jwaneeta

CYN: Holy motherflogging heck. Those pinheads at the WB have a dire reckoning onslate, if making an enormous crowd of people wretchedly unhappy counts for anything. Eh?

SR. ANGELUS: Don't try to draw me into your orgy of impotent wrath, child. Charity forbids me to consign anyone, even a network executive, to the lowest sizzling circles of Hades. And in all events, why are you acting so shocked? Eden is closed to us and everything falls apart. We are here to suffer, this is not our true home, the center does not hold --

CYN: Zowie! I didn't know you were a fan.

SR. ANGELUS: I am not a fan, not remotely a fan. What a laughable accusation. I am a stern creature with a spine of chilled steel. I ask no quarter and give none, and when people do lousy things that spotlight the mark of Cain, it merely reinforces my granitic conviction that human happiness is a hollow sham. But I was just getting into Angel. That boy had potential. Did you see him dust his hapless bastard

CYN: There, Sister Angelus. It will be all right.

SR. ANGELUS: It won't be all right. Nothing is ever right.

CYN: Even so, we have a gig, Sister.

The Code of the Watchers, Chapter Six
Cyn (Sat 2004.02.14 at 04:58 pm EST)

Thanks to the cherished betas, Miriam and Diane, and to the Immortal Beloved, P.G. Wodehouse.


CYN: And thank you, Joss.

SR. ANGELUS: (heaves a ragged sob from the depths of her massive battleship bosom

CYN: Stop that. Stop that right fucking now.

SR. ANGELUS: (dabs eyes) How dare you swear in front of the holy habit? Are you completely lost?

CYN: That's better.

What on earth, I have often been compelled to wonder, makes people so bloody thick? If you were strolling the streets of an evening, taking the air or whatever it is lures strollers to get out and about, it stands to reason you might notice your surroundings a bit, don't you think? Isn't that why people do it? Doesn't it seem that if you were chugging down the avenue and two absurdly good-looking young persons of the blondish persuasion hove alongside warbling, smooching or otherwise making their fervent mutual devotion plain, don't you think you'd notice?

CYN: If I ever had the mindblowing good fortune to get an eyefull of James Marsters on a public street, I'd certainly know it. Even in L.A, land of actors/models/whatever, that dude would draw the opticals. So I had to ask myself why on earth the not-blind diners-out of Omaha wouldn't be able to point frantic!Giles in the proper direction. I came up with no solid answer, except: they didn't.


SR. ANGELUS: Poor James, poor child. He internalizes everything. This is going to eviserate him.

CYN: Stop! Stop!

SR. ANGELUS: He already had it worked out in his head that all those jobs were riding on his ability to deliver.

CYN: Shut your mouth. Marsters will drive on. Spike's indestructibility was a personal Marsters trait the writers exploited, just like the boundless energy and the smoking. James Marsters will shrivel like a salted snail for three days and pop right back up. I know my actors.

SR. ANGELUS: Biblically.

CYN: You bitch!

"Spike!" I shouted, forsaking the low public profile to which a Watcher clings in all but the direst circs. "Spike!"


CYN: I was just getting sort of a boot at Giles having to abandon his dignity there, to rescue Spike. Atone, you bad boy. Then I will comfort you with apples. Sequel apples. Maybe.

It was no good yodeling for Buffy. Buffy was separated from her resurrected admirer by half a corn-choked Midwestern state. And that, alas, was the best part of the whole balled up mess -- the blame for which lay smack on the doorstep of R. Giles, sorry excuse for a Watcher that he was.

CYN: Freeze and burn, Giles, freeze and burn. When Giles starts to question his Watcherly abilities you know he's smarting, in my opinion.

Poor Spike. One had to pity the miserable devil. He was like one of those unfortunate chappies in ancient Greece, really, who couldn't catch a break to save their lives.

CYN: Lo, more fanwank. Because at that point I was still feeling pretty sore at all the scoobs. How much more glorious repenty stuff does Spike have to do, I was asking myself toward the end of BtVS 7, for Giles to awaken and smell the coffee?

I nipped round a corner and lo, they were before me, nose to nose at the railing by the river's edge. "Spike!" I yelped. "Stop! Hold! Stay your hand! Spike!"

CYN: I'm all about making Spike happy, but once he's happy, the story's over. Thus the protracted cruelty and stuff.

Spike and the Pseudo-Buffy released each other. Spike looked irritated. The Psuedo-Buffy looked alarmed. I staggered the last few steps and clutched at the railing for support.

"Zuptya," I panted, as the need for oxygen reasserted itself and bent me nearly double, "You're fired."

SR. ANGELUS: Angel. Angel... Fred. Wesley, such a good man. Such good manners. Gunn! If Gunn doesn't look sharp and renounce the pomps of the world he is going straight to perdition!

"Eeek!" cried Zuptya.

SR. ANGELUS: How can Gunn be saved in ten or twelve episodes? This is a calamity.

I turned to Spike and attached him by the collar. "Spike, we are leaving. You are in extreme danger. The knives are well and truly out now, as this incident clearly demonstrates. If I do not miss my guess, that so-called producer was Ethan Rayne, a black warlock famously unburdened by ethics, caution or common sense. If he's after you God knows what the harvest will be. We have no time to lose."

CYN: The less said about the Ethan Rayne fiasco the better, I guess. I love Ethan and really did have a plan, kinda, but then I got all tired. Sorry.

"Get in," barked Jeffries, gunning the engine.

CYN: I had to have Jeffries and Zuptya bond, and show Jeffries as something other than an utter milquetoast, so I made him the wheelman. For what that's worth.

Jeffries was no very bad drains as a driver, be it recorded. Once we slipped the surly bonds of Omaha and reached the wide spaces he positively sent up smoke. He put our pursuers well back with a turn of speed that left my secret insides a quivering jelly, and lost them altogether with a sprightly detour through a previously neat bean field.

SR. ANGELUS: I suppose Lindsey is damned for good and all.

CYN:(takes that one to starboard) Ouch. Still, they can't redeem everybody, can they? Just nearly everybody.

SR. ANGELUS: I will now say the Office for the Dead.

CYN: Must you? We have a live mike, you'll notice.

SR. ANGELUS: Souls are falling into hell like snowflakes, and you speak of mikes, you heathen?

SR. ANGELUS: May flights of Angels lead you on your way, To paradise and heav'n's eternal day! May martyrs greet you after death's dark night, and bid you into Glory's light! May choirs of angels sing you to your rest, with once poor Laz'rus, now forever blest!

CYN: I wonder why they put certain words into poems, if they're just going to turn around and contract them. Odd. Why not pick something else?

A sign reading: Bendy Crutch -- Pop. 42 zinged past, but of houses, shops or civilization I saw no trace.

CYN: If there is anything I love, it's the looney names of small rural towns. You have to ask yourself what chronic ganja the pioneers were smoking, back in the day.

"It's dead awful to be this handsome," lamented Spike, displaying all the signs of a lad getting thoroughly worked up. "Buffy only gave me the time of day because of my looks. She used me, and I was glad to be used, but that's all it ever was."

SR. ANGELUS: That is so true, in terms of showbiz, that it's actually nauseating. I feel ill.

CYN: Well, the trashcan's right there. Feel free to ralph and leave us alone, Sister. Trying to work and all.

I felt it my duty to lodge an objection. "You wrong her, Spike. Buffy's had a change of heart. She's enshrined you in her deeps and so forth."

CYN: Because if she hadn't I couldn't bear to write about her. *wankwankwank*

"You can take language and pound it up your arse. You're not my boss. I'm completely fed with you and your guilt and your orders and your godawful peahen fussing. Go repent all over somebody else, you wanker."

SR. ANGELUS:And the foul-mouthed protagonist lets fly. Charming.

CYN: Aw, pipe down, he was due.

Spike waved her off. "Just trying to put the duffer wise, Pumpkin. Rupert here seems to think that he put a big black hole in the center of my unlife by treating me like shite when I was a vampire, see. Seems to be laboring under the delusion that the best way to atone for hurting my feelings, back in the day, is to make me his cabin boy. What he can't get through his fat head is that I didn't give a fuck then and don't give a fuck now. I couldn't care less."

CYN: I'm not sure Spike is telling the unvarnished truth here, but of course he'd die before admitting that Gile's scorn and murder attempts stung. It was just a sting extravaganza for Spike, was season seven. Poor boo.

SR. ANGELUS:That girl, Harmony! She wrote me a letter! What will happen to her? She's so confused by the cruel city! She called herself a succubus or something like that, and is thwarted in love.

CYN: I'm sure Harmony will be on your doorstep any day now, begging for the postulant's cape. Just don't make her play softball.

SR. ANGELUS: What?

Cornstalks whipped and swayed. Jeffries pushed Zuptya down under the dash. I fought myself out of the car and staggered after Spike. A pair of headlights caught him in profile and he raised both fists,
grinning. He appeared to shout defiance. The headlights drew closer.

The wind became punishing. I lost my footing and all track of events for a moment or two, and when my sight cleared the wind had died. There was only silence in the world, a hushed, breathless calm.

Two figures knelt in the littered road among the broken cornstalks, wrapped in each other's arms. They spoke not, nor did they move.

CYN: And the sundered lovers catch a break at last.

SR. ANGELUS: And proceed to fornicate.

CYN: You know, I think I like you better when you're despairing of all that lives.

SR. ANGELUS: Angel! Spike! Fred! Wesley, Gunn, Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Now I am angry. Really most seriously angry.

CYN: Oooh. I bet they'd quake to hear that. Go get 'em, Sister.