Entries tagged with prompts

Current Mood: nostalgic

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Drabble challenge for angelbuffy

Prompt: Bye Bye Bye by N Sync
Requested By:

angelbuffy
Characters: Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers
Timeline/Verse:

sixwordstories verse, main
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy in any way, shape, or form. Buffy is

cuzitswrong and the Dawn mentioned is not linked to any journal in particular.   I might have... played with timelines. Deal with it.

Still accepting requests here!

It took Buffy three attempts before she finally yelled loud enough to get her sister's attention. Though it might have also been the stuffed bear she hurled at her head, plucked off the dresser beside the door where she'd stood glaring.

Dawn shot her an annoyed look, and batted at the space bar on her computer to pause the song.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a tone that warned Buffy this conversation was going to go on the "difficult" pile. Buffy decided to avoid a fight - this time - by taking a different tack.

"Who were you listening to, anyways?" she asked, making a little face as she glanced around Dawn's not-particularly-clean-right-now room. Dawn's face contorted into an expression of confusion mixed with downright offense at Buffy's question.

"You really need to get out during the day more often," she advised. Buffy was not so much amused by the comment.

"So I don't keep up with Tiger Beat.  I refuse to be guilted over this. I'm still hip," Buffy pouted.

"Uh huh. Lots of hip people nowadays don't even know who the Jonas Brothers are," Dawn replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Wait, that's what they sound like?" Buffy asked. "Huh."

"What did you expect?" Dawn demanded, turning in her chair to face her all-too-outdated sister with judging eyes.

"I don't know. Just... more, I guess?  I mean, isn't every teenage girl in the world in love with them for some reason?" she asked. Even though she was honestly just curious, Dawn dared to look perfectly outraged.

"You are so weird. This is why I don't bring people over," she huffed, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, as she turned around and went to turn her Pandora station back on.

"And here I thought it was all the battle axes in the living room," Buffy muttered to herself, turning to go.

Dawn didn't register the comment, as she'd already starting blaring tunes again, setting Buffy's shoulder tight with renewed frustration. The anger melted though, as the next song started up and her head whipped around, eyes widening in sudden delight.

"No way," she exclaimed, almost pushing Dawn aside, as she crossed the room in a few sudden steps.

"Hey!" Dawn protested, as her desk chair was spent spinning, with her as a dizzied passenger, gripping its arms. Her shouts were drowned out as Buffy cranked the volume even further, seeming to have forgotten that she'd only come up here to chastise her sister for the same thing moments ago.

"I haven't heard this song in forever!" Buffy shouted, though half of what she was saying was lost in the din. Dawn just stared at her sister as if she had utterly lost her mind as the older girl spun around and started doing really retarded dance moves that offended all of Dawn's teenage sensibilities.

"What is wrong with you?  Ugh!" Dawn shouted, as she moved over to turn it down. Buffy rolled her eyes this time, staring at her sister like she had grown another head.

"It's N' Sync, Dawn. Duh."

Dawn's expression still read uh, what? and Buffy sighed and shook her head. "Y'know, like... Justin Timberlake?  His... boy band?"

"Justin was in a boy band?" The level of incredulity there was just too much for Buffy to take. She just turned back to the computer and cranked it again just in time to jump into place and wave bye-bye-bye across the room.

"Ok, that's it, I.. can't be in here and witness this. I'm trying this new thing where I limit the amount of stuff that I allow to scar me forever," Dawn said, as she got up and headed out the door.

"Kids these days," Buffy mumbled, before launching back into her dance. Because hey, sometimes you just had to boogie.

Current Mood: nerdy

Entry tags:

the_muses_stage: browser history

7 past Google searches I've done:

1. "Buffy Summers" ; yeah I've totally gone there. That was a bad idea.
2. "Polgara demon" ; sadly, most of my google searches look like this
3. "Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik demon" ; that took a few spelling tries
4. "Vampire sightings Sunnydale" ; okay, I was trying to be lazy one night when I was supposed to go patrol
5. "cheap plane fare england" ; It's hard to get that 'cheap' feature at the last minute. : /
6. ~~"free term papers psychology"~~ just kidding, Will.
7. "do your own taxes" ; all this adult stuff? still very annoying.

Current Mood: shocked

Entry tags:

justprompts: sanctuary

Prompt: Sacrosanct from

justprompts
Timeline: Season 1-ish

It's hard to be horrified by things when you start dealing nightly with killers. Monsters. It's hard to find something new that's honestly sort of shocking, or so you'd think. But this sort of got to me. If nothing, it surprised me.

"But how?" Buffy asked Giles, who was sitting there rubbing his glasses as if this were all just obvious. Or as if he were also unsettled by it, and just trying to distract her from noticing. Typical, she thought. "I mean... churches are like... cross city, aren't they? And I thought that this constituted hallowed ground?"

Giles replaced his lenses and looked across the street at the decidedly forbidding looking church (whoever decided to design churches to look forbidding... she really don't get that whole design move).

"I'm afraid all that about 'hallowed' and 'sanctified' ground is just another part of vampire myth that's, well... myth," he said. "It's certainly a dangerous place for a vampire to venture given the prevalence of holy objects, but it isn't impossible for them to enter. And given that it's public, they don't have to request entrance either."

"But I thought it was supposed to be like... God's... house. Somehow I don't see God inviting vampires in for supper," Buffy said with a frown, immediately regretting her choice of words, as she flashed upon images of the priests they'd found dead already. Supper was right.

Giles was avoiding looking at her, and Buffy found herself wondering exactly what Giles take on religion was. Or Watchers in general. Heck, it wasn't something she actively thought about very much, but the Watchers did hand her holy objects and teach her how to use them to thwart demons. Total atheism wasn't even an option for either of them. But as much time as they both spent thinking about creatures from hell, she for one didn't really think very much about the opposite corner. She supposed she'd always taken it as a given, but there was something chilling in the realization that the damned could just waltz into church after church, slaughtering priests and preachers. Why would God allow that?

Except that he wasn't allowing it, she thought with a sigh. That was where she came in, she supposed. Woo.

"As I said, it counts as public property," was all Giles said. "Now this particular vampire seems to have fixated on church figures, but I suspect, from what evidence we've gathered, that he's not particularly old, or we would have heard about something like this before: a string of clergy related deaths in the nearby area, or something of that nature."

"So what, he's like a vampire serial killer?" Buffy asked. "... That seems redundant."

Giles ignored her comment, which was okay by her. She was really just trying to cover up the fact that as she stared across the street at that church, she had the sinking feeling that one more place of sanctuary had just been stripped bare by the dark reality that she was forced to face.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

"I'm going in," she said, gripping the stake tightly. "Don't wait up."

She knew that he would anyway.

Current Mood: nostalgic

Entry tags:

justprompts: sulk

Image prompt from

justprompts

Timeline: Pre-S1; though it's a memory that's not real, like all memories involving Dawn
Also S5, after Buffy learns the truth about Dawn

( Why do you always have to be such a baby? )

Current Mood: cold

Entry tags:

somewhere down the line you'll face the judgment day

justprompts : "In heaven all the interesting people are missing." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Sure I think about it.

But only in the way back of my brain, pushing it down any time it tries to make itself too visible.

There's a certain impossibility that comes from being in love with a vampire ~~or vampires,~~ including but not limited to what one is expected to do when you're getting wrinkles and can't walk, while your significant other looks like they could be your grandchild. I mean, really, ew. Luckily, I guess, Slayers' expiration dates usually don't leave them with a lot of Old Lady time left.

They usually die pretty young.

But yeah, that's not really the end of the problem is it?

I've been to heaven, before, you know. I know how perfect it is. I know what bliss is like.

I also know what's not there. And I recognize what can probably never be there.

It's not like you particularly care when you're in heaven, I guess. All that bliss is distracting. But I care now, being mortal, that neither of the two men I love the most will ever get a chance to experience that for themselves.

For vampires, immortality is sorta a misnomer. Eventually, you get slain. Or stumble into a patch of sunlight. Eventually, the game is over.

But when you're damned from the start, what's prompting you to keep working for redemption? Heaven's like a joke to them.

Maybe that's why I'm so in awe of Angel & Spike. I don't want to think it's just for me that they're doing this, and I know that in Angel's case, at least, he's not. But both of them deserve more.

And what it comes down to, I guess, is pretty simple.

I don't want to leave them behind.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Entry tags:

justprompts: 10 Ways You Deal With Disappointment

1. Most embarrassing answer first: running away. In the past, I've been known to do this physically, but nowadays, when I'm at my worst, I'm sort of inclined to do this emotionally without realizing it.
2. Distracting myself. Either with slaying or... other things. (See Spike for big stupid example).
3. On rare occasion, actually being mature and talking it out. Ok, this is mostly when Dawn lets me down and I give her a "I am very disappointed in you" lecture. Not sure if that counts.
4. Avoiding it in the first place by keeping my expectations realistic. Also known as not getting too attached. This one is probably also not particularly healthy-like.
5. To be totally honest, sometimes I just get irrationally angry.
6. Haagen-Daaz. Come on, sometimes I'm just like any other girl.
7. Vent fests with Will and Xander.
8. Trying to look on the bright side. Note the trying part.
9. Finding a way to solve the problem. I'm sort of a 'do something about it' type of girl.
10. Did I mention violence? Probably more of that.

Current Mood: contemplative

Entry tags:

justprompts: what drives you?

Slayer juice. Now available in five new flavors including Buffyberry and FuFu Faith.

Ok, ok, seriously though.

Well, I suppose there's the whole obvious right and wrong, moral compass, stopping evil because it's the good thing to do part of things. I'd say that's a pretty important part of it. Not acting, I have learned, is just as bad as doing as the wrong thing. Can't just sit back and watch the Apocalypse happen, and think you're going to get away guilt free. Also, you and everyone you love would be dead. Kinda a downer.

But I guess more specifically, right now, I'd have to say my family, and my friends. Dawnie comes to mind immediately - she's the reason I kept going during some of my darkest times. She's how I got through Mom's death: knowing I had to be there for her, and be strong, and be a real adult. That's still important to me, being able to be there for her in any way she needs. Same with my friends. They've all proven time and time again that they'll be there when I need them, so I think by not following through on my Slayer duties, by slacking in any department, I'd be letting all of them down.

Sometimes, anger drives me, but I mean that in the best way possible. (Is there a best way to use anger? I think so. Just ignore anything Andrew starts spewing about the Dark Side of the Force or whatever). I guess more than anger, it's a sense of justice. I really enjoy striking down bad guys. Because, well, they asked for it. By being selfish, cruel, nasty, disgusting, etc etc. I have no sympathy for anyone who does a truly heinous act and feels no guilt about it. I've known demons who've risen above their cruel natures, and one of the bravest heroes I've known had to fight against the darkness inside him, and prevailed. It can be done - and so things that decide to use 'oh I've got demon in me' as an excuse piss me off. A lot.

Sometimes, and this is a secret, I'm driven by the desire to have this all end some day. Not to like, die: that's not what I mean. But as if, if I fight hard enough, and long enough, I can make the world safe enough to just take a breather. I sort of had hoped that time was now. Hrm. Judged that one totally wrong.

Current Mood: pensive

Entry tags:

justprompts: 10 times i obeyed

1. Coming to this castle at the behest (who says 'behest'?) of the new Watcher's Council, even though I want to send them a message that they can't just tell Slayers what to do anymore. We're all going to work together. But Giles convinced me that it was a good idea to go anyways.
2. That, uh, one time Dracula bit me. In my total defense, hello, mind control powers.
3. When I killed Angel, even after his soul was restored. I wasn't exactly obeying a particular 'who' - just Slayer Duty, which is an entity unto itself.
4. Many a time when Mom asked me to 'bring Dawn along'.
5. When the Slayers in training + Faith + company voted me off the island. And out of my house.
6. When we've gotten mixed up with the police, I've generally been in line with ye olde legal system. Except, y'know, when the police turn out to be evil, etc.
7. When Xander convinced me to run after Riley. Still too late.
8. Every time I felt like turning my back on Slayerdom, but knew I couldn't. And then didn't. I suppose that would be obeying my conscience. Or maybe Giles.
9. In the process of making this list, I realized that I don't do a whole lot of obeying.
10. When Spike told me to leave him behind, no matter how much I wanted to stay.

Current Mood: indescribable

Entry tags:

Writer's Block Meme from ambitious_woman : The Final Product!

Prompt:
"...but since when do people like us get what we want?"
- John Crichton

from

justprompts

Timeline:
Season 7 : "Touched"

Buffy's still feeling the aftershocks, even here, even now.

Their words had done more than sting. Each one had been a hardened blow that she hadn't been ready for. She'd really thought herself ready for anything. Mutiny in the ranks -- that was a new one, though. Because it wasn't the First manipulating them, it wasn't some dark Force compelling them against her. It was her. It was what she'd done.

It was everything she hadn't done.

She doesn't feel like a hero, sitting alone in the middle of the room. She feels shipwrecked. Like she's drowning.

But when Spike obliges and wraps his arms around her, and she sees reflected in her eyes that word - hero - she doesn't recoil from it. It'd be easy enough to. But it's not false, and it's not worship, it's just a simple recognition and it rings deeply. There's no accusation there, and so she allows herself to breathe again for a moment. She wishes she could push away all the ugly words, just not let any of it get to her. Was it selfish to care so much, or was it selfish to have let it get so far in the first place?

She finds herself repeating those words in her mind as her thoughts drift to what it means to be here, in Spike's arms, not feeling empty, not feeling alone, because he's there. Is it selfish to care so much, or is it selfish to have let it get so far in the first place? Maybe, in the case of Spike, it was a little of column A and a little of column B. Maybe, what with the world going all possibly end-y so soon, she shouldn't be letting herself feel so content, for this moment. Maybe she should still be playing the hero.

After all, that's the spirit of the hero, isn't it? Selflessness. Even when you've been granted superpowers, the ability to get whatever you could possibly want for yourself, it's the heroes who focus on what others want, and lose their own desires in the face of this. But right here, right now, that's the opposite of what she wants.

She wants to feel. She wants to want.

She would really like to be free to just desire.

"Spike..." The word drops off her lips, and then falls away between them. She's not sure where to go with it. Instead of looking uncertain, or hopeful, or anything in between, his expression just softens even more, and his eyes smile at her, reassuringly. She doesn't even have to finish the thought. He just knows.

She wishes she could just know anything, at this point. Any one thing. An anchor. To know things would be alright. To know she had the strength to do this. To know that no matter what, when she turned around, her friends would be there.

But Spike would be there. She knows that. Just as he holds her now, keeping her from drifting further ashore tonight, he could be that one thing. She wonders when that happened. She doesn't really care.

There's a line between them now, since what happened that ugly night, and crossing it would be practically shameful -- laughable considering how that word defined their relationship at one point. But tonight, it doesn't feel like something to be ashamed of.

It feels a lot like love.

So she doesn't take it, doesn't take more than that feeling from him, the comfort of his touch, the words he doesn't say. Because she finally knows that it's exactly what she wants, and this time it's not self flagellation, it's not escapism, it's not self delusion. This time it's real.

So she cannot have it. Because a hero can't live in a real world. They have to get by in fantasies.

She lets herself have her glass castle tonight.

Entry tags:

justprompts: Arrival at Crowded Hour

Prompt:
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
-Kurt Cobain

Timeline:
Post S7 finale, en route to the castle at

crowdedhour

As childish as it might have been, there was a part of her that really didn't want to go alone.

There was an even smaller part, hardly audible deep within the recesses of her heart, that didn't want to go at all.

Everybody else was together right now, in some way, some form. Even Faith, who'd run off to Cleveland to deal with big bad Hellmouth mach 2, had Robin with her, and some of the Slayerettes. Ones she considered friends, as well, seeing as how she'd actually made the time for it. Not just the time either... the effort. It was easy for Faith though. People liked her. She had something magnetic. It certainly wasn't tact, or kindheartedness, or good manners, but it was fascinating nonetheless, and the girls had responded to that.

As much as Buffy had always felt apart from the crowd, being The Slayer, she'd never categorized herself as 'fascinating'. Here she was, some sort of living legend, making young vampires quake in their snakeskin boots, but when it came down to it, she wasn't sure how much of anything she was besides the Slayer.

As she looked out the window of the helicopter, watching the clouds haze across the landscape below, her thoughts drifted to Willow and Xander, Giles and Dawn. She knew how much their world-savey teamness meant to all of them. How it defined their lives too. But she could imagine, however briefly, how each of them might go on if they woke up the next day and vamps had vanished off the face of the earth. Demons disappeared back into the pits of Hell. She could sort out little alternate futures for each one of them. They had personalities that would allow that. Pieces of themselves that still belonged to ye olde mundane world.

She couldn't imagine any such destiny for herself, though. Which was part of the frightening bit of no longer being the only (excepting Faith) slayer. Now, if she chose to, she could claim her life for herself. Take it back. Wrest it out of the hands of those men long ago who'd chosen to embue a girl, chosen without her consent, to be their defender.

But there was that tricky word. Consent. Maybe it had never been consensual at first -- when she'd been ripped out of her gum chewing, clique leading ways and forced to grow into a fighting machine. But now, even as she sat, lonely on this chopper, she knew in her heart of hearts that she couldn't be doing anything else. It would have been nice to go hang out on a beach with her friends. It would have been nice to forget, for one tiny second, about saving the world.

It would have been even nicer to not have had to go off alone on a mission only days after she'd lost Spike the way she did. It would have been nice to be surrounded by people she loved, so she didn't have to pay any mind to that hole in her gut that was a result of that loss.

But Buffy's world, for better or worse, just wasn't that. It wasn't nice.

But it was hers. A flicker of unbidden pride rose in her throat, and her chin tilted up slightly as the helicopter began to descend.

And nobody can take that from me, she thought to herself. Least of all, me.

Current Music: Troubadours - Rilo Kiley

Entry tags:

recalling my days in north africa // i've never crossed the atlantic

Prompt: Marriage from

justprompts
Timeline: Set sometime during early S7 before Conversations With Dead People

It seemed like a simple enough thing to do. Just circle not attending, stuff it back in the envelope, slap a stamp on it, and send it out, away, no more thinky about it.

So why was her pen still hovering?

Buffy released a frustrated noise and dropped the pen, sliding her face into her hands.

It wasn't that she cared one way or another about the event. It was a second cousin's wedding, a relative she couldn't remember seeing since they were throwing sand at each other with Swimmies on their arms. No one would expect her to attend, or miss her if she didn't. All she was doing was opting out of several boring hours of obligatory waving, and chitchatting, and little-white-lying about how she was doing and why she'd dropped out of college.

No, it wasn't anything about this particular wedding itself that was bugging her. It was just staring at that lacy invitation with the loopy calligraphy and the little picture of white doves intertwined with rings. It was seeing the name of her cousin paired with another one she'd never even heard, in such a concrete way.

It was that feeling that had instinctively sprung up when she'd opened the envelope, a feeling something like annoyance, though she never liked to admit that, at just another thing that she'd never be a part of. Another of those pesky life stages she was bound to miss out on.

She tried not to let her mind slip down that road, but she couldn't help but have images of herself in a fluffy white dress (but not too fluffy, ew ruffle-age) with a big bouqet in her grip, walking down an aisle. But there was nothing to picture at the end of that aisle. Hell, two of her relationships had been vampires, who weren't big on being the marrying type (not that she'd ever have married... oh God, there was a terrifying domestic picture). But what was the worst part, was that even if things hadn't gone as they did with Riley, she couldn't ever imagine herself being Mrs. anybody.

Being part of a team.

Maybe that was it -- in a partnership it was all about equality, facing the world together, in every way.

And while she could have others behind her, others to rely on, others who helped her out, in the end she couldn't be part of a twosome, because she was always going to be the damned Chosen One, and that was always going to influence things. She couldn't bow to someone else's decision in the name of compromise and love, if it meant compromising what she had to do. Her mind flashed back momentarily, begrudgingly, back to her fight with Xander when she'd told him she had to kill Anya. It drove her point home.

So. There it was. There would be no white doves for her, no lacey edges, no bickering over color schemes, no ugly ceramic wedding gifts, and endless streams of relatives she didn't particularly know.

On second thought, not sounding so fairy tale after all, Buffy mused. She picked up the pen again, and decisively circled 'Not Attending'. She stared at it for a moment, until she had herself convinced that it was an invitation to a wedding she didn't even want to attend. Not an invitation to life in general.

Geez, Summers, enough with the over-drama-rama, she chastised herself, and then shoved the invitation in the envelope.