Fanfic / Compelled Series

The Compelled series is a fanfictionseries about the mostly redeemed God-King Illyria decides to travel back in time to midway through seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and upend the cosmos by giving the good guys a hand up. But things start to not so well when various evils decided to band together.

The stories in the series are:

• Compelled To Play Again
• Compelled To Play By The New Rules
• Compelled To Play With Destiny
• Compelled To Play The Great Game
• Tales from the Compelledverse (a series of one-shots)

Unmarked spoilers ahead.

Tropes Are:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The one under San Francisco is spacious enough to allow a vampire vs slayer fight
• Adaptational Heroism: Simone Doffler because the Slayer Corp embracing of firearms and modern tactics, she gets an outlet for her violent nature and thus remains loyal instead of turning traitor like she did in the comics.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ashton gets called Caporal-Chef, Perkovic is called Silent Bob the slayers that fight in Pylea are called gunslayers, and Illyria is Blue Meanie/Powers-That-Blue/Smurffette and other titles she claimed for herself
• All Nations Are Superpowers: Factions in the supernatural world, anyway. The Slayer Organization, with its superior firepower, mystical prowess and knowledge of the future quickly establish itself as a rival faction to Wolfram and Hart
• Alternate Universe: By the sixth story, the Slayer Organization is visiting alternate Earths as part of their multiversal campaign.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Scourge, of course
• Apocalypse How: The Bad Future has a hybrid of Class-3a and Class X-5 categories
• Amazon Chaser: Ashton likes supernaturally strong women
• Ambition Is Evil: For a given definition of evil- Illyria wants to destroy the forces of evil in the entire multiverse, not just on Earth
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Buffy's opinion is that a republican form of government is better than monarchies
  • Played straight with Lady Genevieve Savidge, a rogue slayer who is also a stuck up British aristocrat. She gets "volunteered" into the Slayer Organization
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When in an Alternate Universe Sunnydale, Buffy remarks about Spike's like of attention until she notices a ruby-encrusted Bringer knife and picks it up.
• Barbarian Hero: Connor and Illyria are toned down versions.
• Badass Boast: Illyria loves to do this
• Bad Future: One where humanity is near extinct throughout the multiverse
• Balance Between Good and Evil: Subverted- Illyria wants to utterly smash the forces of evil. Played straight with the Powers That Be who not only support balance but also sometimes support the forces of Evil when Good starts to get the upper hand. They even created an demon scythe to counterbalance the slayer scythe.
• Back from the Dead: The Senior Partners resurrect Glory
• Big Damn Kiss: Deconstructed as in a moment weakness Wesley kisses Faith, thus cheating on Illyria
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Drussila wants her brother, Connor, to have a wholesome vampire girlfriend who was raised by a good, decent, churchgoing family before she was sired and ate them
• Breaking Speech: Illyria gives one to Buffy
  Buffy: Figurehead?
  Illyria: You were not elected, you are no longer unique but merely one of thousands. Your leadership status is based on tradition rather than proven aptitude. Do you perceive yourself as mandated from Heaven to rule perhaps? Divine right of Kings? You are in charge merely because it is accepted by the others that you are, do not assume this will always be the case.
• Bringing in the Expert: The Slayer Organization hires mercenaries to train them because they are not in way prepared for a war
• Byronic Hero: Illyria as Humanity Ensues increases, mellowing out vastly from how she started seeing humanity as Punny Earthlings to, due to influence from her host, to Humans Are Special. Though she is still waging her war for revenge, her goals towards humanity have changed considerably.
• Canon Welding: The author has smoothly mixed elements from the comics into the story, it helps that most events have not happened yet and due to butterflies will never happen. Also the author has integrated every Aborted Arc and minor character in the Buffyverse into the story.
• The Chessmaster: A hobby of deities and sorted higher beings, Illyria especially.
• Chummy Commies: Parodied. A lot of characters joke about Illyria moving to the left of Attila the Hun when she supports direct democracy and other policies.
• The Chosen One: Much like in canon, initially played straight and later subverted.
• The Chosen Many: Midway through the first story, all Potentials are activated. Buffy takes some time to learn she's no longer special.
• Consummate Professional: Ashton and Perkovic, who refuse to have sex with the gunslayers, mostly because they're underage.
• Crapsack World: It's often mentioned that in the vast multiverse, many of the apocalypses prevented by the Scooby Gang and Angel Investigation teams have happened. In the sixth story the Slayer Organization visits an Alternate Universe where Warren succeeded in killing Buffy as well killing Willow accidently, allowing the First Evil to win his campaign against the Slayer line and slaughter all the potential except for Ax-Crazy Dana and unleashing thousands of Turok Han after opening the Hellmouth.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The Slayer Organization, later renamed Slayer Corp for legal purposes.
• Day of the Jackboot: In Pylea, which is invaded by legions from one member of the Circle of Black Thorn as counter-measure for the growing power of the forces of Good.
• Dead Fic: The latest story has not been updated since 2009, thus leaving the series incomplete.
• Deconstruction Fic: Towards the Straw Nihilist themes of Angel
• Democracy Is Bad: Subverted gloriously. The Slayer Organization creates an elected council to lead it, though that is part of Illyria's plan to weaken Buffy's power within the Organization while North Pylea is a constitutional monarchy
• Demonic Possession: Higher beings often take over the bodies of mortals ("Shells'') to interact in the mortal world but it comes at the cost of losing most of their powers and absorbing personality traits and memories of their hosts
• Disaster Democracy: After learning of the Bad Future Illyria suggests that all Slayers vote on a binding referendum whether to mobilize to total war or wait five years to find a better solution. Ironically Buffy opposes it
• Doomed Hometown: Like in canon, Sunnydale falls into a crater
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The more political side of the story strongly resembles the Cold War.
  • The use of the term superpower, the great tension between the two factions who want to avoid war, the use of proxy war in Pylea and the fact they ultimately split Pylea into North (Slayer-aligned) and South (Wolfram and Hart-aligned). Illyria's plan to modernize North Pylea's economy sounds a lot like the Marshall Plan
• Eldritch Location: Illyria's temple, Vahla ha'nesh which is located in another dimension that only the Old One herself can access. It's telling that the place tag is "Location Inexplicable- Time Irrelevant"
• Enemy Mine: The Senior Partners, the First Evil and Glory form an alliance of convenience
• Enforced Cold War: Between the Slayer Organization and Wolfram and Hart. Not because of nukes but because neither faction is in condition to go for a full, direct confrontation
• Every Helicopter Is a Huey: A Bell 214 to be more exact, which is also equiped with a machine gun and a rocket launcher
• Evil Is Petty: Inverted. When during a training session, Glory defeats and humiliates Buffy and three other slayers, Buffy demands Enyo to come spar with Glory. Glory even lampshades this.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Due to his inexperience with spellcasting, Wesley can be overwhelmed by dark magic. When Baal Berith is preparing to rise, he sends so much mystical energy it causes him to go Dark Willow style and attacks Faith
• Evil Reactionary Reactionary: Inverted. Buffy and to some extent the Scooby Gang prefer the traditional methods of demon fighting, which puts them at odds with Angel Investigation's team and Illyria's more tech-savvy preferences
• Faux Horrific: Whistler tries to convince Angel that Illyria's plan to destroy all evil in the multiverse is bad, even quoting Orwell's boot stamping on face but it comes out as corny considering how demons operate
• Final Solution: Subverted with the Slayer Organization which only targets demons that pose a threat to humans. Played straight in the Bad Future where humanity is nearly extinct throughout the multiverse with only a few Earths remaining intact
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Averted. Illyria's direct intervention to help the side of Good is what drives the plot
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Subverted, Cordelia does have a witchcraft-induced abortion but considering what kind of creature the baby was, no one faults her for it
• Good is Not Nice: With Illyria's help, both the Scoobies and the Angel Investigations team become more ruthless. It shocks Wolfram & Hart
  Faith: Don't think it's your game anymore, we're playing by different rules now
  Lilah: It's not the different rules. It's that you've finally learned to cheat.
• Good-Looking Privates: Ashton and Perkovic, the Hired Guns working for the Slayers who used to be in the Canadian and Croation armies respectively. Also Garfield, a former US Army pilot who was hired by the original Watchers Council and is now employed by the Slayer Organization
• Good Republic, Evil Empire: Inverted with Pylea, with North Pylea being a constitutional monarchy while South Pylea is a Vichy Earth republic
• Happily Adopted: Emily, Deborah and Jessica, three young watchers in training who survived the destruction of the original Watchers' Council are adopted by Giles.
• Happiness in Slavery: After being defeated by Illyria Glory becomes her slave, but she's not happy about it.
  • Also has in canon, its subverted regarding human slavery in Pylea
• Harmless Villain: The First Evil because he's incorporeal, though his minions are very much a threat
• Hired Guns: Two, Douglass Ashton, a former Canadian Army soldier, and Jenko Perkovic, a former Croatian Army soldier. Both are mercenaries and worked for some time for the French Foreign Legion
• Honest Corporate Executive: The Slayer Organization purchases its own armaments factory in China so they can mass produce their own weaponry without needing to resort to the black market. They are willing to pay better wages as well bribes local politicians to maintain the factory unmolested
• Hypocritical Humor: When the Scoobies are discussing the nature of Illyria they wonder if she has a soul too, but Spike mocks them.
  Buffy: So she's like a good Hell-God? A Hell-God with a soul?
  Spike: Who's going to buy that load of clobbers? Hell-God with a soul my arse... if you meet anyone who'd buy a likely story like that...(everyone looks at him incredulously) What?
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with, in that while demons and monsters are bad, humans are as capable of evil
• Humanity Ensues: Deities and higher beings that possesses humans gain their personality traits, knowledge and memories. They're not happy about it
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Illyria is quite surprised at how humans managed to achieve an industrial society in less than ten thousand years while demons have been living in a Medieval Stasis for millions of years
• Humans Are Special: By the second story, Illyria has become to believe this. See quotes
• Insistent Terminology: Illyria insists she's a God-King and that Faith is Wesley's concubine, not his lover
• Insult of Endearment: The Potentials gave Buffy the nickname of The Vampire Layer. Buffy is less than amused when she finds out.
• Intimidating Revenue Service: Parodied and played straight. When Dawn visits a Crapsack World Alternate Universe, she finds out that her alt-Dawn has an IRS letter and agrees with Connor that she should not let it go idle because the IRS is not something you want to mess with. Also there was a Noodle Incident regarding tax dodging sorcerers whose fallout has made Wolfram and Hart unwilling to go up against the IRS
• It's All About Me: Illyria is a goddess and has an ego to prove it
  Illyria: Your opinion weights less than sunlight.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Illyria takes great pleasure in telling the Aztek demon Tezcatcalt, an Aztek demon which is reborn every fifty years and could only remain on Earth permanently if found its talisman or consumed a Champion's heart, that she will look forward to kill him every fifty years, and that he had no hope because she will hid his talisman in her temple.
• Kid from the Future: The fused children of Illyria/Berith and Faith/Wesley come to the present
• Kill It with Fire: When fighting a mass of Turok Han, the heroes make liberal use of grenade launchers and Molotov cocktails
• Loophole Abuse: When Buffy asks Illyria if she has a stockpile of uranium to makes nukes with, she truthfully replies no. However, Buffy didn't ask if Illyria had plutonium
• MacGuffin: The Slayer Scythe, which is so powerful even Hell-Gods are wary of it
  • The Gem of Amara, which grants invulnerability and be able to walk outside in daytime. They get two from Alternate Universe much to Spike and Angel's joy
• Magic A Is Magic A: Much like in canon magick works off physics, and the laws of thermodynamics apply greatly. Otherwise magic seems to have very little rules
• Magic Versus Science: Subverted, the Slayer Organization prefers to co-opt both science and magic to its service
• Magitek: The Slayer Organization gleefully mixes the mystical with the technological, giving them early on a edge on firepower
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Baal Berith's shell is a handsome man who looks quite dashing in a suit
• Many Spirits Inside of One: The children of Berith/Illyria (Enyo) and Wesley/Faith (Rebecca) share the same body. Unlike other deities, the possession did not destroy Rebbecca's soul
• Medieval Stasis: Even though they have lived on Earth for millions of years demons still use swords, magick and brute strenght as they always have. It's one of the reasons why Illyria comes to see humanity as a superior species
• Misery Builds Character: Parodied. Buffy has slayers spar with Glory who obviously curbs stomps them because being defeated is good for the soul. See Evil Is Petty above.
• Motive Rant: Her ranting about the uselessness of the leadership of the side of Good foreshadows Illyria's intent to wipe out evil in the multiverse.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: It ranges from Illyria and her daughter Enyo as amoral Nominal Hero to Unscrupulous Hero in the form of Team Angel (with the exception of Cordelia), Gunslayers as Pragmatic Anti Hero and the Scooby Gang as Knight in Shining Armor who slowly become Pragmatic Hero
• Mordor: Jasmine's dimension
• More Dakka: Due to the Slayers getting a Muggles Do It Better and Gun Nut upgrade
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Amalfi
• Muggles Do It Better: With Illyria's insistence, the Potentials/Slayers start using guns
• Multiversal Conqueror: Illyria's ultimate goal
• The Multiverse: Over time the plot moves towards fighting on other Earths and hell dimensions
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Averted because Illyria realizes that if she kills Faith it will trigger the Arthurian prophecy thus leading to the collapse of the Slayer Organization
• Nuke 'em: Illyria really wants to use nukes on hell dimensions. Buffy has explicitly forbidden usage of WMDs
• Nominal Hero: Illyria and Enyo, who are absolutely amoral
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: The Pylean Defense Force's philosophy
• Official Couple: Initially Illyria/Wesley then it becomes Illyria/Wesley/Faith though they don't do threesomes
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Powers That Be. Illyria is not impressed.
  Illyria: The forces who style themselves good seem universally encumbered with seers, mystics and sages who are of extremely limited practical assistance beyond unnecessarily cryptic clues and failed prophecy. If the Senior Partners of the Wolf, Ram and Hart were as useless as the Powers That Be, then evil would have been utterly defeated throughout the multiverse eons ago.
• Only in It for the Money: The mercenaries the Slayers hire, initially at least
• Our Gods Are Greater: The opinion of the bug demons that worship Jasmine. Anya and Medousa to the Nordic and Olympian gods respectively. Also the unnamed Christian fundamentalist Slayer.
• Papa Wolf: Angel is very protective of his team, something Skip finds out to his own detriment. As in he was torn apart into small pieces while still alive.
• Peggy Sue: Obviously
• Physical God: Illyria went to a Sluggoth Demon to stabilize her "shell" to allow her greater access to her powers
  • Glory counts too though she was ultimately defeated and received a humiliating enslavement.
  • Jasmine and the Senior Partners
• Political Overcorrectness: Illyria blames this trope for her Humanity Ensues problems.
• The Pornomancer: Deconstructed with Baal Berith who is not pleased about becoming a sleazy slut. Not it stops him from screwing with his employees
• Power Incontinence: Illyria can't use most of her flashier powers for long, and needs time to recover.
• Powers That Be: The Trope Namers are not seen in good light by most characters, to do their overall inaction. It turns into fullblown hostility once it turns out they're more concerned with the Balance Between Good and Evil than actually defeating evil
• Pragmatic Anti Hero: The Gunslayers
• Pragmatic Hero: The Scooby Gang slowly evolves into this
• Psychic Powers: Played with. Cordelia's pregnancy left her mystically enhanced but she can only tap into these powers through the aid of a talisman
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A Haitian Slayer is drugged and magically bound by a voodoo priest so she's forced into prostitution
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Illyria loves to do these, especially towards the Powers That Be and other inefficient leaders
• Seers: Drussila, who can even channel the spirits of the dead
• Serious Business: Medousa and Anya regarding the Olympian and Norse gods respectively. When Wood calls them mythology, they're not amused
• Screw Destiny: Illyria's favorite past time
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Baal Berith gets stuck in a shell that used to be an obnoxious sexual harasser. He's not pleased about becoming a slut
• Serious Business: Poetry to Spike, to the point he makes an high school teacher cry after she gave a lower grade to an assignment for Deborah and Jessica that Spike helped write.
• The Stations of the Canon: Played mostly straight until the Senior Partners form a Enemy Mine alliance with Glory and the First Evil and then give guns to their demons
• Supervillain Lair: Inverted. The Slayer Organization built its own lair on the grounds of the vineyard (which was outside of Sunnydale thus didn't fell into the crater), complete with bunkers, a freaking moat around it, and Buffy's office has a trapdoor to send away unwanted guests
• Take That!: too many to count, particularly towards the Straw Nihilist themes of Angel
• Tempting Fate: When travelling to Britain to "volunteer" a rogue slayer, Enyo meets Genevieve's lover warlock who arrogantly tells her to give him her best shot. Enyo obliges by punching through his skull
• This Cannot Be!: The Guardian is pretty shocked at finding the Slayer working with vampires and an Od One
• Time Master: Illyria got her time manipulation powers back
• Took a Level in Badass: It's easier to count the characters that didn't
• Toxic Friend Influence: Illyria is this to the good guys, even Glory is surprised
• Troll: During the armistice talks, the mercenary Ashton and a gunslayer deceive a Wolfram and Hart black ops operative into thinking the mercenary has his own harem
  • Illyria withdraws information that she finds amusing like the fact Spike's death after a Heroic Sacrifice is not permanent
• Troperiffic: Yeah, just look at how many Villain tropes are inverted, subverted and played with. A lot of the good characters fit perfectly in what we could consider normally villainous groups
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Inverted. Thanks to Illyria, the good guys start acting which prompts the villains to react to the new way the heroes act.
• Visionary Villain: Inverted and Deconstructed. Illyria might be amoral but she's committed to the complete destruction of all evil in the multiverse
• War Goddess: Pretty much what fundamentally Illyria is. Her daughter from the future, Enyo, also counts
• War Is Glorious: Illyria's philosophy. Also the Gunslayers, the slayers that fight to liberate Pylea from the Senior Partners' legions, due to their Peace Through Superior Firepower position
• What the Hell, Hero?: Illyria is not amused at Buffy's opposing Disaster Democracy

---