Is there any way this isn't a dig at the first movie (white fonted):

Scott: Sorry Logan, Superheroes wear costumes. And quite frankly, all the black leather is making people nervous.

Once again -- I really liked the Jane Espenson story but actually both stories were good. I'm not sure I understand what it is that the kids have suddenly understood in the framing story.

Sumi, I think the vampire storyteller has mesmerised his captors, and they're bringing him the children as dinner.

Ah! Then I wonder why he hasn't also mesmerized the children -- or is this what the storytelling is all about?

I think he had mesmerized the one who he caught by the throat.

I know it's not Jossverse, but it does have vampires, witches, humor and pop-culture (as well as literary) references: White Wolf is putting up a novel by Kevin Andrew Murhpy on their website in 8 parts. Parts 1 and 2 are up now.

The following is an exchange between the main character and her familiar:

“How did we get home?”

“I drove,” my cat said smugly, not turning around.

I paused, digesting this information. He drove. My cat drove. I blinked. After all, I don’t see why I should have been so surprised. Only last week he’d evinced a talent for playing the piano, and on the rare Saturday nights when we’d stayed home and watched television (like this past winter when I’d had the flu), Mister M had taken a particular liking to ‘Toonses the Driving Cat’—though I hadn’t realized he’d been taking notes. I thought of what it would have looked like to anyone out on the streets last night—an authentic Stutz Bearcat with a drunken Goth-witch passed out in the passenger seat while her black cat familiar stood on his hind legs and drove the car.

Even without Mister Mistoffelees’ black cat bone, there are some sights which warrant a ‘somebody else’s problem’ field on their own, no magick needed, and that is definitely one of them. I’m certain that any number of people had sworn off alcohol and several other drugs after seeing us, and if I hadn’t previously dealt with similar things, I might just join them—and I still think I might regardless. “Umm…” I said, realizing something else, “…hadn’t you tied one on yourself?”

“Yes,” Mister Mistoffelees admitted, “but the Stutz was sober.”

(Edited to fix formating)

Kevin is an old buddy of mine. Very smart and witty. I am very pleased he is getting recognition here. This group is very well read.

I'm afraid I never met the man, but I'm a fan of his various works at White Wolf, and I've always enjoyed his posts on their forums and on Usenet.

Heh. I'm currently embroiled in a snide almost-flamewar with one of the White Wolf writers on their website, whose view on reader opinion seems to shift from "insightful criticism" to "meaningless drivel that needs to be discouraged in the snootiest manner possible" depending on whether said opinion is positive or negative. He's now apparently searching out all my posts and following up with the equivalent of "Your opinion is wrong, stoopidhead. Nyah-nyah."

Fun, Matt. Though hardly surprising. (First guesses for the writer in question would be JA or CH.)

I got in a similar sort of thing with Jess Heinig, the old Mage developer, though we kept it a little more civil. But the attitude of some of the WW people in their forums and on Usenet lead me to stop buying WW products for several years. Before that, I was heavily into Mage, got all the books, spent over a dozen hours a week in the chatroom, etc, etc. At about the time WW started showing new lows in customer relations, D&D 3rd Ed came out and it's developers seemed genuinely interested in the fans' opinions, etc. So I switched back to D&D. Years and several campaigns later, I feel like playing Mage again started tooling around the website and found the KAM novel. I'm still probably not going to buy anymore books, aside from "Ascension" (I'm interested to see how they end the line.) but I'm going to give the game another chance.