I'm weak.

So apparently I am posting this as a WIP. I'm avoiding admitting it to myself, though, by not properly labelling my posts or putting it in the memories or anything. Also, I'm warning you again: I don't know when I'll finish this. Updates are liable to be irregular. It's a rough draft, and stuff from the beginning could change later. Oh, and speaking of changes, I did end up going back and switching it all to past tense. Please don't hate me. (God I need to sleep more and be less insecure.)

EDIT: Originally this first chapter was posted in two short parts. I've gone back and added the first bit to this part to make it easier to read.

This is part of my Fragments series. It's a sequel to "Late Night Porn Store Blues," which is in turn a prequel to "Human Frailty."

Title: How The Light Gets In

Author: shadowscast

Rating: R for the language at the moment. There might be some sexual content later.

Warnings: Spoilers for all of BtVS and AtS. The whole series was originally just an excuse to indulge my hurt/comfort kink. Somehow a plot crept in too (funny how that happens!) but expect lots of hurt/comfort still to come. My Spike's kinda broken, and my Xander's got problems of his own.

Summary: It's a few months after "Not Fade Away." Giles sent Xander to L.A. looking for a Slayer, and what he found was a human Spike and a not-human Illyria. Now Xander's supposed to recruit one or both of them for the Council.

All completed parts can be found here.

( How The Light Gets In, Chapter One )

Encore, en francais!

I'm trying to improve my French. I live in a French city, so you'd think this would be easy, but I work in an English environment and other than work I don't get out much.

So I've decided to start re-watching BtVS, on the French language track. I figure since I know what's happening anyway, I'll be able to follow even when I don't get every word.

I watched "Family" this way today, and so far the experiment is a success. I was able to understand about 80%, and since I knew what was going on anyway the other 20% didn't make me lose the plot.

I'm impressed at how well many of the voice actors fit the original actors' voices. Giles and Spike are weird without their British accents, though.

Pimp!

speakr2customrs has just posted two absolutely wonderful stories to watchersdiaries, and I think you should go read them now.

They're both historical fiction, set long before the births of any canon characters. (Well, I suppose Anya was kicking around somewhere at the time, but she doesn't come into play). They're well-written, exciting, meticulously researched, and completely fantastic.

Here are the links, and the summaries Speaker wrote:

Deid Canny
1613. The Baltic States during the ‘Ingermanland War’ between Sweden and Russia. An English mercenary in the service of the Swedes discovers that becoming a vampire is less of a change than you might think. Rating probably R. 3,300 words.

The Cloak of Mist
The Isle of Man, 1014 AD, a mixed Celtic and Viking community. In the aftermath of the slaughter at the Battle of Clontarf, with the islanders mourning their dead and anxious for the missing, a new Slayer must face a horde of undead Vikings to free the island from a dreadful curse. Rating PG-13. Violence, and eventually some nudity, but absolutely no swearing. 30,000 words.