The reaction of the Council to Buffy's behaviour over Angelus was rather more humane than it could have been, however their idea for creating an army of Slayers through medical murder was stomach churning.

Still, Buffy's behaviour over the Angelus and Spike affairs cost a lot of people their lives.... And your Buffy was pretty accurate, filled with her own self-importance.

Thanks for the review. I was aiming for stomach churning. Yeah!! I got something right. There will be a followup chapter from Xander's POV ten years down the road, but I am a very slow writer so don't hold your breath.

If only because this means that the First will likely not be able to act (Buffy's resurrection), I think that the future will not be so dark. Also, with so many Slayers, more Watchers will be in the field, not just Traver's groupies.

I'd like to see a Council takes on evil Willow fic.

I guess I think that the Council will eventually change and that it is less scary than Scoobies fueled by emotion and drama. It probably wouldn't make for a good TV show, however.

Thanks for the review. I will be following up on another reviewer's suggestion and adding another chapter from Xander's point of view. It will be placed ten years in the future with a look back at the events in Sunnydale. I will be showing a darker future and different paths for the Scoobies. I didn't liked the automatic condemnation of Faith after the friendly fire incident or her living in the motel (couldn't the Council put her up somewhere safer?). I never thought the Council treated Slayers well before, and I have trouble seeing them changing with an army of Slayers behind them. Thanks again for the review and when I add the chapter, please let me know what you think.

I can see how its a dark parody now personally I believe Angelus/Angel needed to be sent to Hell because it toughened him up not that I don't think he could handle LA without the trip to Hell but it certainly helped strengthen his resolve for the long haul

I agree that the trip to Hell was a good "character building exercise" for Angel. Sorry I have had those in places I've worked and Hell seemed preferable. But you have to remember we know the future, as the reader. If one of your co-workers or friends went wacko and started killing, would you be thinking of his future development or that he needs to be put down? The characters are in the moment, lacking the knowledge of what might happen in a few years. No seers in the group.

I see where most people would think that the Counsil being in charge would be a very bad thing, but I am of the opinion that the Counsil can't possibly do any worse. I am in the minority that believes the Scoobies LOST at the end of season 7. The whole season had the feel that the First (and Caleb) where doing the equivelent of "Nyah nyah nah boo boo! You can't catch me!", hoping that the Scoobies would follow right along and sure enough, they did. Of course, in their defense, I am also of the opinion that they were so deep into battle fatigue by that time that they didn't know their head from their tush.

Okay, seeing your comments I admit I thought the Council having an army of Slayers was a scary and bad thing. But I did not realize that was your intent.

If you want to lose the veneer of bashing then you need to remove the comments about Buffy having no skills outside of slaying.

The "charismatic evil" comment doesn't work because not everyone would find the Mayor charismatic(I didn't) and because while Buffy didn't kill Angelus she certainly didn't join him. She kicked his ass a time or two before the final battle.

Showing Xander immediately be horrified by the idea of the Council killing Slayers to create more would show that you find that to be an unacceptable idea. As it is as the idea is presented as a good thing by a character who seems to be the primary protaganist in this story so that reads as support.

Also, knowing how things work out, hasn't prevented dozens(it seems like) of writers from rewriting the past with every action Buffy took as being wrong. Things such as the activating of the Slayers being the First's real plan all along.

This is just my opinion of course.

Thanks for the review. I will probably try a rewrite or something later, and consider everyone advise.

The funny thing is that I really wasn't trying to bash Buffy. I remember when my sister was in her teens. Every boyfriend was her soul-mate, and every breakup was the end of the world. And she knew they would re-unite to be together forever, at least until the next soul-mate.

The comments about the job skills was my attempt to place myself in that situation. I know when I was "let go" from various jobs, I wasn't thinking about my next career path. I was thinking about how depressed I was and feeling worthless and unhireable. College Degree, Masters, and years of work experience don't mean much when you are told you are no longer needed. That was what I was trying to draw upon.

As my creative writing teacher once told me, if you have to explain your story, then the story needs work. Thanks again.

You have to pity Xander in this fic since it won't be too long before he realized what he's doom thousands of young girls too.

As for Buffy... yeah she slept with a corpse and she's an idiot. I think you had Buffy dead on and it was nice to see a dark fic in which Buffy was punished for her actions or is it inaction in this case. I always wanted someone to slap her across the face and tell her to do her job.

Thanks for the review.

I agree with Wolflady. Buffy was irresponsible and Giles failed to control her.

True, but what parent ever truly controls their child. Thanks.

re: 'Buffy bashing' VS intentional dark-fic
If it helps, I got it. That's why it didn't occur to me to comment on any 'Buffy-bashing.' I saw it as more an example of what would happen if the bashers got exactly what they wanted... and the result is utter disaster for the entire world.

My objection was on other grounds.

Thanks. The future does look dark.

Ditto the previous reviewer - it's such an awful Buffy-bashing fic with no redeeming values that it's almost like a parody version of such stories. Okay, so you obviously hate Buffy. Well and good, fine, good for you. Now try actually telling a story instead of ranting to your readers.

EDIT: Ok, I totally missed that. In my defense, it does read like SO MANY vicious bashing fics here and elsewhere where someone picks their favorite character, decides that everyone else is a total jerk who above all else fails to worship their favorite character sufficiently, and proceeds to glorify their character as a god and portray everyone else as brain-damaged idiots with a mean streak...gah...I shouldn't get started on this...

Did everyone one miss what I was aiming for? The sarcasm in the story was obviously not heavy enough. I was trying to show a dark and twisted future for everyone. The concern for the charismatic evil was supposed to be a thinly veiled reference to the Mayor; everything was to show Buffy becoming what Faith was portrayed as in canon. The Dark Slayer reference I almost cut out as being over the top. We as the readers with knowledge of the future know everything would have worked out in the end. The title "The Council Saves the Day" was meant as ironic. I never liked the Council training in canon, and Travers in charge of an army of Kendra clones, was in my mind very scary. The whole point was that this was a very bad day indeed. Come on, Wesley teaching Giles to be better Watcher? This was only my second story, and obviously I still have a lot to learn about conveying my true meaning in my stories. Would classifying it as Dark rather than Drama helped? Or is it a lost cause? Please let me know. Although, I did always wonder why they never pursued the clinical death procedure.

In my experience if the GOOD GUYS don't do the right thing, then sometimes EVIL will do the right thing if for no other reason than doing so will make Good look bad. How many died before Buffy did her duty and went for the kill. I Agree with Travers (Yes, I know he's a jerk), Buffy's inability to deal with Angelus mearly because he wore Angel's face is unconscionable.

Thank you for the review.

This is so bad it almost reads like a parody of Buffy-bashing fics.

If you read my comments to another reviewer, you will see there was no bashing. The entire thing was a dark and scary vision of the future. From everyones comments, I did not get that across in my story. I will work on that in the future. But thank you for taking the time to review.

That's quite a bit of revisionist history.

I don't believe the Council really existed until season 3 when Faith showed up. Until then it was basically Buffy and Giles flying solo. So Quentin coming in and de-slayering Buffy reads like wish fulfillment.

I don't think the Council would have cared about the whole Buffy/Angel thing anyway. Jenny was one of those annoying free agents the Council didn't approve of, and a gypsy to boot. I'm sure Quentin Travers, if he even knew about it, would have been quite happy to have two interfering gypsies out of the way.

And... there is no indication that Faith could have done any better with Angelus at that point.

But, anyway... not a bad story for the genre (of the 'Let's blame Buffy for everything that went wrong in Season's 1-3 sort).

Boy, did I miss the boat on this one. I was aiming for Dark and Frightening Vision of the Future and noone got that. One or two people, fine, they didn't get the deeper meaning. But everyone so far sees bashing, that means I screwed up. How could I have gotten the irony across to the reader. Remember, new author here. Still trying to learn. Stories sound good in my head, but on paper they turn to crap.

Two seasons explained for your pleasure. Accurate depictions of Buffy's friends gave this story fault lines that could be explored when Buffy and Giles run for it!

Thanks for the review.

There is, of course, a major problem with the scenario as presented, and I'm surprised nobody's picked up on it yet:
If it's that easy to permanently strip someone of their Slayer abilities, why doesn't every dark mage know the spell? It should be the first thing a person learns when they start thinking about going for the dark magics on the off chance that they end up at odds with, you know, the mystical warrior empowered to defeat supernatural evil? Especially since, again, as presented, it is not at all a difficult spell to perform, and takes a few seconds of hand-waving and light-showiness.

There's another issue, but it's less of a logical difficulty and more of a canonical one: I'm fairly sure that the drug applied in the cruciamentum is actually an adrenal suppresant and a muscle relaxant, not a spell.

The stupid spell, I know. I needed a way to have Buffy removed from the story without killing her. If I decide to continue with this story she could end up as the next Xander - fray adjacent. Without her powers would she just fade away or stay and try to help? Remember both Xander and Cordelia were without powers and they remained; but Buffy often complained about her life and now she has a choice. What would she do? Thanks for the review and I apologize for the lame use of the crappy spell idea.

I'm guessing that they're going to alter the records and paint Buffy in a bad light in order to make it clear to future Slayers that making friends is a *bad thing* and a direct step towards the dark side? Not a good tack to take with Faith.

I was trying to flip the whole Buffy = Good, Faith = Bad, thing that was carried through out the series. Even into the comics. Thats why I used wording like Dark Slayer (which was often used to discribe Faith) The thought of Travers in charge scared me. But the winners write the History Books. Can't you see him altering the records to reflect his way of thinking? Thanks for the review.