Some Buffy questions

[winter]

My Joss Whedon experience is spotty at best. I've watched most of Buffy Season 1, about two-thirds of Buffy seasons 2 and 3, Angel 1-3 and then three quarters of 5. The problem being, I now want to write a Buffy crossover that, for plot purposes, has to be set after Angel discovers the Shanshu thing. This puts it between Season 4 and Season 5 of Buffy. Hence, characterisation problems.

• Willow's with Tara at that point and somewhat aware of her power, but at what stage of her transformation? Still geeky, Wicca girl, Terrible As The Dawn, somewhere in between?
  
  
• What was Giles' status throughout season 4? Any changes in his character since season 3 that I should be aware of? And what was he doing for a living - I believe he only opened up the Magic Box in season 5?
  
  
• And finally, I know what Spike was like at the time, but where was he living between Season 4 and Season 5? I saw mentions of a crypt, I suppose with Harmony tagging along?
  

I know there are Buffy fans on my f-list. I'm sadly deprived through lack of time and money to buy full seasons :( Help me out?

Comments

[settiai]

It's been forever since I've seen Season Four, but I'll see if I can help at least a little.

At that point, Willow's still pretty much geeky Wicca girl. She doesn't really start using the magic for darker purposes until somewhere between the middle and end of Season Five.

For the first half of Season Four, Giles was sort of lost. He wasn't technically Buffy's Watcher anymore, the library was gone, and his "kids" had all gone away to college. As the season went by, though, he realized that they still needed him... just in a different way. Season Four ended with the four original Scoobies (Giles, Buffy, Willow, and Xander) really getting back to their roots, and it was revealed just how much they depended on each other. Anya, Tara, and Riley weren't full-fledged members of the "team" -- that honor stayed with the Core Four.

As for Spike, he spent most of Season Four living in Giles's bathroom and Xander's basement. By the end of the season, though, he had found his crypt and was working on getting it set up like he wanted it. He and Harmony were sorta off-again and on-again at that point, if I remember correctly.

And, of course, Dawn appeared sometime between the two seasons -- most likely closer to the end of Season Four than the beginning of Season Five.

[littleshebear.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, Willow doesn't start to go really dark until season six (when she falls in with that warlock guy in that oh-so-sledgehammer anti-drugs allegory *cue eyerolling*). She goes utterly psycho during the last two eps of season six.

I think Dawn first shows up either right at the end of season 4 or at the end of the first ep. of season 5.

[settiai]

I was thinking more about how, at the very end of Season Five, she used some major magic against Glory -- especially after Tara is injured. She didn't really start going "dark" exactly... but it was where she started using darker magic.

[littleshebear.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, yes, you're right there, the floaty knives of doom and so on. I need to watch season 5 again, I liked season 5.

[isis-whit.livejournal.com]

Who doesn't love the gigantic angst fest that was Season 5?

[littleshebear.livejournal.com]

Yeah, season 5 was angst, and it was good. Season 6 was wangst, and it was not good.

Angst vs wangst, the differences are subtle but so significant.

[isis-whit.livejournal.com]

And, S6 was Spuffy, and not much else. Oh, showing off JM's abs as many times as possible. *eyeroll*

[littleshebear.livejournal.com]

Yargh. Not. A fan. Of Spuffy.

I don't know, I might have been okay with Spuffy (I admit, I did have a quiet squee at the end of Tabula Rasa), just not the way it was handled. It was ludicrously over the top.

[winter]

Thank you so much! The Giles stuff really helps, and I'm glad to hear the Scoobies had their dynamic back - that means I can use the stuff I remember from seasons 1-3 after all.

Online timelines have Dawn being incarnated in August, so June or so should still be Dawn-free enough for my purposes. It's really supposed to be a spamfic, so the more characters I can lose, the better :)