Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda - Chapter 176 - 01/27/14 - COMPLETE

[mysticrain]

I finally finished reading this!

Just an awesome epic story!

I loved it!

Thank you for writing and sharing this. I gotta say Faith marrying Hades was a great spin! I totally didn't see that coming.

[Katharyn]

Thank you very much, Mysticrain. Always nice when an old story pops up the threads

Faith/Hades... if you read all the comments too, you probably know how I agonised about that but then... no one cared that I'd done it!! (I mean 'care' in terms of the negative connotations) Probably cos it was Faith LOL

Anyway, thank you once more

Katharyn

[Rutkowski]

Been reading this story for the last few days (I'm at 145 ATM) and I really love the attention to detail and AU you've created. Everyone sounds like, well, themselves and a natural progression can easily be followed from the beginning to the end.

...except, well...

Willow. She's actually getting kind of a short stick throughout the story so far. Tara has been lying to her(and saying 'no' when someone ask what's wrong when you're hiding you're a demon(supposedly) or the Key business is lying to me) and despite Willow always being unflinching in her trust in Tara it's not really well-earned. I mean Tara promise to never lie like she did in Family and immediately continues doing so WRT Hope. She didn't even try to ask Faith and Buffy(or even Giles when he found out) if it was okay to involve Willow(who could've been a great asset in researching stuff without notifying the others) and seemed rather glad at times to not involve her. Nobody really seems to trust Willow either and in every interpersonal drama she's either treated like completely or mostly in the wrong by, well, everyone. Everyone was allowed to give her crap/hit her buttons but she was treated like an ass for talking back. She's the junior partner by a huge margin in their relationship and had this been the show she'd probably become a guest star rather than title sequence character.

Willow is also becoming a secondary(at times even tertiary) character in the Scoobies. Up until the chapter I've read so far there hasn't been one instance that I can remember where she cast a spell or solve anything magic-related on her own without screwing up big-time. The times she is allowed to try anything by herself it is a mess at best(for example Triangle, and even there the correct banishment spell is found by Tara) and there's been nothing so far to show she's any more competent with her spellcasting than what she used to be in early S3.

Other than her relationship with Tara she actually feel like she's regressing back to the HS years both in maturity and ability.

Other than that, I love this story and will continue through to the end. It's hard to put a lot of words in what I love about the story so just consider everything not mentioned above to be of the awesome.

EDIT: Finished the story and yeah, Willow got even less relevant even before TL. Still loved the story and will check out Sidestep.

[Grimm]

Been reading this story for the last few days (I'm at 145 ATM) and I really love the attention to detail and AU you've created. Everyone sounds like, well, themselves and a natural progression can easily be followed from the beginning to the end.

...except, well...

Willow. She's actually getting kind of a short stick throughout the story so far. Tara has been lying to her(and saying 'no' when someone ask what's wrong when you're hiding you're a demon(supposedly) or the Key business is lying to me) and despite Willow always being unflinching in her trust in Tara it's not really well-earned. I mean Tara promise to never lie like she did in Family and immediately continues doing so WRT Hope. She didn't even try to ask Faith and Buffy(or even Giles when he found out) if it was okay to involve Willow(who could've been a great asset in researching stuff without notifying the others) and seemed rather glad at times to not involve her. Nobody really seems to trust Willow either and in every interpersonal drama she's either treated like completely or mostly in the wrong by, well, everyone. Everyone was allowed to give her crap/hit her buttons but she was treated like an ass for talking back. She's the junior partner by a huge margin in their relationship and had this been the show she'd probably become a guest star rather than title sequence character.

Willow is also becoming a secondary(at times even tertiary) character in the Scoobies. Up until the chapter I've read so far there hasn't been one instance that I can remember where she cast a spell or solve anything magic-related on her own without screwing up big-time. The times she is allowed to try anything by herself it is a mess at best(for example Triangle, and even there the correct banishment spell is found by Tara) and there's been nothing so far to show she's any more competent with her spellcasting than what she used to be in early S3.

Other than her relationship with Tara she actually feel like she's regressing back to the HS years both in maturity and ability.

Other than that, I love this story and will continue through to the end. It's hard to put a lot of words in what I love about the story so just consider everything not mentioned above to be of the awesome.

EDIT: Finished the story and yeah, Willow got even less relevant even before TL. Still loved the story and will check out Sidestep.

This whole post is a backhanded compliment about a story written almost a decade ago, by ONE of the better writers to EVER post on this site. You don't have to get it. But, her page and comment counts shows you are very much in the minority.

Haven't seen Katharyn around in years. Those that have been here long enough to have an opinion know of her past issues. Those same folks know how much her, Larargh's, just skip it, Finey, Ariel, Wimpy's stories mean to me.

So, maybe don't tell someone, that's not around to defend themselves, how to write a character in their stories?

If you can do better. I'd really love to read it.

* It should be stated that I've read your stuff on the first page.

Pretty good.

Katharyn is GREAT.

[Rutkowski]

I'm sorry if it came out as a backhanded compliment, that really wasn't my intention and as I said I really loved the story. I've read everything else by Katharyn on this forum that I've found and I agree, she's one of the best writers in w/t I've seen.

I did not, however, try to tell her how to write her story. I wanted to provide feedback to a story I really enjoyed and have since recommended it to others.