Finished Vol 2 of After the Fall
A bunch of things are confusing me in a really irritating way. I mostly love it just fine but Fred and Connor are a problem. Connor because he regains his memory after the fall… but he already did in Angel s5?? I mean it’s written like he DID regain it in s5 but maybe not in detail? Idk. Just strange. Not canon-breaking though so it’s fine
Then Fred. In one Chapter Lorne says something about Fred being in heaven which was good bc she’s avoiding Hell. My dude. Her soul was DESTROYED. It isn’t anywhere. Further cemented by Wesley’s reason for doing what Wolfram and Heart says: that he’ll be with Fred for real. Again. Soul DESTROYED. But they’re treating it like a possibility.
The last thing wasn’t in the comic, but it was going to be. For Spike’s “After the Fall” Story (Not the comic series, the story in Angel ATF), Brian Lynch wrote about what he was going to have happen but ultimately cut. That Spike went back to his apartment from Shadow Puppets and found his nice neighbor dead which made him put his fighting boots back on. But Brian…. The only way Shadow Puppets and Asylum can be canon is if they happened AFTER these events. I know they’re slightly canonized bc we have Asylum characters in ATF. Which is kind of fine if you were referencing asylum. You MAYBE could fit that into S5… ignoring Lorne being in Vegas. But the apartment and neighbor are from Shadow Puppets. Which can NO WAY fit into s5; Spike has a different apartment, he’s retired, etc. the only way Shadow Puppets can be fully canonized is if it takes place AFTER After the Fall. Because it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. (Which ends up being confusing because Betta George isn’t revealed to be alive until Shadow Puppets as well, it kind only works if we view Asylum as mildly canon and not consider SP at all)
OH! And Wesley is referenced as being dead as well in Shadow Puppets! So there’s that as well. Keep in mind Asylum and Shadow Puppets were published fanfiction which had certain aspects (some characters from Asylum) brought into canon when Joss liked Lynch’s work.
All that to say… Brian, they can’t be full canon. Shadow Puppets especially…. Even after ATF seeing as Spike isn’t retired after ATF. Asylum can only be half-canon since the characters and events can work in s5 for only with some details omitted (like Lorne being in Vegas, and Betta George dying…just to name a couple). I know he said he didn’t want to use that story but because he didn’t want to kill the neighbor, but really it would just make the entire canon fall apart. He had to have known that being such a bang-up Buffyverse writer. <—- not sarcasm, I genuinely believe that, and was even more so before he started writing canon stories for some reason.
