2441: Halloween Oneshots – Spooptoberfest Part One
Posted: October 2, 2019 Filed under: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Halloween, Halloween in LA, The halloween after | Tags: Angel, Angst, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Halloween, Humor, Movie, Romance, Songfic, Spooptoberfest, TacoMagic, Television, Tragedy 68 CommentsTitle: The halloween after
Author: NotJustOneFandome
Media: Movie
Topic: Halloween
Genre: Tragedy/Angst but to music
URL: The halloween after
Critiqued by TacoMagic and Eliza
Hello, patrons! Welcome back to the continuing Spooptoberfestivities! Today we’ll be adding two more little oneshots to the Library’s pile of spooky, spooky failure. The first is a Halloween oneshot, not just the holiday, but also the titular movie taking place on the holiday! Though, honestly, to call this thing a fanfic is tarnishing the good name of such epic masterpieces of “untold zombie chronicels.”
You’ll understand why this one is bad pretty much right away when I show you the summary.
Song fanfic
That’s the entire summary. And it’s a tragedy/angst fic, so who wants to bet we get something with either My Chemical Romance or Evanescence. Brace yourselves, patrons, we’re going in hot!
The black is the lyrics, and the regular is the thoughts/actoins.
The italics are just there to throw you off the scent of any kind of coherency. Not that coherency will be a big thing for this fic.
Playground school bells wring
Welp, we’re off to a good start.
And, sadly, I was correct, it’s an Evanescence song.
They are all gone… Why are the all gone?
See, this is why I always buy the next bag of gummy worms before the current one runs out.
Again
Him
*Eliza charges into the room*
“MrGuyMan!?”
I think that’s a little too hopeful for a songfic. But it is an 80’s-era a slasher inspired fic, so maybe MrGuyMan will be trying to kill GirlWoman.
“I’ll get the popcorn!”
Rain clouds come to play
He took hem away… Why did he do that?
Well, a growing boy sometimes needs the extra length.
*Swenia starts to push the PPMS into the room*
I’m talking about pants, you magnificent pervert!
Again
Me
*Eliza arrives back with a comically large tub of popcorn* “Is this MrGuyMan or GirlWoman.”
Well, it’s ‘again me,’ so probably GuyMan cast as Murder-san.
“Booo!” *Throws popcorn at the fic*
Has no one told you shes not breathing?
She got in her car, and drove.
“Are you sure it’s MrGuyMan?”
No longer quite so sure, no. It really could be a small, elderly woman from north-east of Los Angeles for all the information we’ve been given.
Hello, I’m your mind
“Hi! I’ve got some popcorn heading your way, brain!”
Those are the lyrics, not your actual brain. Also, I’m pretty sure your bucket is filled with pork rinds.
“Gumdrop calls it ‘super popcorn.'”
Of course he does.
Theirs no time for the radio
“Did you give our lack of time to the radio again?”
How could I know it wasn’t going to give the no time back!?
Giving you someone
*MrGuyMan comes shooting out of the fic*
“BOOOOO!” *Eliza throws popcorn at him*
Don’t you have a gruesome murder you should be doing or something?
*MrGuyMan shrugs then climbs his way back into the fic*
Theirs no time for life.
Before you say anything, it was an attempt at immortality.
“Did it work?”
Sorta, I was immortal but felt like I was perpetually sitting in a dentist office waiting room until I took the no time back.
To talk to…
Hes coming
Hello
Its Halloween.
What about its Halloween?
“It’s a very nice Halloween that it has.”
That sentence hurt me.
If I smile and don’t believe
She got out of the car.
Soon I know Ill wake
Police cars rush past her
From this dream
To the people he killed.
Come to think of it, what the hell does the song have to do with what’s going on? As a montage, this wouldn’t make any damn sense! The song is about the Amy Lee’s younger sister who died of an unknown illness when she was young. Here we have Laurie Strode fleeing from Mike Meyers. Talk about conceptual dissonance!
Don’t try and fix me
Trying to catch him
I’m not broken
Like they can.
“I love that movie!”
Meh, I’d have liked it more if it had spent more time focused on the intricacies of check fraud detection and prevention.
“You also thought The Imitation Game needed to focus more on the mathematics of cryptography.”
Well it did!
Hello, I’m the lie
“Hi, the lie! So, if you admit you’re the lie, does that make you not a lie? In which case you’re telling the truth and you actually are a lie! But, if you’re a lie, then-”
I’m going to stop you right there.
She walked into the Myers house
I was going to say that is a tremendously stupid thing to do with Mike on the prowl, but then I realized she’s at the Myers house and probably just poking around hoping to find a Stroopwafel.
Living for you so you can hide
And went up stares
*Taco and Eliza look intently above the fic*
Don’t cry
She sat on the floor.
Comfy.
Suddenly I know I’m not sleeping!
She pulled out the knife, his knife.
Ugh, I’m getting a hyper-edgelord seppuku vibe here.
“How did she end up with his knife?”
Well, you know Mike, he’s always setting it down and then losing it. Like my coffee.
Hello I’m still here!
*Eliza waves* “Hi! Boy, there sure are a lot of greetings in this fic. One of the most friendly we’ve read!”
Micheal Myers came in the room, prepared for a fight.
*Swenia starts wheeling the PPMS into the room*
“Oh, can you play something with a lot of tuba! I’m in a polka mood today!”
*Swenia scowls at Eliza and pushes the PPMS out of the room*
“What!?”
All thats left…
She put the knife in front of her, and looked into his eyes
Of yesterday!
I have a bad feeling about this.
And slit her trough.
“Not the trough! Where will the horses drink now!?”
Hey, her trough knows what it did.
I hope you liked it.
It was terrible, but I will say that I don’t think anyone saw the ending coming. I’m not sure why you went with GirlWoman slicing her manger, but it was definitely unexpected.
Its set the halloween after Halloween one.
And on that highly incomprehensible note, let’s move on to the next Halloween fic.
Title: Halloween in LA
Author: Cricketpoor
Media: TV Show
Topic: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (Actually Angel, but in the wrong section)
Genre: Romance/Humor
URL: Halloween in LA
Next up is a short Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fic that has the dubious claim to fame of having almost half its total vertical length being taken up with the header and author’s notes. There’s also no Buffy. Instead:
Spike and Xander celebrates Halloween in LA.
“Eeeeeeeeee!”
I should have kept the summary a secret. Let’s start in on this header!
Title: Halloween in LA
By: Cricketpoor
Disclaimer: Not mine, as usual; if you find them on eBay let me know, cuz I’m buying…
Rating: PG-13
Paring: X/S
Feedback: Give me give me give me…please?
You probably aren’t going to like the feedback, but you can follow along below if you really want it.
Author’s Notes: This a short Halloween fic, but there might be a sequel if I have any ideas…
“Was there a sequel?”
I mean, sorta. The author has a sizable pile of tiny Spike/Xander oneshots for the various holidays. They’re all pretty similar, but you could consider them all a continuation of the theme.
Big thanks to Beetle for the Beta
At least now we have somebody to blame. Well, somebody else to blame. With the header finally out of the way, we finally arrive at the fic proper.
Spike straightened his collar before he went out to see his lover. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the Hyperion’s hallway.
Which is italicized for some reason despite being the name of a hotel and not like a book or movie or something.
“Maybe he stepped into the Dan Simmons novel.”
If only, then this might be good.
Leaning against one of the other doors stood a hot, dark-haired guy clad in leather.
“He wouldn’t be so hot if he wasn’t wearing so much leather!”
Cultivating the look takes precedence over comfort. Always.
Spike swallowed and walked towards the other man, whose dark eyes found his in an instant, then slowly roamed over Spike’s body.
Son-of-a- Somebody get the eye-swatter!
“Spike.”
Also in italics.
“It gives the word emphasis so it stands apart from the other words that aren’t in that sentence!”
So much lust packed into one word.
You two do know you’re in a hotel. It’s mostly abandoned so ‘getting a room’ would be pretty easy. Just saying.
Spike had to swallow again before he could respond.
“That doesn’t sound very much like Spike.”
Yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot of Buffy fanfic writers have no idea how to write Spike. He’s either bashful and indecisive (like here), the token SUPER-BRITISHMAN!, a mega edgelord, or just they just plop him in to go around trying to insult everyone with really lame one-liners. To be fair, he’s a bit of a difficult character to write, but that doesn’t really excuse writing him totally out of character. Spike is not bashful or prone to second-guessing himself. If you’re writing spike as anything other than maddeningly self-assured (with some exceptions), then you’re doing Spike wrong.
“Xander.”
Not italics, so not packed with extra lust.
“Awww.”
The younger man caressed Spike’s velvet-clad chest and murmured, “Big, bad, sexy vampire…”
There’s literally a room right behind Spike.
“And behind Xander!”
As mentioned before, it’s a fucking hotel, so get a room. Or, hell, get a few rooms.
Spike leaned in and kissed Xander thoroughly. Cold arms circled a warm body and Xander sighed happily.
Not judging, but the whole ‘sleeping with somebody who feels like a corpse’ thing has always struck me as a big nope. Though I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than sleeping with somebody who feels like a statue.
Someone nearby cleared his throat and, with one last lingering kiss, Xander and his vampire lover turned to face the third person.
Please tell them to get a room, please tell them to get a room, please tell them to get a room.
“You are very invested in them getting a room.”
I am very invested in this hotel being a hotel!
A couple seconds later, both of them burst out laughing.
“And then fade to black?”
Not quite yet, but almost.
Xander finally gathered his thoughts. “You really did call Anya for advice didn’t you?”
Wait, not to spoil a show nearly 20 years old, but Anya should be dead by now.
“Well, this is Buffy. Weirder things than talking with the dead have happened.”
Okay, I’ll give you that one.
Angel smiled knowingly and reached up to adjust the foreign object on his head.
Aha! A th- object!
“Don’t you dare touch that!” Spike’s voice contained more than its fair share of threat and laughter.
“That’s not nice! Now you give some of that threat and laughter back so that other voices can have it!”
Do what she says, dude, the glitter requires multiple respawns to wash off.
“This is too bloody perfect!”
“Is it?”
*Taco shrugs and makes a noncommittal noise*
And who could argue?
*Taco and Eliza both raise hands*
Where did you get that hand?
“Found it! Think it belonged to a DRD agent at some point.”
Angel certainly didn’t. He was to busy ignoring the slightly crooked, fuzzy ears on his head as he walked down to the lobby in his brand new, pink playboy bunny suit.
“But the suit is normally black.”
That’s your first reaction to this?
“Authenticity is important to a good costume!”
Well then.
The End
So, to rewind a second:
Feedback: Give me give me give me…please?
Okay, first off, if you’re going to write a fanfiction, please have a point. This fic absolutely had no point, no plot, and only a very basic level of coherency.
Second, you really need to work on keeping your writing in character. Spike and Xander basically had traded personalities for this fic without any explanation or build up. If you need to, write down how the characters canonically act and use that as a template for your own writing.
Finally, if your fic has a header that’s nearly as tall as the actual body of you fic, then your fic has a good chance of being terrible. In this case, you mentioned that maybe you might do a sequel. Problem there is that you need a first fic for there to be a sequel. And you didn’t have a fic, you had a single scene of pure padding just existing in a vacuum. It’s like if I cropped out two paragraphs of “True Force,” added a big ol’ header, and called it a fanfic.
“At least the spelling was correct!”
This is true, at least your beta reader was able to keep your spelling and grammar pretty good. However, you need a better beta reader since I think all Beetle did was check your SPaG and not any of the arguably more important things like having a plot, accurate characterization, a recognizable setting, a point, etc.
“Making sure the bunny suit is black.”
Let it go, dude. Anyway, thanks for reading and I’ll catch you next week!
…
“We should do something nice for GirlWoman after that fic. You do woodworking, right? Maybe you could make her a new trough!”
Oh no, not after she stabbed the last one like that. But, I may consider making her a small basin of some kind if she promises not to bring anything sharp near it.
“Okay!”
Library of the Damned 
Of course.
Look, I’ve got nothing against either of those bands, but why not pick something original? I mean, if you want a tragedy-themed song, why not go with…
This one!
Right? I actually like some of Evanescence’s early stuff, but holy crap there are other bands, people!
My go-to tragedy-themed song is…
You know, back in school, I once said that I hated Evanescence out of fear of being relentlessly mocked by my classmates, because high school is literal hell. In truth, I had grown up with Evanescence’s stuff, on recommendation from my own dad after watching the Daredevil movie way back when.
I was shocked when literally half my class called me out for not liking Evanescence. The other half, predictably, started mocking the shit out of that half. But still, I couldn’t believe how much support I secretly had.
Now in my adult life, there’ve been two or three incidents where a coworker catches me on my break listening to shit like Linkin Park or Within Temptation or other such music which defined my edgy teenage years that I still enjoy, and I mentally brace myself to get mocked… only for them to be all, “Oh, dude! You listen to that, too? That’s awesome! Hey, do you have any songs from (insert album here)?”
One coworker likes to put on his Pandora playlist at work, too. It’s like 50% metal, 40% edgy music, and 10% comedy shows. I was terrified that we’d have complaints out the ass about our “awful music,” but our customers are forever going, “Oh, shit! That’s that band, isn’t it? What song is that, I need to look that up later.”
I’m really stunned that there are so many folks in my home community who like the same kinds of music that I do. My old hometown ain’t that big (he says, with his old hometown boasting a 15,000-some-such population), so it stuns me that I just kind of unknowingly fell into the popular musical niche of the area.
You’re lucky. Everyone I know constantly voices their dislike of AC/DC. I mean, this is meant to be Australia, where the bloody band comes from. My Dad’s about the only one who agrees with me on how awesome they are. My friends and coworkers all force me to use earphones when listening to that stuff, all while playing their bloody music on full blast.
Dude, what? AC/DC is the good shit. They even have Iron Man’s support!
Your fellow Australians are weird.
My friends all claim to have much more cultured tastes. With their ‘Panic! At the Disco’…and I actually can’t think of any other band they all agree is good. I have at least one friend- who’s in his thirties or fourties- who adores Taylor Swift music. Another likes Justin Bieber for some goddam reason.
Waaaaait.
You live in Australia?
…Inquiring minds want to know: how bad are the spiders?
The spiders aren’t all that bad. I live in Sydney, so I’m pretty far away from the spider-infested areas. I did live on the Northern Beaches (which are pretty spider infested) for a while when I was a kid, so I did come across my fair share of redbacks and other such things.
Protip: just don’t go near them, and they won’t bother you. People go on SO much about how ‘Australia is this dangerous place where everything wants to kill you’. It’s not motherfucking Pandora or Catachan for pete’s sake! If there’s something that’s poisonous, just don’t go near it! Basic common sense goes a long way towards not dying.
I have been stung by a bluebottle a few times though, and that hurts like a bitch. Trust me, if you go to the beach, and see something white and stringy across the shore, avoid like hell. That’s the stinger, and unless you’re wearing footwear…just don’t, please.
I remember seeing an image of what looked like snow in a park somewhere in Australia.
The person who posted the picture clarified, “no, that’s not snow. Those are spider webs.”
Leaving the spiders alone might make them less dangerous, but God DAMN, they are busy little fuckers.
Weird. It’s like they think Rock and Roll is Noise Pollution or something.
Honestly, any country that gave us the Bee Gees (sorta), Olivia Newton John, and AC/DC is OK in my book, which probably says more about my musical taste than it does about Australia but shush.
Though I will say that spiders are bad enough just existing. They don’t need to actually be hostile to make me hate them.
But then, they terrify me effectively enough from the other side of the Pacific, so it’s really more a strike against the world for having spiders to begin with than it is against Australia for having a higher concentration of spider inflicted on them.
I’d rather deal with spiders than the Giant Asian Hornet…
It’s not marked as a Power Puff Girls crossover, but Him is a pretty accomodating guy.
Oh, so it’s a fanfic about that one Doctor Who character everybody won’t shut up about!
To be fair, River Song and the Doctor, themselves, are pretty equally annoying in that regard.
You take that back. River Song is fucking awesome.
Better than motherfucking Jodie “Scronch Face” Whittaker in any regard. Bloody #13 and the blatantly terrible acting and writing…
Oh, I’m not denying that, I just wish people would be less eager to remind me that it is so. I mean, I watched those same episodes, people, you don’t need to inform me of what has already been made clear.
You just had to pick the one that looked like a dick, didn’t you?
You’re not wrong.
Because he’s a dick and doesn’t want the rain clouds to have any fun??
If MrGuyMan is a murderer, you probably shouldn’t be taking he popcorn.
I mean, raptors will eat basically anyone
‘s popcorn.
All while holding her breath? Impressive.
It was impressive until the hypoxia kicked in and she passed out at the wheel.
Laurie is actually a champion underwater car-driver. It’s a very exclusive sport.
Also a fairly rare major offered at only two universities worldwide.
Noted graduates tend to work for MI6, if film evidence is to be believed
Or, according to the Splinter Cell books, they become Sam Fisher.
There’s one part in the novelization of Splinter Cell: Conviction where Sam drives a car off a bridge and into the ocean, and somehow, in the time it takes the car to hit the water, he’s already jumped from the driver’s seat to the back seat, curled himself into a protective position, and put his deep sea diver lungs (which the books just LOVE to remind the reader he has, because he does a lot of deep sea diving, you see, being a Navy SEAL deep sea diver in a past life and all) to use, so that when the car impacts the water’s surface and inevitably shatters all the fucking windows, he’s in prime position to just causally swim his way out of there.
Yeah, the Splinter Cell books like to pull some interesting bullshit.
(Other things the books love to remind the readers: Sam can force himself to fall asleep immediately, and he has a watch with a special little prodding device that gently taps his pulse to wake him up. He also practices Krav Maga, has a Sykes-Fairbairn knife that his old commander gave to him, and he has a daughter who is the source of a great deal of his character drama in the video games.)
That’s one thing I don’t like about Tom Clancy: the man didn’t do a good job when it came to making sure the people he licensed his name to wouldn’t come up with absolute bullshit. It’s why I stick to his Ryanverse novels and ignore anything that he didn’t write himself.
Also, I’m imagining Sam Fisher breathing with deep sea diver sounds while flowers bloom like madness in the spring.
There are a lot of moments in the Splinter Cell books that are good, hence why I read them.
Others, like whenever Sam is sneaking through an area or gets into combat at all, are so perplexingly written that I have no idea what the fuck he’s actually DOING.
I know what you mean. In fact, I actually wrote and published a fic a couple weeks ago partially out of frustration for shitty action/fight scene writing and partially so I can call it up as a reference to illustrate some of what I plan to put into that essay that is percolating in my head.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20706143
And, yes, I know I need to get a move on with Mass Foundations, but I’ve got finals for my current class next Thursday and then I have 2 weeks off before starting the next one, so that’s been my focus. That fic took me all of a day to write (and it shows in places), but I can easily say without ego that it’s a hell of a lot better than the stuff we drag in here and eviscerate.
Fight scenes, as I’ve demonstrated before, are a weird middle ground for me: I’m not bad at writing them, per se, and they tend to err on the side of realism (insofar as the canon in question is concerned), but I spend so much time on the little details that I wind up not being very good at keeping the action brief. A single movement in a fight scene I write winds up reading like it’s in slow motion because it takes several paragraphs for me to set up what, exactly, is happening.
I tend to pepper as much realism as I can into a fight scene as I can without breaking a given fandom’s rules or breaking the first rule of storytelling (the story has to be entertaining). What helps me is that I’ve got 26 years of fighting experience between schoolyard brawls with bullies, my karate training, additional training from the military, etc. and so I know how to do quick and accurate descriptions of what’s going on with the movements without getting bogged down.
In that fic I linked, I pretty much threw myself into the ring against Juri Han from Street Fighter and the main tweak I made was making power moves (as in a character’s signature/finishing moves) MUCH more devastating than portrayed in the games while dialing back the superhuman martial arts tropes that series is known for (still present, but downplayed with the assumption that fighting at those kinds of paces would be exhausting and not something they would do at all times).
A pet peeve of mine: people who are lazy and just use technical terminology that the layperson wouldn’t know.
An example…
Bad: “I shot in and pulled off an Ashi Barai, following up with a punch to their face.”
My way: “I dart in while their guard was down, gripping their arms and pushing them off balance to their right. At the right moment, I sweep my left foot along the floor and hook their right ankle, tripping them up and slamming them onto their back. Tangling my legs around their right leg for control, I rear back and throw a right-handed hammer fist, trying to crush their nose before they can regain their wits.”
My way is much wordier, but it paints a MUCH better picture of the action.
Why does denying that she got out of the car cause someone to wake up, and why are the dream police investigating a murder?
It’s almost like this ‘fic doesn’t make any sense or something.
Also “Dream Police” should totally be a band.
Pretty sure there’s an 80s rock song called “Dream Police”. Not sure which band, though.
Oh, yeah, there is, isn’t there?
*YouTubety YouTube*
So 1979, apparently, but yeah.
Music is a funny beast. It seems the last two years of the previous decade and the first two of the following decade blend together until new genres emerge. For example, this song came out in 1992, at the very end of the “hair metal” age before grunge took over.
Of note, the lead guitarist in the band at the time was Neal Schon who founded Journey so he’s got solid rock and roll cred, especially since he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2017.
Oh, you are, huh? Well, listen, asshole: I’ve got a bone to pick with you. Why are you so, like, bad at stuff?
Poke that nerd with a Q-tip!
“Yeah, well, have you seen the shit I have to deal with? After Origins of Raggedy Anne I’m demanding hazard pay from now on.”
Brain!SC: Listen, assbag, if you ever make me riff a fic like that Black Cat Christmas oneshot again, I’m going to make you choke yourself out.
Bite me, bitch, that’s payback for all those awkward memories you so love dredging up.
Brain!SC: Yeah, of stupid shit you did, to remind you never to do it again!
You’re the one who made me do the stupid shit!
And, thus, the origins of The Specs and Co.’s misadventures reveals itself.
Basically, yeah.
I stand fully behind that assessment!
Some light reading: http://www.singingbanana.com/enigmaproject/maths.pdf
As someone who ardently watches How It’s Made, I, too, feel like more time should be spent on the intricacies of small details. That’s where all the real interesting shit is, anyhow!
And this is why there’s always time for the radio.
Oh hell naw.
In fact, there’s a decent chance that the arranging of rooms to be gotten would be more interesting than the actual content of this fic.
Man, imagine if this fic had been about the two of them checking into their rooms and trying to decide if $40 for an upgrade to a suite was worth it! The fic would have been so much better.
So apparently sperm can talk now. I dunno why you’d want to talk back, but hey! Everyone’s got their kinks, amiright?
I really hope there isn’t a creepypasta inspired by that.
There probably is, but I’m not looking for it.
It’s probably some unholy, cursed take on the intro to “Look Who’s Talking”…
Well, it’s not creepypasta, buuuut…
For good measure, this is apparently a children’s cartoon in Sweden.
Ah, Sweden.
…I’ve got to say, the song is pretty catchy. I am questioning the medical accuracy, though, since women don’t pee through their vaginas.
I seem to recall a review of a B horror movie about a demon that took the form of a voice coming from the genitals that could be transferred to other people via sex.
I’m pretty sure that was the first and last Cinema Snob video I watched.
There is an MLP fanfic with the same premise.
Of course there is.