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

[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.