seasons Three, Four, and Five.
Btvs: Seasons Rewrite contains examples of the following tropes (Beware unmarked spoilers):
- Adapted Out: Dawn doesn't exist in this fic. She's instead replaced with an Original Character named Elita, who they send to Buffy as a close friend rather than a sister.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- The Scoobies as a whole are closer. For starters, when Buffy returns from L.A., they're more sympathetic and caring for what Buffy went through after having to stake Angel, unlike in "Dead Man's Party", where they're distant from her, couldn't care less about her need to mourn Angel, and even get in a fight with her over running away right in front of dozens of their classmates.
- Giles' paternal relationship with Buffy is also stronger. In the original episode "Helpless", he stripped Buffy of her powers for the Cruciamentum despite viewing the experience as an "archaic exercise in cruelty." Here, he outright refuses to put Buffy through the test, and only does so because Buffy chooses to go through with it to keep him as her Watcher.
- Xander and Cordelia remain together throughout the first fic, whereas in canon they broke up during the events of Season 3 due to Xander cheating on her with Willow, which doesn't happen here. While they're broken up by the time of the Season 4 rewrite, they remain Amicable Exes.
- Buffy and Angel remain together, and are able to maintain a serious relationship, in part because the Powers That Be removed Angel's Curse Escape Clause. By the time of Season 4, Buffy's even moved into the Crawford Street Mansion with him.
- Angel's relationship with the Scoobies post-Season 2 is much improved. Whereas he was Reformed, but Rejected in the show, here, the Scoobies, through a chat with Whistler, come to realize that Angel and Angelus are not one and the same and that Angel is not accountable for Angelus' crimes.
- Spike never falls in love with Buffy, and instead ends up in a relationship with Tara. Due to his Adaptational Heroism, he also ends up a bit closer to the Scoobies in general and willingly helps them.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Joyce. She personally stakes a vampire while on patrol with Buffy, and voluntarily joins in on the Graduation Day battle.
- Xander always managed to pull his own weight in the show, but he goes above and beyond his canon self here by acting as a mole for the Initiative.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- In the original canon, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce didn't appear until the events of "Bad Girls", the fourteenth episode of Season 3. Here, he appears much earlier during "Myhnegon," an adaptation of the seventh episode "Revelations".
- Allen Francis Doyle didn't appear in the Buffyverse until "City of", the pilot episode of Angel. Here, he debuts alongside Wesley in "Myhnegon."
- Lorne was absent from the Buffyverse until Angel Season 2, which coincides with Buffy Season 5. Here, he appears during the Season 4 adaptation.
- Adaptational Heroism: In canon, Spike went through the Heel–Face Revolving Door and didn't truly begin to redeem himself until Season 5. During the Season 4 rewrite, he's considerably more heroic, and actively helps the Scoobies out against Adam.
- Adaptational Job Change:
- In canon, Xander went through a series of odd jobs after high school before getting a concrete career as a construction worker. Here, near the end of Season 3, he buys the Bronze, in part to pay off Cordelia's college tuition.
- Giles also gets a job as a Professor at UC Sunnydale after blowing up Sunnydale High, whereas he was unemployed throughout Season 4 until buying the Magic Box early on in Season 5.
- Spike ends up taking over the Magic Box in Season 5.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: In canon, Anya first appeared in "The Wish", the ninth episode of Season 3. Here, she doesn't appear until the second chapter of the Season 4 rewrite.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Tara was gay. Here, she's straight and ends up with Spike of all people. Willow also remains straight and with Oz.
- Adaptational Villainy: Since his and Buffy's romance is Adapted Out, Riley never truly turns against the Initiative, and ends up willingly siding with Adam.
- Alternate Universe Fic: The series follows the show's canon up to the end of Season 2, then spins off from there, rewriting the series' events and including events from both Buffy and Angel.
- Animals Hate Him: During the adaptation of "Fear, Itself," when Gachnar animates multiple rubber bats to pull off a Bat Scare, Angel scares the bats off by assuming his Game Face, explaining that "bats fear vampires."
- Back from the Dead: Early in Season 3, Angel undergoes the Trials as he did in the Angel episode "The Trial". Here, it's done to resurrect Jenny Calendar, and he succeeds.
- Death by Adaptation: While he's Killed Offscreen, Angel ends up killing Riley during the final showdown with Adam in Season 4.
Word of God is that she left it to the readers' imagination, and tells them to picture "the most frightening, mortal fight in existence" to have some idea of Riley's fate. - Dhampyr: At the end of Season 3, the Powers That Be grant Angel half his redemption by making him half-human. According to Doyle, Angel still has the Game Face and fangs and can't go out during the daylight hours, but he should also supplement his blood diet with human food and is no longer immortal.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Buffy sees the inside of the Initiative, she finds it disturbingly similar to Nazi concentration camps, and is so freaked out that she nearly dispenses with the Scoobies' long-term plan and insists she wants to bring them down as quickly as possible.Buffy: I know [Xander] warned me, but I had no idea it would look like that. The place was literally out of some documentary on World War II, only frighteningly hi-tech and catering to demons. I know I kill them, but surely I'm not on a par with that level of horror.
- Everyone Has Standards: The Scoobies may be hunters of monsters, but in Season 4, they acknowledge that not all demons are bad, and are disgusted by the Initiative treating them like lab rats, particularly after one is chipped and is driven so crazy by being unable to hunt or feed that he begs Cordelia and Doyle for a Mercy Kill. Angel and Xander sum it up best:Angel: That's inhuman. I know none of us are saints, but I don't think we deserve to be experimented on to the point of rendering our survival impossible.
Xander: Angel's right. We've come across enough demons in our time to know that not all of them are bad. At least when you dust them, Buffy, they don't suffer. - Fake Defector: The events of "The Yoko Factor" are reworked into this. Spike approaches Adam, claiming to be sick of Buffy and the Scoobies and willing to help him take them out in exchange for having his chip removed. It's all an act; when Adam's not looking, Spike steals the encrypted disks and slips away.
- Fake Twin Gambit: Jenny is forced to do this after being resurrected, since she is still Legally Dead; Willow and Oz hack into government files to give her a fake identity for this end.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Spike pulls this off in Season 4 chapter 20. When Buffy is deathly ill from a virus Professor Walsh engineered to infect her, he barely hesitates to help her. Though he states he's only doing so because Buffy and Angel are allowing him to stay at their mansion for free and "property prices in this town are a bugger," Giles is able to deduce rather quickly that he's actually worried about Buffy and legitimately wanted to save her.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Buffy begins suffering this in Season 4. It eventually manifests as morning sickness, leading her to speculate she may be pregnant, but eventually leads her to start coughing up blood; in chapter 20, the doctor likens the sickness to consumption. As it turns out, during the events of chapter 12, Professor Walsh engineered a special virus tailored to only affect Buffy and inserted it into the Bronze Candy Xander had manufactured, anticipating that Buffy would eventually eat one. Thankfully, Walsh was smart enough to create a cure to the disease as well, and the Scoobies are able to find it.
- Kryptonite-Proof Suit: Willow enchants special talismans in the form of necklaces to allow Angel and Spike to be active during the day. She later does the same for Oz, in order to suppress his werewolf side.
- Long Game: As revealed in Season 4 chapter 8, the Scooby Gang became aware of the Initiative since the Time Skip between Seasons 3 and 4, and are so disgusted by what they do to vampires and demons that they enact a long-term plan to take them down, starting by inserting Xander into the group as mole.
- Loophole Abuse: A positive example of this applies to Buffy's relationship with Angel after he gets a job at UCS; while Buffy is a student and Angel is a professor, a teacher/student relationship would only actually be against the law if Buffy was taking Angel's class, which she isn't.
- The Mole: After the Scoobies learn of the Initiative, Xander joins them to serve as this for the gang. In fact, when Spike is captured and chipped, the Scoobies help him escape the facility largely out of fear he'll recognize Xander and end up blowing his cover.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Whatever Angel experiences in the "Fear Itself" adaptation is left up to the readers' imagination. He emerges into the attic visibly shaken, and when Buffy asks him what happened, he responds, "You don't want to know. I don't even want to recall."
- Original Character: Dawn is replaced with one named Elita, whereas Giles and Jenny have a baby son named Ellis.
- Pragmatic Villainy: In chapter 16, Mayor Wilkins orders Faith to help Buffy and the Scoobies fight off the Scourge, in part because he wants to use the vampires and demons they want to wipe out as mooks come his Ascension, and a group of Nazi-esque demons seeking to wipe them out for the sake of the Master Race will interfere with his plans.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Aside from Jenny's resurrection, Joyce never suffers the brain tumor that claims her life in canon. Doyle also survives and continues to aid the Scoobies.
- Suicide by Sunlight: In Season 4 chapter 8, when a vampire who's been chipped by the Initiative begs for a Mercy Kill from Cordelia and Doyle, Doyle asks why he didn't just wait for the sunrise. Said vamp shoots that down, stating that doing so is not pretty, quick, or painless, and that burning at the stake would be preferable.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Angel takes a job teaching art history at UC Sunnydale in Season 3; his relationship with Buffy becomes this when she becomes a student there in Season 4 (although she isn't taking Angel's class).
- Undead Tax Exemption:
- Discussed in Season 3 chapter 7. Willow and Oz hack into government files to give Angel a fake identity; as Buffy points out, if Angel is going to redeem himself, he needs to establish his own life and source of income. He ends up taking a job as an art history professor at UC Sunnydale under the identity Angel O'Connor.
- Spike is able to take ownership of the Magic Box in Season 5. Earlier, however, he remarks that he likes that Buffy and Angel let him stay at the mansion with them rent-free, and he doesn't want to move out because of property prices in Sunnydale.
- When Jenny Calendar is resurrected, they realize she's still Legally Dead, so Willow and Oz do the same for her, allowing her to take back her old job at Sunnydale High as her own identical twin sister.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Buffy and Spike's relationship develops into this over the course of Seasons 4 and 5. They constantly snark at one another, and Buffy remarks in Season 5 chapter 18 that he loves to wind her up. That being said, when Buffy falls deathly ill due to a disease engineered by Professor Walsh, Spike barely even hesitates to go to Adam and pull off a Fake Defector act to get encrypted disks and allow Willow to Find the Cure! (though he claims he's only doing so because she's letting him stay rent-free at the mansion), and after they save him from Glory, Buffy isn't surprised to discover that Spike didn't tell Glory a thing about the Key, remarking that he would never betray them.
- Villain Over for Dinner: While Buffy is preparing Thanksgiving dinner in chapter 8, she leaves Spike tied to a chair and refuses to feed him, only to be annoyed when Joyce gives him a cup of hot cocoa. Joyce quickly points out that tormenting and mistreating Spike won't get him to cooperate with them.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In Season 3's "Refugees," an adaptation of "Hero," Xander and Faith are initially reluctant to save the Lister Clan from the Scourge, purely because they're demons. Buffy and the other Scoobies convince them to help.
