Fanfic / Xendra

Xendra is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Xena: Warrior Princess crossover Fanfic by Diane Castle. During the Fandom-Specific Plot of Yet Another Halloween Fic except this time Xander's costume is Xena. Chaos and hillarity ensues...

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Xander's parents, especially his father.
• Adaptational Gender Identity:
  • Borderline case with Xander/Xendra. While Xander never really stops identifying as a guy, he does go through some pretty heavy gender dysphoria after regaining his male body when the spell is broken; for months afterwards he feels like his male body is just wrong. Switching back to the female "Xendra" is less of a bother to him than he really feels it should be.
  • Andrew is a clearer example; in canon he's definitely a cis gay boy, but the Andrew of this fic is a closeted trans girl. He turned into Princess Leia on Halloween and later describes it as "the best night of my life," and jumps at the chance of turning back into a girl, taking the name "Andrea" Xendra wonders whether this is purely residue from the Halloween spell or if Andrew/Andrea might have always been trans and the Halloween experience just amped it up.
• A-Cup Angst: Willow and to a lesser extent Buffy are a little annoyed that all the guys who end up transformed into girls all have bigger breasts than them. Amy mentions that she did learn of a breast expansion spell, but for some reason it was considered dark magic and she didn't think it was worth sacrificing puppies or kittens just to go up a cup size.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The Watcher's Council were the epitome of Good is Not Nice in canon, but here it's really hammered in how absolutely ruthless and willing to go to extreme lenghts they can be.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Obviously, as Xander literally transforms into Xena. Also Scott Hope transforms into Cinderella during the effects of Ethan's spell. Also Wesley, who is turned into Linda as part of the law of contagion.
• Alternate Universe: Here Xander, Scott, Cameron and Todd lose some bet to Larry and have to crossdress for Halloween. It isn't even hinted at until chapter 59, but it turns out Andrew had lost a similar bet with Tucker and spent Halloween as Princess Leia.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: After Buffy runs away, Willow and Xendra are left to lead the campaign against the undead. As part of their routine they infiltrate the city morgue disguised as doctors and/or electricians. Jonathan evens does a Lampshade Hanging about being able to get anywhere by holding a clipboard and acting like you have somewhere better to be.
• Brainwash Residue: Xander keeps a lot of Xena's knowledge and fighting skills, but the latter he can barely use them because it requires a level of athleticism which Xander lacks.
• Butterfly of Doom: Major butterflies get flying once Ethan's spell is broken.
  • Xander gets better grades at history, chemistry and English literature because of Xena's Cultured Badass status;
  • The Scoobies use an arrow infused with PETN to defeat The Judge, rather than a rocket launcher. This results in Angelus being very wounded and forced to flee to Los Angeles;
  • Oz falls in love with Xendra and is the one to blackmail Amy into casting a spell, which backfires and results in Xander being transformed into a girl. He's later killed off by Angelus.
  • Jenny Calendar is able to return to the good graces of the Scoobies and she openly works with them to translate the Ritual of Restoration.
  • Xendra replaces Cordelia in Homecoming and is affected by the cursed candy and turns into a teenage warmongering Xena that tries to kill Willow and her mom. However the Scooby Gang never kills Lurconis, though they succeed in stopping the sacrifice of babies.
  • Xander is turned into Buffy's adopted brother by the Order of Dagon.
• Cool Boat: Faith and Wesley board one when trying to travel to Los Angeles. And they find themselves dragged into a murder mystery involving a shapeshifting demon.
• Deal with the Devil: The Watchers Council made one with Wolfram and Hart a thousand years ago, during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and one of the caveats is Enforced Technology Levels that make Guns Are Worthless. The deal can be changed once every thousand years and the next negotiations rounds is not until the 24th century. Also they are not allowed to reveal the information about this deal to anyone outside the inner council.
• Death by Adaptation: Oz. Instead of killing Jenny Calendar, Angelus kills him. He is all set on turning him into a vampire, but Oz manages to avoid it by drinking two bottles of the holy water he was carrying, thereby diluting the vampire blood enough to prevent him from rising as a vampire.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: There's a lot of homophobic slurs going around and while that would be historically correct as Buffy is set in The '90s.
• Dragged into Drag: When Xander goes to Willow to help him to dress in drag because he lost a bet to Larry, Willow enthusiastically chooses a Xena costume.
• Enforced Technology Levels: Because the Watchers Council made a Deal with the Devil with Wolfram and Hart, medieval weaponry is the only way to fight the supernatural with guns being able, at best, to distract monsters.
• Everyone Has Standards: Xander may hate Angel and all vampires, but he thinks that binding a human soul to a demon is sick as the soul will be tortured for something that wasn't its fault.
• Exposition: Some chapters are devoted exclusively to narrate entire Buffy episodes with some slight tweaks to accomodate Xendra changing things.
• Eternal Recurrence: Every 60 million years or so a celestial alignment occurs that heralds The End of the World as We Know It, which is re-occurring in the late 20th century. Willow uses a computer program to calculate the movement of celestial bodies that let's the Scoobies find out that there will be an attempted apocalypse twice a year (May and December), for more than a decade.
• Gender Bender: The premise of the fic. Xander's the most prominent example, but he's not the only one — Scott, Cameron and Todd also crossdress for Halloween and spend the night as girls (Scott even having public group sex with a bunch of guys while in the form of a very promiscuous Cinderella ), and Andrew, who dressed as Princess Leia enjoyed being a girl so much he later fully transitions and takes on the name "Andrea," living as a girl permanently. Later on, Wesley is also accidentally transformed into a girl and, like Xander, ends up becoming his female form, "Linda" several more times.
• Handicapped Badass: All Slayers have a learning disability which prevents them from identifying sounds in new words, which is why Buffy often mangles the pronouncing of demon names.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: One of the reasons for Willow Freak Out about Xendra is that she's very attractive and Willow is in denial. She later has a minor breakdown when thinking whether she's lesbian.
• Happily Adopted: Xander is adopted by Joyce Summers due to the magical interference of the Order of Dagon.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Unlike most representations, Voodoo here is a religion albeit one that worships "dark gods" and is a mixture of The Dark Arts and Necromancy.
• Heteronormative Crusader: Xander's father, Tony Harris. Also the gaybashers at Sunnydale High.
• I Am a Humanitarian: A demon boards a Cool Boat to kill young women and eat their intestines.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Scott Hope, who's costume is Cinderella and thus becomes the princess, has one as s/he's gangbanged by a group of ruffians.
• In Spite of a Nail: Kendra still dies, in the exact same way, this even in spite of the fact that there were more people present (Jenny and Amy helping Willow with the restoration ritual), and Xander and Giles carrying crossbows.
• Loophole Abuse: Watchers are forbidden from telling non-Council members about the supernatural or teach them martial arts. But he can simply pretend that Xander and Willow refuse to have a Weirdness Censor; he also helps Xander train because he already knows how to properly fight, so Giles can claim he's merely helping the boy "make use of them".
• Obvious Crossover Method: By using the fact characters could choose different outfits for the fateful Halloween when Ethan Rayne turned everyone into their costumes.
• Overly Long Name: Giles proposes that Xendra pretends to be his niece after Drusilla transforms Xander into her while he's very wounded, and the name is Honorable Xendra Helaine Davaney Giles.
• Parental Neglect: Willow's parents, bordering on Parental Abandonment.
• Running Gag: Ever since Halloween where he went as Xena, Xander's unable to go a week without being turned into a teenage version of Xena (named Xendra). At first it's due to a law of magic that if magic has had a given effect on someone before, it's more likely to do so again, especially if it's had said effect multiple times. Later it's because Xendra's a better fighter than Xander.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Rupert Giles and Joyce Summers. The latter in fact is horrified by the actions of Willow's and Xander's parents.
• The Stations of the Canon: The fic is Xander-centered so it skips episodes that don't focus on him (such as the robot Ted episode) and focuses on the larger season arc, as well the reactions of Xander having Xena's memories and knowledge.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Xander/Xendra and Willow have tons of these, usually steeped with pop culture jokes. Occasionally Buffy joins in too.
• Setting Update: Rather than The '90s, this fic is set in The New '10s. During the Becoming Arc, Willow mentions Doctor Doofenschmirtz, and a cellphone is used by Cordelia to contact the Watchers' Council after Acthla's defeat. Amy was also reading Harry Potter, with the narration spoilers from later books, during the same scene.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Jenny Calendar is not killed by Angelus in this universe; instead she reconciles with her clan and leaves Sunnydale but keeps in touch with the Scoobies. Larry Blaisdell and Snyder survive the Graduation Day battle. Subverted with Snyder who is later turned into a vampire.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When thinking about how Buffy is still moping about Angelus, Willow remembers that one of Cordelia's ex-boyfriend said she was the soulless demon in the relationship going around ripping the hearts of unsuspecting males and that they are not guilty of stuff like flirting with groupies while singing on stage or getting caught naked with said groupies in the backstage.
• Tempting Fate: After dealing with the Sisterhood of Jhi and Jack O'Tootle, Willow says that at least nothing else bad happened that night. Gilligan Cut to Amy casting a spell that results in her screaming for ten minutes and then laugh like a maniac.
• Time Skip: Plentiful. Events that happened mostly like in canon are generally just zoomed by and summed up in a few paragraphs, usually in a scene where Xander/xendra thinks back on things that have happened recently.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Scott Hope takes advantage of the lost bet to wear full makeup, a blond wig and a Pimped-Out Dress while Xander, Todd and Cameron do the bare minimum to fulfill the bet.
• Wicked Witch: It turns out that Amy's family was this. Her great-grandmother used Human Sacrifice to craft a Deflector Shields around her house which cause any vampires and demon that cross it to burst into flames.