Generally the best thing about reading a fic labelled as 'dark' is the wrongness of it. Dark fic goes beyond simple murder and mayhem and shows us the odd, the painful, the unexpected and wrong. It challenges our sense of right and good, wrong and bad. It takes us out of a world where we know the rules and how things work and where our character are and puts us in a world and characters minds where our social mores don't apply and tells us like it or not, this is how things are.

There are, for all intents and purposes two states of mind for characters in these fics. Those who like the world they're in, and those who do not. Either way, both accept how things are. They accept it and work in the rules of that world. While whether they like it or not can sometimes make little difference in the outcome of the fic, it always provides a much more entertaining story when they take a position or not.

For example, Giles in The Wish doesn't like the world he's in. He hates it and would risk anything for a different world, even without the guarantee that the other world is better. He's pushed beyond his limit and will clutch at any straws available.

Anyanka: You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this?
Giles: Because it has to be.

Our characters are the same characters we've been dealing with and watching since the beginning but they've lived a different life and have learned, sometimes painfully, the way of their world. In a dark fic anyone can die, any one can kill, anyone can be good. As long as we remember who the character fundamentally is, we can write them any of those ways.

ANYA

Canon: Anyanka has inflicted more death, pain and destruction than any character in the opening credits of BtVS. Period. She's older than Spike and Angel combined and knows how to make men hurt- sometimes rather creatively. As Anyanka she loves death. She enjoys torturing and creating new, painful worlds where people suffer and die. She loved the world Cordelia created in The Wish. She may be bound by the wish but as witnessed in Beneath You she has a bit of a poetic license when she gives out vengance.

As Anya, she can be petty and easily hurt when her feelings aren't recprocated. She can be remarkably vulnerable to the slights and sarcasms of everyday life and people. Unlike Anyanka, she has much more to lose if this world were to change. She cares for people now as well as her place in the world. Not only does she know and agree with our general sense of right from wrong but but she knows that she wants to do right. Her second shot as Anyanka left her pained as she felt the damage she inflicted on others and remorse over what she'd done. As much as she believed that these men deserved it, inflicting it herself was herd for her.

How Can We Make It So?: Because Anya bounces from innocense and vulnerability to cold, unwaivering determination you can go two ways.

In both her times as Anyanka she became a demon because she was lost, abandoned, and clinging to straws which shows she'll sacrafice anything for security, a sense of purposefulness, a 'place in the world'. She longs to be accepted and loved- and since it rarely matters who gives her that, it rarely matters to her what she'd do to keep it. Her sense of a 'place in the world' is also why she *stayed* a demon. She defines herself by her job and her place instead of what she likes and dislikes and other things that make people who they are.

In her relationship with Xander and even with the Scooby Gang occasionally, she was intensely loyal and protective. I don't see how there would be anything she wouldn't do for him or someone she loved. No deal she wouldn't make, no person she wouldn't kill to protect them from death or harm or her idea of a perfect life.

Take away or threaten her sense of security. Push her to a place where she has none of the things above she needs as a person to survive and be sane and happy. Kill someone she's close to, set her in a small room and tell her the only way to get out is to stick a knife in Tara's gut.

Creepy Onscreen Moments: Her debate with Giles over which is the better world in The Wish, Her willingness to help out vampires in Doppelgangland, Her life with Xander in Hells Bells, Her scenes in Restless (showing how the other characters think of her), Just about the entire episode of Selfless, Her claustrophobia and confrontation of Dawn in Older and Far Away, What her life has become in Same Time, Same Place.

Warnings: Yes, she's blunt, but she's not without *some* tact. She states her mind because she doesn't understand why she shouldn't. She doesn't deliberately try to offend people- if anything just the opposite. She wants to be loved, not alienated. It's also cannon that she can lie convincingly. She kept her engagement a secret from the gang for more than 4 months. She's also not afraid to get physical. as anya she faught the crazy people in The Gift and as Anyanka she sword fought and smacked Giles around.