I'm not going to say anthing about  BtVS fandom being on its last legs and how we should all make a valiant effort to keep it going, keep it strong. Instead, what I want to say is completely selfish to me. The state of my fandom worries me because right now every new fic I've tried to read over this week has just felt so crap to me! (I'm not talking about established authors I've been reading forever, I mean new writers, new fics.)

There's this little thing called characterization, keeping things in canon. Writing fic is walking a fine line because you're dealing with already established characters, each of whom have their own character traits which make them unique as individuals. (Well, except for Riley... I'm kidding - mostly!). You can't just have a little blonde girl, call her Buffy and be done with it. You have to remember who she is underneath the peroxide. Same with the redhead, the english guy, the vampire, the klutz, the kid sister. (Yes, I'm deliberately using descriptions I've seen as the sole link to characters I know and love over the past few days.)

I love BtVS fandom, I love reading fics about the characters, but right now most of what I'm reading isn't about those characters. It's about random people with the same names.

So I'm looking for recs, for new fics that are actually BtVS fics. Contrary to what you may think, I don't just read Xander and/or Faith centric fics - it just happens that they are what I write mostly. So rec some stories for me please? Something that will restore my faith in my fandom?

oh - and one last little thing:

your - a modifier before a noun; indication of possession (your accomplishments, your fic).

you're - contraction of you are.

The number of fics I've seen that get that wrong in the first paragraph? Shocking. (and these are usually the ones which have a list of beta readers to thank as long as my arm!)