Title: Spy Game

Author: neoolong

Rating: T

Genre: Drama/Adventure

Pairing: Xander/Vi

Status: Complete (sequel is out but on hiatus)

Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3382798/1/Spy_Game

Summary: Away for a year, Xander comes into his own. And finds out just what it takes to save the world when the forces of evil come knocking.


Alrighty I found this one not too long ago and really enjoyed it. I found it a fun read as there weren't too many grammar mistakes and such. One of my favourite points about this story is that the author seemed to have planned ahead unlike many so that it doesn't feel like the story is going nowhere. Some could definitely say that there are grammatical errors in the first couple of chapters, but I find that the author improves as he goes, so it didn't feel like a big deal to me at all.

Anyways, this fic basically explores the post-series world in which Xander asks a very important question; why use stakes and battle-axes when you have guns? The author offers a more realistic take on the Buffy-verse in which governments are perfectly aware of the occult and are not crazy enough to leave the world's defense to a blond chick living in a small town.

Though this fic is Xander-centric, you never get the impression that he is uber unbeatable and has godly powers above everyone else. While he obviously gets an 'upgrade' from his sort of background role in canon, he is by no means unkillable. Any perks he gets/attained is perfectly logical considering the circumstances. This is not one of those overpowered main char fics and no one gives him any 'gifts' like Kyuubi does in Naruto fanfictions.

I loved pretty much everything about this fic, so I'm giving it a 5/5.

 

I read this fic last summer and it's not bad, though I'm not quite sure I agree with all of your ebullient praise.

The first point that I feel you've somewhat omitted is that there is an enormous amount of character bashing in this fic. Buffy, Willow, Giles and especially Andrew are bashed and occasionally beaten up to the point of ridiculousness. The Watcher's council is continuously panned in favour of the apparently super-awesome US government. This comes of as a bit contrived considering their past role in the Buffyverse (namely The Initiative).

Secondly despite the author occasionally trying to re-affirm Xander's normality as a typical human, he pretty much is for all intents and purposes "uber-unbeatable." In the first chapter of the fic he beats up a slayer and from then on his enemies become larger and more deadlier whilst he continues to either shoot them, kill them with his bare-hands or call an airstrike on them (which whilst being somewhat cool I can't help but feel is somewhat of a cop-out in terms of resolving a fight in the narrative). Although he occasional asks deities to give him super-powers, its clear that he can murder anything he wants to just using his uber-spy skills.

I mean consider all the fucking Jason Bourne comparisons!

Anyway, its not a bad fic, but I'd give it only 3.5/5.

 

I read this fanfic and its sequel a while back and those fics are my favorites in the BtVS fandom so this gets 5/5 from me

 

I despise Xander-Sue fics, and also bashing fics.

0/5

 

I read this fic once and enjoyed it. I think my favorite part was the Xander/Vi interaction. That said, the bashing was over the top and I oft found Xander's characterization annoying and unbelievable with all the authority/power he accrued.

Still, an entertaining and pleasant read. I enjoyed Neoolong's BtVS/Iron Fist stories a hell of a lot more and am hoping that he ditches his new BtVS/TSCC xover to finish Way of the Warrior.

3.5/5

 

Saw it read it. Its okay. Not anything too noteworthy. Just another average fic which I guess I should be thankful for. I mean... it could be worse.
2/5

 

Yeah, it was my first story so I had a bit of trouble. Also, my word processing program back then had issues with spellcheck and it ended up missing half the misspelled words.

I'm actually revising it now with the intention of finishing at least the sequel, so there are a lot less mistakes this time around. It was actually pretty bad going through the first chapters and seeing the mistakes. It's posted on Twisting the Hellmouth.

Anyway, I understand that there's "bashing" in the story, and it's been picked up on in other posts. The thing is though, that the series basically allowed the main characters to make boneheaded decisions without consequences. Which for some reason makes it look like they're better than they are. Xander gets through it mostly unscathed, there's only about two bad ones that are just moronic, and that's mainly because he got marginalized after a while. In other words, he ended up annoying me less than everyone else in the main cast for being an idiot, of those that survived to the end at least.

With the scale that even the Season 8 comic brings things to, doesn't it become Mary-Stuing everyone if the characters aren't called on their stupid decisions?

That was always one of the sticking points for me in regards to the whole canon. It wouldn't have taken much to take guns off of the table. The comic Crimson had bullets just go through vampires like they were smoke, so that there was a reason why stakes and crossbows would be used.

The worse thing is that the shows demonstrate that stuff can go down two hours away from the slayer and her watcher, and they'd have no idea what's going on. Imagine if some apocalypse was brewing in Nevada. They'd be even more screwed. And that's with today's extremely quick transportation. Somebody has to be taking care of the rest.

It's actually kind of weird, but the show is rather contradictory on how good he actually is in combat. He had the "soldier memories" which disappeared with no real reason, even though he had them at some point canonically. Yet, we never see him practice with a bow, but he can hit someone in the forearm just as he's about to stab someone in Season 7. So that suggests he at least practiced with that, even if it's never seen. But, I think that's pretty much the only time we ever see him using a bow.

I did add a paragraph in the revised version that explains a bit more about how he got there. I did try to have it make sense in a more explicit way.

Thanks. And thanks for pimping my fic here.