Death Letter Blues [600-word Dead Letter Variation]

[forbloodysummer]

Spike leaves a letter for Harmony, a few hours after the final scene of Fool For Love.

Bad language and major character death (obviously) follow.

A previous reader has warned that this fic is quite disturbing. Thanks!

Harm,

DON’T TOUCH THE FUCKING EQUIPMENT.

I mean it. Really. DO NOT touch ANYTHING.

Right now, as you’re reading this, I’m on a table

Comments

[moon_s_wolf]

I don't agree with you : I think Spike's great in 'game face', at least, he is in the last season ( I remember thinking so in the scene where little Robin see him fighting against Nikki ).

But hey, I think you're right about the difference between Buffy's Spike and Angel's Spike. BtVS is a 'female show', whereas AtS is a 'male' one.

In Buffy, the female characters are much more stronger than the male ones, and I don't speak about physical strength only. Most of them are quitters : Buffy's father, Hank quit his family ; Angel leaves Buffy for 'her own good' ( yeah, keep telling yourself that buddy... ) ; Oz choose to leave twice instead of facing the problems in his relationship with Willow ; even Giles ends up leaving his Slayer.

I mean, no wonder Buffy isn't able to deal with her relationships, especially with Spike. Every men in her life left her : her dad, her first love, her father-figure. How can she trust a man not to abandon her, specially a souless vampire.

The only ones who stay 'til the end are Xander and Spike, and both pay the price for it : Xander with his eye, and Spike with his un-life.

In the same way, in Angel, the women are the victims. Cordelia and Fred both die before the final battle, and Illyria isn't really a girl. Even Harm ends up betraying Angel. And let's not talk about Lilah and Eve, I mean, hey, bitches from Hell !!!

Anyway, back on topic : your fic.

I know what you mean about suicidal Spike : he's a survivor not a quitter, so I don't think he would kill himself. He's more the 'if life kicks you, kick it back' type, and I think the only reason he considered suicide in Xander's basement is because he thought he couldn't kick anything, literally.

You did well in choosing 'something' over 'someone', that's what makes that so 'Spike' : for him, humans are meals, not real person.

I agree : the idea of the chip is a terrifying one, and I always thought the Scoobies overlooked it a little too easily. I mean, it may prevent humans from getting killed, but it's against the way of the world. In my eyes, it's evil 'cause it's meant to control, like Willow's spells in season 6.

And it's interesting to see that the Scoobies react in the same fashion in Willow's case. After the memorie spell in 'Tabula Rasa', Tara's the only one to really understand the wrongness of it. The others seem to 'forgive and forget' a little too easily when it's one of them who fucks up.

Yeah, Spike's really brave. I wouldn't trust Harm with a goldfish myself !!! lol

I thought about your little problem about the Illyria fic. I think the better choice would be Fred. I know she's dead, but I think she's the only one with whom Illyria would feel enough of a connection to bother to write to in the first place. Otherwise, there would be Wes perhaps, but again : quite dead ... what the hell, she'd better forget about the human bit and write directly to the Powers that Be !!! She is a God after all !!! lol

The one about Luna would be interesting I think. I can totally see her writing to her dead mum to tell her about her life and her own death... just stuck me as a Luna-thing to do...

About your blue cat dilemna, the only solution I can see is to cross a cat with a Smurf !!! lol

I know what you mean about 'Pedestal'. I think the normal Tara would have clearly taken Spike's side against Xander, instead of staying in the middle.

Yeah, Spike's clearly not the waiting type, he's too pushy and plain sexual for that. I like that quote : Spike's always falling, but never quite fallen, he's too much of a survivor for that !

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a sensible guy, so don't worry, I won't be calling you Peaches... yet. lol

Good luck with your essay.

I'll go read the Doctor fic and tell you what I think, so see you real soon.

Luz.

[forbloodysummer]

I hadn't thought of it like that before, about both Xander and Spike paying for staying, that's a really interesting take on it! I think that's also one of the reasons I didn't like Season 7 much, they got rid of pretty much every strong male character. I mean, Giles left, and came back as occasional hard-line force of conflict within the Slayer camp, but he had no real power. Xander never did have, and Spike by Season 7 is pretty broken. There is the wonderful scene where he masters his trigger in Lies My Parents Told Me and makes a mess of Robin Wood, but apart from that, he's relegated to continuous grovelling speeches about how wonderful Buffy is.

I really got tired of the empowerment message in Season 7, they suddenly went completely over-the-top with it, and I don't get why. I mean, we'd been watching the show for six years already, did they think we didn't get the empowerment thing? Yet suddenly it's all Girl Power and brushing aside the Turok Han with ease, and a really chauvinistic bad guy. Just seemed a weird choice of theirs!

I'd not made the connection with Angel too, you're absolutely right, women aren't represented to favourably on that show! As you say, Illyria isn't even technically female, though she's the most powerful character of the lot. I always liked Eve though, even if she ended up failing at pretty much everything.

It does seem very odd that Joss would make such a strongly female-slanted show with Buffy, and then go completely the other way with Angel. And then Firefly seems to be somewhere in between.

That's true about him thinking of them as food rather than people, I hadn't thought of that, Happy Meals on legs after all!

Also true, the Scoobies seem to have a very scewed sense of morality, I thought it was particularly telling when they accepted Xander back so quickly after Hell's Bells. I know he's their friend, but I didn't think it was at all fair that they took his side. Only Spike really gave him a hard time for it, to which Xander just got violent, and no one complained. I'd like to think Tara would have done, had she been there!

Thanks for the thoughts on who Illyria would write to, those are really good ideas, I'll have to get working on that one. Never really tried to write Illyria dialogue before, that could be interesting. Or terrible. I guess I'll find out!

Yeah I could see Luna doing that, writing to her mum. I'll have to look up on all the background stuff, not ready any of the HP books for several months now.

Lol catsmurf, that'd be so great....

I just got a bit tired with people making such a big deal about stuff like Spike waiting for 'the time to be right.' So I made a big list of 15 things I hate in fanfic! I rather like it, but it might well offend a lot of people, lol. Might end up putting it on my journal sometime.

Oh dear, the day anyone has cause to call me Peaches... that'd be a very sad day! But it seems to sell records, so maybe I'll get famous as a Rock Star...

Thanks, sadly, 24 hours later I've barely written any more essay, I seem to be seeking distractions. I'll do it tomorrow. Which is exactly what I've been saying for the last 3 days, oddly enough. Hmmmmm!

Thanks, take care,

Out For Bloody Summer