![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoggedtitle: Tricks Are For Magicians
fandom: BTVS
characters: Willow, Dawn
rating: PG/FRT
word count: 1404
recipient/prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aliceinkinkland requested:
Magic vs. Technology: both
Three elements you'd like included: using magic to enhance online research (for Scooby-related reasons, or helping Dawn with schoolwork, or whatevs), taking care of Dawn between s5 and s6, Dark Willow foreshadowing
Two things you don't want: for this, go wild
Range of ratings you'd like to read: any
betas: the stellar team ofvelvetwhip and red_satin_doll
setting: Between Seasons 5 and 6, with a few AU liberties in regards to what Willow’s parents do for a living.
summary: Ira and Sheila would never be parents-of-the-year, but Willow wants to help Dawn the best that she can.
Sheila Rosenberg would never be in the running for the mother-of-the-year award.
She was, however, the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science for the work that she had done telling other mothers how to parent their emotionally-disturbed six- and seven-year-olds.
Willow tried not to hold any of this against her mother (except for that one time when Sheila tried to burn her at the stake). She had been given copious amounts of independence as a child, which had included being able to “sneak out” for the annual Christmas viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas at Xander’s.
Sheila – through hard work and blissful ignorance – had demonstrated to her daughter that her passion for her profession was the most important thing in life and everything else was 2nd place. For that reason, Willow had been given full access to the dozens of medical journals and tomes that her mom left out on the coffee table as if they were copies of People and Newsweek.
Ira – who was also rarely a candidate for father-of-the-year – had introduced one amazing thing to the household from the research he was doing in physics. He had made them the first home in the neighborhood to have a computer with the World Wide Web installed. The sound of a dial-up modem had always been music to Willow’s ears. She loved her father for giving her a treasure trove of information that had led to her inner nerd flourishing in ways she had never imagined. It also led to some wonderfully devious ways of messing with Cordelia and her stupid Cordettes. Seriously, who was stupid enough to think that DEL meant deliver and not delete?
There had been some other cool things her parents had done as well. They had once taken her to a conference with them in Philadelphia and she had gotten to touch the crack in Liberty Bell. There had also been that time that she had gotten to eat bagels and lox with the salutatorian at Harvard Law, who had been the only Jewish woman to graduate that year.
She had also been Willow’s cousin twice-removed or something and Willow, though not one to brag, had felt that she could achieve way more than second smartest in her class.
Really, the more Willow thought about it, it was actually kind of a shame that Ira and Sheila hadn’t been in town for high school graduation. They would have heard her great valedictorian speech...and then, Giant-Snake-For-Mayor-Guy would have eaten them.
Ouch..
Okay, so that bad and naughty thought probably qualified her for the Worst-Daughter-Ever-Award.
“Hey, Wills, have you ever heard of whitehouse.com?”
Okay, make that Worst-Surrogate-Mother ever.
She was supposed to be watching Dawn today. Dawn, the girl who had lost her mother to real things. Not demon-y things, but brain tumor-y things. Dawn – the girl who had lost her sister to a giant portal of swirly death and awfulness. Dawn- the girl who was patiently sitting at the computer right now and needed her help navigating the Internet.
Dawn continued: “This kid, Henry, said it’s the best place to go for American Government research. Is he right? I mean, he’s not normally the nerdy kid and he’s kind-of a bad apple, but it sounds legit? Is it legit?”
Willow shook her head and nipped on her bottom lip for not-even-a-second.
At what age was it acceptable to tell Dawn that whitehouse.com was a porn….ahem…Adult Entertainment site?
She made up her mind and leaned over Dawn. Her fingers slid underneath Dawn’s and she rapidly moved her fingers across the keys.
www.whitehouse.gov.
The familiar blue and white screen with the very comforting White House logo appeared on the screen.
“Try here,” Willow replied matter-of-factly. “Also, Henry’s an idiot and a perv.”
“Thanks,” Dawn said, lowering her chin into her hands as she stared at the screen. She wasn’t moving the mouse or the arrow keys. Willow suspected that Dawn had been looking forward to seeing the controversial dot com that her classmate had told her about and was not, in fact, eager to finish her term paper.
“Do you want to see a trick that helps you find information faster?” Willow asked.
Dawn turned her head to look over at Willow and nodded. “Is it a magic trick?”
Willow felt a frown crease the corners of her lips and her eyes narrowed.
Technically, Dawnie was right about the computer trick being born of magic, but there was something about the way those words paired together that just rubbed her the wrong way. It made her feel like a magician and magicians were wannabe boys running around with fake boxes and mirrors.
Witchcraft, on the other hand, was the real deal.
She had power.
She had put Angel’s soul back in his body.
She had travelled to an astral plane and returned Buffy to her true form when Faith had come to town last year.
She had gone toe-to-toe with a fucking Goddess. She had tapped into magic she had never known before. Her eyes had turned to black, crackling with the intensity of her anger. She had telekinetically launched sharp, pointy daggers through the air and had nearly bagged herself a Goddess.
Yes, it hadn’t worked, but she was still alive to tell the tale, which was definitely a lot more than Buffy could say right now.
Oh. Oh Goddess. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I want Buffy back. I’m sorry.
Willow inhaled sharply, trying to swallow the icky grief lump that had formed in the back of her throat. Her hands travelled back to the keyboard and Dawn briefly brushed her fingers over Willow’s, noticing the tension rippling underneath Willow’s skin.
“Do you need to sit down?” Dawn asked softly. “It’s okay if you do. I know what it’s like to have the heavy feeling and sitting helps sometimes.”
“Oh Dawnie.”
Willow reached her arms around Dawn, embracing the girl. It was a bit awkward because Dawn was still sitting and Willow…wasn’t, but that didn’t matter so much. Willow rested her head on top of Dawn’s and kissed her on the spot of skin where her hair always parted just this side of crooked. They stayed like this for a moment, bonded by silence and shared grief.
The moment passed and Willow willed the strength to return to her fingers. She placed her hands over the keyboard and Dawn burrowed her head into the arc of Willow’s stomach, watching intently as Willow seemingly melded herself with the keyboard.
The images on the screen flew by. The White House site vanished and 0’s and 1’s appeared in the site’s place. The binary code filled the screen, the numbers wiggled and transformed under Willow’s control. A bright flash of white light exploded from the monitor and Willow shuddered slightly as the magic drained away from her. They both looked at the screen and saw the results of Willow’s work. She had essentially tracked down every last bit of information that Dawn needed for her homework assignment and organized it into easy-to-read sections.
“Wow,” Dawn replied. “You are like the coolest person ever. Yahoo should totally hire you to run their search engines.”
Willow smiled and thought back to her sophomore year and the software company that had wanted to hire her.
Would things have been different if she had taken that job?
Would they have been better?
No. This was Sunnydale. It probably would all still be the same. Monsters still would be real and friends would still be dead. Time travel was better left to The Doctors and The Companions.
She was going to focus on the future, to focus on the changing landscape of magic and technology.
Something big was coming and, if everything went well, Sheila wouldn’t be the only Rosenberg getting an award this decade. Dawn would be nominating her for Witch-Of-The-Year.
fandom: BTVS
characters: Willow, Dawn
rating: PG/FRT
word count: 1404
recipient/prompt:
aliceinkinkland requested:Magic vs. Technology: both
Three elements you'd like included: using magic to enhance online research (for Scooby-related reasons, or helping Dawn with schoolwork, or whatevs), taking care of Dawn between s5 and s6, Dark Willow foreshadowing
Two things you don't want: for this, go wild
Range of ratings you'd like to read: any
betas: the stellar team of
velvetwhip and red_satin_dollsetting: Between Seasons 5 and 6, with a few AU liberties in regards to what Willow’s parents do for a living.
summary: Ira and Sheila would never be parents-of-the-year, but Willow wants to help Dawn the best that she can.
Sheila Rosenberg would never be in the running for the mother-of-the-year award.
She was, however, the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science for the work that she had done telling other mothers how to parent their emotionally-disturbed six- and seven-year-olds.
Willow tried not to hold any of this against her mother (except for that one time when Sheila tried to burn her at the stake). She had been given copious amounts of independence as a child, which had included being able to “sneak out” for the annual Christmas viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas at Xander’s.
Sheila – through hard work and blissful ignorance – had demonstrated to her daughter that her passion for her profession was the most important thing in life and everything else was 2nd place. For that reason, Willow had been given full access to the dozens of medical journals and tomes that her mom left out on the coffee table as if they were copies of People and Newsweek.
Ira – who was also rarely a candidate for father-of-the-year – had introduced one amazing thing to the household from the research he was doing in physics. He had made them the first home in the neighborhood to have a computer with the World Wide Web installed. The sound of a dial-up modem had always been music to Willow’s ears. She loved her father for giving her a treasure trove of information that had led to her inner nerd flourishing in ways she had never imagined. It also led to some wonderfully devious ways of messing with Cordelia and her stupid Cordettes. Seriously, who was stupid enough to think that DEL meant deliver and not delete?
There had been some other cool things her parents had done as well. They had once taken her to a conference with them in Philadelphia and she had gotten to touch the crack in Liberty Bell. There had also been that time that she had gotten to eat bagels and lox with the salutatorian at Harvard Law, who had been the only Jewish woman to graduate that year.
She had also been Willow’s cousin twice-removed or something and Willow, though not one to brag, had felt that she could achieve way more than second smartest in her class.
Really, the more Willow thought about it, it was actually kind of a shame that Ira and Sheila hadn’t been in town for high school graduation. They would have heard her great valedictorian speech...and then, Giant-Snake-For-Mayor-Guy would have eaten them.
Ouch..
Okay, so that bad and naughty thought probably qualified her for the Worst-Daughter-Ever-Award.
“Hey, Wills, have you ever heard of whitehouse.com?”
Okay, make that Worst-Surrogate-Mother ever.
She was supposed to be watching Dawn today. Dawn, the girl who had lost her mother to real things. Not demon-y things, but brain tumor-y things. Dawn – the girl who had lost her sister to a giant portal of swirly death and awfulness. Dawn- the girl who was patiently sitting at the computer right now and needed her help navigating the Internet.
Dawn continued: “This kid, Henry, said it’s the best place to go for American Government research. Is he right? I mean, he’s not normally the nerdy kid and he’s kind-of a bad apple, but it sounds legit? Is it legit?”
Willow shook her head and nipped on her bottom lip for not-even-a-second.
At what age was it acceptable to tell Dawn that whitehouse.com was a porn….ahem…Adult Entertainment site?
She made up her mind and leaned over Dawn. Her fingers slid underneath Dawn’s and she rapidly moved her fingers across the keys.
www.whitehouse.gov.
The familiar blue and white screen with the very comforting White House logo appeared on the screen.
“Try here,” Willow replied matter-of-factly. “Also, Henry’s an idiot and a perv.”
“Thanks,” Dawn said, lowering her chin into her hands as she stared at the screen. She wasn’t moving the mouse or the arrow keys. Willow suspected that Dawn had been looking forward to seeing the controversial dot com that her classmate had told her about and was not, in fact, eager to finish her term paper.
“Do you want to see a trick that helps you find information faster?” Willow asked.
Dawn turned her head to look over at Willow and nodded. “Is it a magic trick?”
Willow felt a frown crease the corners of her lips and her eyes narrowed.
Technically, Dawnie was right about the computer trick being born of magic, but there was something about the way those words paired together that just rubbed her the wrong way. It made her feel like a magician and magicians were wannabe boys running around with fake boxes and mirrors.
Witchcraft, on the other hand, was the real deal.
She had power.
She had put Angel’s soul back in his body.
She had travelled to an astral plane and returned Buffy to her true form when Faith had come to town last year.
She had gone toe-to-toe with a fucking Goddess. She had tapped into magic she had never known before. Her eyes had turned to black, crackling with the intensity of her anger. She had telekinetically launched sharp, pointy daggers through the air and had nearly bagged herself a Goddess.
Yes, it hadn’t worked, but she was still alive to tell the tale, which was definitely a lot more than Buffy could say right now.
Oh. Oh Goddess. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I want Buffy back. I’m sorry.
Willow inhaled sharply, trying to swallow the icky grief lump that had formed in the back of her throat. Her hands travelled back to the keyboard and Dawn briefly brushed her fingers over Willow’s, noticing the tension rippling underneath Willow’s skin.
“Do you need to sit down?” Dawn asked softly. “It’s okay if you do. I know what it’s like to have the heavy feeling and sitting helps sometimes.”
“Oh Dawnie.”
Willow reached her arms around Dawn, embracing the girl. It was a bit awkward because Dawn was still sitting and Willow…wasn’t, but that didn’t matter so much. Willow rested her head on top of Dawn’s and kissed her on the spot of skin where her hair always parted just this side of crooked. They stayed like this for a moment, bonded by silence and shared grief.
The moment passed and Willow willed the strength to return to her fingers. She placed her hands over the keyboard and Dawn burrowed her head into the arc of Willow’s stomach, watching intently as Willow seemingly melded herself with the keyboard.
The images on the screen flew by. The White House site vanished and 0’s and 1’s appeared in the site’s place. The binary code filled the screen, the numbers wiggled and transformed under Willow’s control. A bright flash of white light exploded from the monitor and Willow shuddered slightly as the magic drained away from her. They both looked at the screen and saw the results of Willow’s work. She had essentially tracked down every last bit of information that Dawn needed for her homework assignment and organized it into easy-to-read sections.
“Wow,” Dawn replied. “You are like the coolest person ever. Yahoo should totally hire you to run their search engines.”
Willow smiled and thought back to her sophomore year and the software company that had wanted to hire her.
Would things have been different if she had taken that job?
Would they have been better?
No. This was Sunnydale. It probably would all still be the same. Monsters still would be real and friends would still be dead. Time travel was better left to The Doctors and The Companions.
She was going to focus on the future, to focus on the changing landscape of magic and technology.
Something big was coming and, if everything went well, Sheila wouldn’t be the only Rosenberg getting an award this decade. Dawn would be nominating her for Witch-Of-The-Year.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2015-09-01 03:33 am (UTC)Oh, and Willow's "bad" thoughts. Nicely done. So hard not to think them sometimes.
no subject
on 2015-09-01 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-01 03:36 am (UTC)Gabrielle
no subject
on 2015-09-01 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-01 05:52 am (UTC)She had gone toe-to-toe with a fucking Goddess. She had tapped into magic she had never known before. Her eyes had turned to black, crackling with the intensity of her anger. She had telekinetically launched sharp, pointy daggers through the air and had nearly bagged herself a Goddess.
Yes, it hadn’t worked, but she was still alive to tell the tale, which was definitely a lot more than Buffy could say right now.
Oh. Oh Goddess. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I want Buffy back. I’m sorry.
Great Willowy thoughts.
no subject
on 2015-09-01 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-01 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-01 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-02 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-02 03:04 am (UTC)As Willow would say to her mother: "Prince of night, I summon you. Come fill me with your black, naughty evil."
no subject
on 2015-09-06 05:06 am (UTC)LMAO
I actually assumed Dragonydreams was referring to Joyce when she said "her mother". (oops?) but considering Gingerbread i think it's safe to say Sheila and joyce would both be dismayed. But poor Joyce is dead and Sheila doesn't seem to be in the picture anymore so she doesn't get a say does she? Not that she deserves to have a say.
You already know what I think of this story - this is super work m'dear!
no subject
on 2015-09-06 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-02 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-02 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-02 07:36 pm (UTC)You did such a great job with Willow, perfect Willow-y thoughts!
no subject
on 2015-09-03 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-04 01:26 am (UTC)Ooh, I love her growing, dangerous pride in her abilities, and all her unwanted, scary thoughts, and her bumbling care for Dawn. Thanks so much!
no subject
on 2015-09-04 12:06 pm (UTC)P.S. I loved your other prompt as well. I'm trying to work on a way to make that happen. :D
no subject
on 2015-09-07 11:40 pm (UTC)Whitehouse dot com. Heh, you can see how far away from the pRon sites I stayed. And apparently also the White House sites. I just learned something new today. Fanfic: entertaining AND educational! (We did have some issues in the late nineties every time hubby, who is a terrible typer, accidentally typed ESPM dot com at work, though... and those were the days with the 100 more windows every time you closed one.)
I especially liked this bit:
Yes, it hadn’t worked, but she was still alive to tell the tale, which was definitely a lot more than Buffy could say right now.
Oh. Oh Goddess. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I want Buffy back. I’m sorry.
Willow inhaled sharply, trying to swallow the icky grief lump that had formed in the back of her throat.
no subject
on 2015-09-08 02:47 am (UTC)I remember the whitehouse dot com thing from my own childhood in the '90's. I remember parents warning me to stay away from that site and my fellow students were the ones to tell me why.
no subject
on 2015-09-26 07:57 am (UTC)Well, a sad way. But nice too.
"It made her feel like a magician and magicians were wannabe boys running around with fake boxes and mirrors.
Witchcraft, on the other hand, was the real deal."
I like this. I like how defensive Willow can be of her witchitude, like in "All the Way."
And, "Yes, it hadn’t worked, but she was still alive to tell the tale, which was definitely a lot more than Buffy could say right now.
Oh. Oh Goddess. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I want Buffy back. I’m sorry."
Oomph. Yes. It's awful but it feels so true to Willow in this time, you know? I think you really got her right there.
Also, I would love if I had someone to organize all my research and assignments like Willow did for Dawn. I need that in my life.
no subject
on 2015-09-27 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-01-17 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2016-01-17 10:01 pm (UTC)Tricks Are For Magicians
on 2016-01-17 11:19 pm (UTC)Ha! This was wonderful. I loved the pattern of Willow's thoughts, her hope for the future, and Dawn's sensitivity to her mood.
Re: Tricks Are For Magicians
on 2016-01-17 11:37 pm (UTC)