It's not the backstory. A prophecy declaring... oh, something about two-on-two good-against-evil-balanced or something, I fell asleep halfway through. Say it with me, kids: "It's the end of the world." "AGAIN?!" Prophecies are overused, usually overdone and, by definition, forced plot devices. I can think of plenty of fics (including my own) that were worthwhile (just) in spite of having one, and not one that was good because it had one. Make up some vague B.S. about a spell gone wrong or something and be done with it.

Grammar and spelling are for the most part okay, but the punctuation... the full stop goes BEFORE the quote mark in direct speech! BEFORE, damn you!

It sure as hell isn't the B/F 'shipper angle... See above re: drivel. Sway builds it up fairly steadily throughout the fic, starting with Buffy hating Faith's internal organs, and moving on to a nice little car boot bonding scene (points for the appropriately timed, detailed and used pop culture references --- can you say "Out of Sight"?) to slow conversion somewhere around the inevitable-seeming detailed clubwear description and continues from there. She builds it up altogether too quickly (chronologically and narratively) to be remotely convincing, and those "higher power" comments don't help. A little too reminiscent of some of the worst of B/A ("just because they're star-crossed doesn't mean they're doomed!") and besides, if some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being really wanted two people to get together so badly, would He/She/We/They/It really have one stab the other in the gut? And if you really need that smut scene, don't tell me Faith doesn't have plenty of suitable fantasies (or, depending on your take on "Bad Girls", memories) you can write. But I digress.

It isn't Sway's style. Talk about overwriting... what's that, a thousand words in the first four paragraphs telling us nothing we didn't already know? I mean, there's nothing wrong with going into a bit of detail, and it's not that reflection isn't an integral part of Faith's character as it stands, but this is ridiculous...

Okay, hold on, that's it. Any DreamSmith addicts out there in withdrawal can get themselves a halfway decent fix from Sway's work. She has the character of Faith nailed to the wall. Her reactions to events are on the mark every time, without fail. If you need to get a handle on Faith, "Blindspot" is a great place to dip in a toe, then go check out DreamSmith... "Tearing The Veil" or "96 Days", maybe. Oh, and remind me to look up Sway's other stuff.

It's a pity about the other characters, really... Okay, maybe even that's a little harsh. While I didn't buy Sway's Buffy at all, largely due to the aforementioned 'shipping attempts, Angel's relatively small part in this is appropriate and credible enough. Cordelia and Kate are together, but Sway takes the sensible approach here for a UC 'ship that's not the main focus of the story --- presents it as a fait accompli and doesn't waste time giving us some lame digest version of their history that would only really work in a separate fic anyway.