Fanfic / Replacements

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Replacements is an installment of Adventures of a Line Hopper Series Fic that crosses over Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who. It is the twelfth fic of The Child of Balime season 2 and features Buffy and the Doctor's Fan-Created Offspring Seo. It consists of 8 chapters published from on November 19 to November 27, 2013, preceded by Keeping Score and followed by Mr. Hart.

Seo and Dawn arrive on an alien planet where the people are celebrating their emperor, Adam, whom Seo quickly saves from an assassination attempt. However, Seo suspects something is going on, as Adam doesn't look like a real emperor while the assassin does. As it turns out, Adam has memory manipluation power, and Dawn's angst about not having useful superpowers or real childhood memories like Seo suddenly becomes relevant in the fight against him.

Replacements contains examples of:

• Assassination Attempt: The main plot starts when Seo spots someone trying to assassinate Emperor Adam and stops the weapon's blast through quick thinking. As it turns out, the assassin is the real emperor, although the assassination is unlikely to help given Adam's nature as a memory creature.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: At the start of the fic, Dawn is complaining that she is just a normal human, wishing that she is more like Seo with real childhood memories and awesome superpowers. During the fic, Dawn gets to be the superhero who restores everyone's real memories to her delight... until she finds out that her new power comes from absorbing Seo's Key energy and soul, at which point she is horrified that she is killing Seo's core personality. She willingly gives up her power to save Seo after that.
• Continuity Nod: Seo remembers multiple stories about people named Adam, such as the one where she is supposed to click her fingers and the one where the Adam gets turned into a fly.
• Fake Memories: Everyone in the empire is given fake memories of Adam being their emperor by Adam's memory manipulation power. It also shows interesting effect on Seo, whose Time Lord memory means she can remember multiple timelines and classify their possibilities, so being made to remember Adam messes up her mind for a while but Adam also can't live from Seo's memory as her memories of him is classified as impossible and thus separated from Seo's real memory.
• Get It Over With: When an armed group of guards enter his cell, Reztogar assumes that they have finally be told by Adam to kill him and tells them to just do it, accepting Adam's victory while assuring them that he doesn't blame them for it. However, it turns out that the guards now have remembered Reztogar's status as their emperor and they are just here to reproclaim their loyalty.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Fittingly as Dawn has angst about how she is not capable enough to become someone remember for her heroics unlike Seo. In the end, Dawn's heroics of removing the Fake Memories of everyone in the entire empire are forgotten by them as the process removes their memories of her too.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Seo is confused about her memories and multiple personalities, Adam tries to manipulate her by planting himself in her memories as the most important person of her life. Too bad one of Seo's personalities is driven to kill the most important person of her life, although it's subverted as Seo's attempt to stab and then beat up Adam cannot kill him.
• Identity Amnesia: Adam's memory manipulation allows him to wipe people's mind to the point they forget who they are, although evidently not completely as Reztogar has been made to forget his identity multiple times because his allies make him remember every time. Seo also forgets her identity after Adam does the same to her, but in her case, only her Glory and Weapon personalities come back when Reztogar teach her how because the Seo personality (who is the Key) is actually unintentionally taken by Dawn, meaning Dawn has to give Seo's half of her newly-doubled Key power to restore Seo's memory.
• Memory Jar: To make sure Adam can't take a form from Dawn's memories, Seo puts the relevant memory in a stasis box.
• No-Sell: When Adam attempts to alter Dawn's memories, Dawn's status as a fellow Backstory Invader (plus some extra Key energy from Seo) renders the attempt futile and even burns Adam back.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In chapter 7, Adam tries to convince Dawn that they should be heroes together by pointing out that they are both Backstory Invaders who just want to be remembered and now Dawn can alter memories like him after gaining Seo's Key energy. Dawn can't really deny it, but she refuses to let Seo die without her Key energy.
• Oh, Crap!: When Dawn starts removing him from people's memories, Adam decides to use her backup plan involving Seo, only to stare in horror as he finds out that Seo has escaped her cell.
• "Open!" Says Me: Adam makes the mistake of putting Seo in a normal prison. The moment Seo regains enough memories to think she is supposed to find someone, she just uses her Super-Strength to tear the door off its hinges and runs away.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: When Adam first tries to alter Seo's memories, Seo gets driven mad instead and her abandonment issue sprouts out as she suddenly begs Dawn to not leave her.
• Significant Name Overlap: A minor gag example as when Seo finds out that the emperor's name is Adam, she snaps her fingers to no effect because she hears from her dad that is what she is supposed to do to someone named Adam (he was actually talking a different guy named Adam Mitchell).
• Superpowers for a Day: During the fic, Dawn gets Seo's Key energy and gains her Super-Intelligence along with the ability to alter memories from the doubled Key energy. She gives her powers up by the end of the fic to restore Seo's missing soul.
• Verbal Backspace: At the start, Seo proclaims that this is her 101st birthday because they happen to land on October 1st, only to retract and say it is her 100th when Dawn mentions that Seo is 99 before; Seo is counting her birthday during the Year that Never Was and really doesn't want Dawn to know about that erased year.
• We Can Rule Together: In chapter 7, Adam tries to convince Dawn that they should become memory-altering "heroes" together, pointing out their commonality and arguing that Dawn would be honoring the memory-lossed Seo this way. Dawn is tempted at the chance to be special, but ultimately chooses to restore Seo's memory instead.