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Date Posted: 08:41:29 03/18/03 Tue
Author: Chani
Author Host/IP: modemcable065.54-130-66.mtl.mc.videotron.ca / 66.130.54.65
Subject: Re: Can we start General Review and Discussion of B/X "Through Different Eyes"?
In reply to: Gwynevere1 's message, "Can we start General Review and Discussion of B/X "Through Different Eyes"?" on 21:31:57 03/17/03 Mon

Sorry if I gave my review before the appropriate time but I won't be able to do it next week (overbooked week in prospect!)



I read all the chapters, and I am not even a B/X! I am far from being a B/X actually!

Frankly, it's hard for me to believe in this ship, but there are good ideas in this fiction:

1) Put it early in the Buffyverse, just after "Pang", before Buffy knew the truth about Angel! I always thought that her crush for Angel has increased when she discovered the whole ensouled vampire stuff because it was so poetic as Giles said it. It is what Stendhal called "cristallisation"...So B/X could have happened before "Angel" indeed. IMO if there is a good "time" for this ship, it is right then, or during season 3....

2) Buffy being attracted by Xander because of the hyena thing... Why not? Sounds like it was a catalyst, and it is plausible. I am rather surprised that the BX shippers went this way though. But at the time, it is plausible because Buffy hasn't experienced the Bad Boy attraction yet, she was very young so she could have find him suddenly appealing and sexy. This way wouldn't work for a late in developping B/X ship, but I can believe it there.

3) Buffy's thoughts in the first chapter are quite funny:

"Scratch bad friend. I知 a horrible, evil friend. I知 not even a friend. I知 an enemy. I知 Cordelia. Eww. God no. I知 not *that* bad!"


So Buffy's behaviour is rather credible in this story....I don't think she is really out of character. However


I have to agree about the dialogues being hard to buy! They don't ring well for teenagers. And there is a lot of dialogues in this fic!

I also have a few problems:

- Xander says he is fifteen...Wasn't he sixteen????? Besides I don't recognize his "voice", the voice he had in season 1.

- There is another issue concerning Angel....the way he is dropped in the Summers House bothers me. Who is this man supposed to be for Joyce at the time? Joyce should have wondered about him...It doesn't make sense.

- I don't believe in Willow running to Angel either! Besides she accepts the new couple too easily in the end IMO (I can't help remmebering her crying in the bathroom after she discovered the Xander/Faith thing!).

I have the feeling that the author was too quick, wrote too quick. Yet the story had a potential. The B/X couple is rather cute...and, in a way, I understand that the B/X shippers chose this story to represent this "normal" ship....but it was like if season 6 Xander was dating season 1 Buffy! Yet this Xander's voice isn't really season 6 Xander's voice either.... Besides the choice of a POV fic, and the amount of dialogues or inner monologues leave me wanting more. A POV fic allows explanations and descriptions too...The backstory is barely touched. We don't see The Slayer a lot here....

So I'll give it 65/100.

By the way I don't understand why the marks 60-69 are called " low average" here. If 100 is the hightest mark, 50 should be right the average! I'm pointing that out because I don't think I'll say this story is low average....

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[> Re: Can we start General Review and Discussion of B/X "Through Different Eyes"? -- SaraKat, 14:59:20 03/19/03 Wed (lsanca1-ar4-254-042.biz.dsl.gtei.net/4.33.254.42)

Okay, here's my review of "Through Different Eyes"

Overall, I enjoyed this fic very much. I enjoyed it when Bri first posted it and I enjoyed it again reading it for the club. I enjoyed seeing what could/should(that's the BXer in me talking! ;) ) have happened post-The Pack. I could see how the Hyena-Xander was attractive to Buffy and opened her eyes to the possibility of there being more to Xander than just him just being her "Xander-shaped-friend". Buffy had already proved that dark mysterious men were attractive to her ie. Angel. I also greatly enjoyed seeing bright, happy, funny Season 1 Buffy. Too many of the fics I read these days feature a dark Buffy that I don't recognize. Overall, this is one of my favorite BX fics because of this. It's light, it's fluffy, and it's leaves me with a smile on my face.

I do have some complaints though, that upon further inspection of the fic, made me change what my inital, gut-reaction rating would have been. The Xander in this story does seem a bit too mature or too much like the Xander of Season 6. And although I did, for the most part, like the interaction between Willow and Xander, Willow bugged me. She's always come off, IMHO, as being manipulative in the first two seasons and that comes through very clearly in this fic.

Other than that, I enjoyed this fic. Like I said before, it's light, it's fluffy, and it leaves me with a smile on my face....a sure sign of enjoyment. And isn't that what fanfics about?

My rating: 88/100


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