The rights to Buffy and the Universe she inhabits, as well as to all the friends she has there, all the demons she fights there, even the very words she has previously spoken there, and just about everything else you can think of belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, The WB, UPN and several other large corporations as well as the assorted writers, producers and other talented individuals involved. We have nothing but love for the show.
For all of these things, no copyright infringement is intended.
This is a fan run site. It is not for profit. We make no money doing this - in fact, it costs us money and an absolutely insane amount of time.
The stories, the art, and the other created material on this site, they do belong to us. Of course if Fox and the big corporations decide to sue, we may think differently.
For all of these things, no copyright infringement is intended.
This is a fan run site. It is not for profit. We make no money doing this - in fact, it costs us money and an absolutely insane amount of time.
The stories, the art, and the other created material on this site, they do belong to us. Of course if Fox and the big corporations decide to sue, we may think differently.
But, we won't just give it to the rest of you. You may use for your own enjoyment what we have made available for viewing. You may read the stories of course, and you can link to us. But please don't take any of our stories, art or other material and use them as your own, put them on your own sites, or adapt them without our permission. If you'd like to use something, please just ask!
This site is, of course, completely unauthorized in any official sense. But we hope it is appreciated by you and who knows, perhaps even by Joss and a few others. After all, Joss gave us our unofficial marching orders. For when asked what fans were supposed to do with our extra time each week now that Buffy & Angel was over, he said clearly, "Write Fanfic."
This site is, of course, completely unauthorized in any official sense. But we hope it is appreciated by you and who knows, perhaps even by Joss and a few others. After all, Joss gave us our unofficial marching orders. For when asked what fans were supposed to do with our extra time each week now that Buffy & Angel was over, he said clearly, "Write Fanfic."
Joss, we're doing what you told us to do.
We hope you like it.
We hope you like it.
Fanfiction eh?
For those unaquainted with this particular
literary form, fan fiction (or 'fanfic') is the
name given to the stories written by fans of a particular
fictional mythos (or 'fandom') - usually that
of a TV series or film - and set within that mythos.
So for example, a fan of Star Trek might write stories set in the Star Trek universe, usually featuring his - or more commonly her, for fan fiction has traditionally been dominated by female writers - favourite characters.
Fan fiction is a channel for creative writing within a predefined setting, a way to share ideas with other fans, a means to explore facets of popular characters that the author feels have been underplayed, and an excuse to write torrid sex scenes featuring the unlikliest of pairings.
So for example, a fan of Star Trek might write stories set in the Star Trek universe, usually featuring his - or more commonly her, for fan fiction has traditionally been dominated by female writers - favourite characters.
Fan fiction is a channel for creative writing within a predefined setting, a way to share ideas with other fans, a means to explore facets of popular characters that the author feels have been underplayed, and an excuse to write torrid sex scenes featuring the unlikliest of pairings.
But why here, huh?
We all know that there's some fantastic
Buffy'verse FanFiction out there. Season2Ep14.net is
an attempt to bring all that great FanFic into one easily
accessible place. The idea is to have lots of different
authors, writing in lots of different areas of the BtVS/Angel
FanFic world, all in one fantastically pretty place.
Why not there?
Most of you reading this will know
that there are already a few huge fanfic archives out
there. FanFiction.net
is by far and away the biggest fanfic collection in
existence - with around a quarter of a million entries.
There are two main differences between those archives and Season2Ep14. The most obvious of which being that Season2 is an archive exclusively for BtVS and Angel stories.
The second difference involves the invite system.
Most automated archives out there allow anyone to sign up and post their fic. Here at Season2Ep14 you need to have been given an invite code by someone who has an account here already.
Wait! Before you start complaining about elitism and the like, just keep reading. It's really not intended to prevent anyone from getting their fic read by other people.
There are two main differences between those archives and Season2Ep14. The most obvious of which being that Season2 is an archive exclusively for BtVS and Angel stories.
The second difference involves the invite system.
Most automated archives out there allow anyone to sign up and post their fic. Here at Season2Ep14 you need to have been given an invite code by someone who has an account here already.
Wait! Before you start complaining about elitism and the like, just keep reading. It's really not intended to prevent anyone from getting their fic read by other people.
Why so elitist, eh?
The invite system has been described
to me by a few people as eletist. But, I stand by it
and the reasons for having it (also, it took me many,
many hours of coding - and many complaints over the
amount of time spent on the computer by the other residents
here at Season Towers - so it's here to stay!).
If you'll allow me to explain:
As a long time enthusiastic reader of FanFic, I used to frequent archives like FanFiction.net. The problem with those large archives is the dregs to gem ratio - by that I mean the amount of truly awful fanfic stories that have to be waded through in order to find something that's readable.
The invite system is my way of trying to cut down the dregs to gem ratio here on Season2Ep14. The idea is that writers are likely to give out invites to people that they themselves enjoy reading. And if someone enjoys reading it then that implies a certain level of quality.
I'm not saying that everything posted here on Season2 has to be of publishing standard - The only requirement is that someone other than the author enjoys reading it (No one will ever be asked to take down a fic they've posted here - once you've had an invite code and created an account you're free to post what you like)!
The invite system is kept pretty loose though - Anyone who has an account here can give out as many invite codes as they like, and those of you who don't know anyone to get an invite code from can request an invite code from the site admin. The answer is always yes - we don't want to miss out on great fic just because you don't know anyone who has an account here.
If you'll allow me to explain:
As a long time enthusiastic reader of FanFic, I used to frequent archives like FanFiction.net. The problem with those large archives is the dregs to gem ratio - by that I mean the amount of truly awful fanfic stories that have to be waded through in order to find something that's readable.
The invite system is my way of trying to cut down the dregs to gem ratio here on Season2Ep14. The idea is that writers are likely to give out invites to people that they themselves enjoy reading. And if someone enjoys reading it then that implies a certain level of quality.
I'm not saying that everything posted here on Season2 has to be of publishing standard - The only requirement is that someone other than the author enjoys reading it (No one will ever be asked to take down a fic they've posted here - once you've had an invite code and created an account you're free to post what you like)!
The invite system is kept pretty loose though - Anyone who has an account here can give out as many invite codes as they like, and those of you who don't know anyone to get an invite code from can request an invite code from the site admin. The answer is always yes - we don't want to miss out on great fic just because you don't know anyone who has an account here.
Why Season2Ep14??
This site is designed, scripted and
mostly run by me, Ben.
I happen to think that the Season 2 episode of Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, Innocence (the 14th episode of that
season), is the best ever. Thus, season2ep14.net.
Anyone who attempts to convince me that Fool For Love is the best episode of BtVS ever created will recieve a good frowning at. Be warned.
Anyone who attempts to convince me that Fool For Love is the best episode of BtVS ever created will recieve a good frowning at. Be warned.
How's it work eh??
Season2Ep14.net runs on a Windows
2003 server, which resides in the RedBus Meridian
Gate data centre in London. The scripting that makes
everything work was written by me - Ben
- using a mixture of classic ASP and VB Script. It took
around a month of beavering away here in Season Towers
to complete the first version, and many nights of tweaking
since then to get what you see now.
Season2Ep14.net runs from about a gabillion flat text files, which are manipulated (mostly) on the fly by the FileSystemObject. This negates the need for a database of any kind, which serves two purposes.
One - it's cheaper to run, since there's no need for a seperate database server. And Two - story serving is much faster.
(It's been pointed out to me that a well written MSSQL application would serve the stories faster. And I agree - whilst the amount of stories/users in your database is reasonably small, and the traffic load on your database is correspondingly low, then a database application is much faster.
The problem comes when you have a massive database and traffic load. One request for a story means that the server has to open the entire database of stories, selecting only the story that's needed, and serve the result back to the user.
Using flat text files means that no matter how many stories there are, you're only ever asking the server to open one story at a time. So, whilst your application has small loads - and by small I'm talking in relative terms - a database will be faster. But the minute you start building a large collection of stories and a high traffic load, flat text files and the FileSystemObject become quicker when serving stories.
Now searching the stories - That's another thing entirely. The FileSystemObject is very, very slow indeed when performing searches on large amounts of text files. But I prefer to not think about that. Who needs a search function anyway?
It's also true however that I've yet to discover the point at which the FileSystemObject gets confused by too many concurrent requests. When I discover that, I may or may not pull my hair out.)
Season2Ep14.net runs from about a gabillion flat text files, which are manipulated (mostly) on the fly by the FileSystemObject. This negates the need for a database of any kind, which serves two purposes.
One - it's cheaper to run, since there's no need for a seperate database server. And Two - story serving is much faster.
(It's been pointed out to me that a well written MSSQL application would serve the stories faster. And I agree - whilst the amount of stories/users in your database is reasonably small, and the traffic load on your database is correspondingly low, then a database application is much faster.
The problem comes when you have a massive database and traffic load. One request for a story means that the server has to open the entire database of stories, selecting only the story that's needed, and serve the result back to the user.
Using flat text files means that no matter how many stories there are, you're only ever asking the server to open one story at a time. So, whilst your application has small loads - and by small I'm talking in relative terms - a database will be faster. But the minute you start building a large collection of stories and a high traffic load, flat text files and the FileSystemObject become quicker when serving stories.
Now searching the stories - That's another thing entirely. The FileSystemObject is very, very slow indeed when performing searches on large amounts of text files. But I prefer to not think about that. Who needs a search function anyway?
It's also true however that I've yet to discover the point at which the FileSystemObject gets confused by too many concurrent requests. When I discover that, I may or may not pull my hair out.)
Why don't you answer my question, damnit?
If there's something else you'd like to know, just get in contact. If I like your question, it may well appear on this page. If I don't like your question, I may well ignore it.
There's an even bigger list of questions that you might want to know the answer's to on the Frequently Asked Questions page.