Commentary - Fair Dinkum
So, I asked for fic commentary requests. And lavastar, who is evil, and determined that I shall never finish these things, requested a commentary for Fair Dinkum. You should probably read that before looking at this commentary.
The original fic still looks like it did, and my notes are the bits in blockquotes.
This commentary contains some small snippets of a conversation I had with snickfic, lavastar, and stormwreath, who can all take credit for helping to inspire this fic. For the original discussions, go here, here, and here.
Fair Dinkum
The title comes from an Aussie expression, meaning (more or less) “the real deal”, or “really, truly”, or something like that. It’s so extremely Australian that it seemed appropriate. Plus, Buffy is hearing the “true story” of a former Slayer.
Buffy opened the next book, and began reading the first page.
___________________________
Introducing “Slayers of the Early 20th Century; A Study”:
In order to understand the role of the Vampire Slayer in modern life, it is important to examine the way Slaying as a discipline has changed over time.
This volume explores the lives of Slayers - and their accompanying Watchers - throughout the early part of the twentieth century.*
(* For the role Slayers played in the Second World War, see “The Council in Crisis; A History”, also by this author.)
These tulmultuous decades were marked by…
___________________________
(Someday, I’m going to have to write a fic about Slayers during the Second World War, and why the Council was in crisis. I have some half-formed ideas, but nothing properly figured out.)
She was bored. Horribly, horribly bored.
There couldn’t be any training ideas more monotonous than this one.
This fic is set in early season 5, just after Buffy’s shiny new training regime has begun. It seemed the ideal time for having her reading historical stuff about Slayers.
Yeah, okay, so she’d suggested it, but that was because it was cold and rainy, and she was still sore from being kicked in the face yesterday, and the idea of sitting on Giles’ couch drinking coffee and reading had seemed kinda nice. And relaxy.
Buffy always uses words like “relaxy”. There’s like a rule, or something.
…but that was before Willow had suggested a Girls Shopping Day.
Willow and Tara were going to come home with new candles and stuff, and Dawn was going to have new clothes, and Anya was going to have new… something… and she would have the same old marvellous destiny to save mankind by spending all of her free time reading about other people who had destinies to save mankind.
Of course, she really doesn’t know Anya very well, so she can’t really figure out what she’d buy…
Stupid destiny.
She sighed, and ran her eyes down the contents page.
___________________________
Sept 3, 1912 - Dec 7, 1914: Cheng Xuĕ (W. Walter Clarke)…………………………………………………………page 37
Dec 7, 1914 - Feb 24, 1915: Olga Sergeevna Gromova (W. Ivan Petrovich Nikitin)………………page 46
Feb 24, 1915 - July 19, 1919: Laura McNeill (W. Daniel Lawson, Alicia Travers)……………………page 57
July 19, 1919 - Apr 2, 1920: Rose McNeill (W. Alicia Travers)…………………………………………………page 68
Apr 2, 1920 - Nov 23, 1920: Yvonne Atieno Akinyi (W. Kwame Onyango)……………………………page 73
Nov 23, 1920 - Jan 11, 1922: Katherine Howe (W. Melissa Lim)………………………………………………page 77
Jan 11, 1922 - Jan 14, 1922: Philippa Cooke (W. Julian Evans)………………………………………………page 90
Jan 14, 1922 - July 8, 1925: Greta Schliemann (W. Martin Dilthey, Rudolf Drechsler)…………page 91
July 8, 1925 - Oct 26, 1925: Zhu Yīng (W. Wang Tāo)…………………………………………………………………page 98
Oct 26, 1925 - Mar 17, 1927: Gabriela Chiclana (W. Gerardo Monzon)……………………………………page 103
Mar 17, 1927 - Aug 5, 1932: Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army (W. Matthew Gregson)…page 109
Aug 5, 1932 - Sep 30, 1932: Dragana Babić (W. Jadranka Lasić)………………………………………………page 131
Sep 30, 1932 - May 11, 1934 Jeanne Auteuil (W. Claude Duris)………………………………………………page 134
___________________________
I had to set it post-Vegemite, but as early as possible.
Also, we already know that there was a Korean Slayer during the 30’s - and I didn’t want to include her in the list, so I had to make sure the 30’s weren’t entirely covered.
Most of the non-English names were invented by looking up famous people from the era, and combining bits of their names.
Nationalities are as follows:
Cheng Xuĕ - Chinese, with a British Watcher.
Olga Sergeevna Gromova - Russian, with a Russian Watcher. (names provided by moscow_watcher)
Laura McNeill - British, with two British Watchers (one of whom is Quentin Travers’ mother).
Rose McNeill - Laura’s sister. (And yes, I sort of have that story figured out.)
Yvonne Atieno Akinyi - Kenyan, with a Kenyan Watcher.
Katherine Howe - American, with a Thai Watcher.
Philippa Cooke - British, with a British Watcher. (And she only survives for three days! Poor girl…)
Greta Schliemann - German, with a British Watcher, and then a German Watcher.
Zhu Yīng - Chinese, with a Chinese Watcher.
Gabriela Chiclana - South American - but I can’t remember where from…
Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army - an Aussie (duh).
Dragana Babić - Croatian, with a Croatian Watcher. (names provided by taiba)
Jeanne Auteuil - French, with a French Watcher.
Okay. That was weird.
“Giles?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s a drop bear?”
(A vicious monster that is TOTALLY REAL. Run! Run for your lives!)
Giles looked up from his notes. “An extremely vicious mammal thought to have possible demonic origins. Why?”
Giles, of course, knows everything.
lavastar: Plus, maybe there’s lots of, like, vamp kangaroos up north. O.O
....now you need to write about vamp kangaroos. DO IT.
deird1: *boggles*
Yes. That’s an idea. Give one of the world’s most lethal vegetarians the desire to eat us, too... That’ll work out great...
…and then I realised that, actually, there are technically “vamp koalas” - sort of, anyway.
Buffy held up her book. “It says here ‘Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army’.”
“Ah - of course.” Giles nodded, and picked up his pen again.
“So… who is she? And why the drop bears?”
“Doesn’t the book say?”
“Well, yeah, probably…” Buffy looked at him pleadingly. “Couldn’t you just tell me?”
Four years of knowing Giles had made her an expert at getting him to do stuff. It took less than a minute of pleading looks before he relented and sat down in the armchair to explain everything for her.
(Apparently I suck at maths. It took me over ten minutes to figure out whether Buffy had known Giles for four years, or for five.)
“Sarah Kelly is the only known Australian Slayer.”
“Wait - ‘only known’? There are unknown Slayers?”
deird1: Part of me has always wondered what happened if the Slayer was an Aborigine pre-European settlement of Australia. A bit hard to train the new Slayer if you can’t actually get to her...
snickfic: Eh. She probably died quickly. Or else, lacking any sense of destiny or agenda, she lived a very long, healthy life trading on all that supernatural strength.
“Certainly. Sometimes the Slayer will be killed before being located by the Council. There has been some speculation that the Slayer may have been an Australian during the 1563-to-1572 Gap - but that’s unlikely.”
Buffy frowned. “Why unlikely? Is Australia full of anti-Slayer vibes, or something?”
“Yes, actually.” Giles smiled, and clarified, “Not ‘anti-Slayer’. But rather ‘anti-demon’. The entire continent was enchanted by its first settlers to be hostile to vampires and demons. They can go there, but they don’t like it.”
stormwreath: That’s making me think that Australia pre-European settlement would have neither Slayers (because there was no need for them) nor vampires and demons - because the local wildlife would poison them, eat them, burn them, rend them, crush them, or all of the above. Australia* defends itself, it doesn’t need Slayers...
*Or possibly, the shamans who led the first settlement 50,000 years ago, who enchanted the land to repel demons?
I loved this idea. Australia being enchanted for demon repelling seemed like the perfect reason for our insanely weird wildlife.
“Really?”
“That’s why they have so many poisonous animals. And, of course, the drop bears.”
“Yeah - about that.” Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Drop bears?”
“Well, they have some similarities to a standard koala bear.”
“Cute, cuddly, looks good on postcards?”
(The standard belief held by tourists.)
“Nocturnal; bad-tempered; capable of ripping someone’s face to shreds with a single paw,” Giles said mildly.
(The truth.)
Buffy blinked. “Okay. Getting less cute.”
“Unlike the koala bear, however… Well, let me put it this way: the average koala will not drop on top of you from a height of sixty feet, knock you to the ground, and try to gnaw off your head.”
(But drop bears WILL. They’re DANGEROUS, people! Flee! Flee! Your very lives depend on it!)
“And Sarah Kelly fought an entire army of them?” Buffy picked up the book again, and began trying to find the right page. “That’s kinda cool.”
“Er, no, actually Sarah Kelly trained an entire army of them.” He paused for effect, and then added, “She kept them as pets.”
Aussie chicks are tough, yo.
Buffy stared at him.
Giles smiled.
Perfect way to get Buffy interested in study, really…
Buffy began frantically riffling through pages again.
___________________________
Sarah spat out a mouthful of blood, and pushed herself up to a sitting position.
A man laughed, behind her. “Did you really think you could stop me that easily? Brave little Slayer standing up to Lord Melchon? So very stupid.”
He kicked her again, and she sprawled forward, landing facefirst in a patch of very spiky weeds. She sat up, and glared at him.
All weeds in Australia are very spiky. But some are worse than others.
“You foolish girl. You wasted so much time trying to protect your precious little orphans from me - and then you led me right to them! The trees can’t hide them for long.”
Melchon looked triumphantly at her, and began the classic evil laughter …but stopped short - Sarah was smiling.
I love writing stereotypical villains - the kind who laugh evilly because that’s what villains do. They probably practice it in front of a mirror.
“I led you right to them?”
“What?”
There was a muffled THUD a little further into the bush.
(The sound of a drop bear. *trembles*)
“I led you right to them.” She grinned. “Too bloody right, I did. The whole country to choose from, the kids hidden at the back of Bourke, we just happen to end up here too, and you don’t even stop to think it’s maybe a bit iffy?”
“Too bloody right, mate” is my standard Aussie phrase (and should be self-explanatory). “The back of Bourke” means “the middle of nowhere”. And “a bit iffy” is a phrase I’d never realised was Australian - but according to the internet, it qualifies as one. It means something’s dodgy.
“You absolute child, you really think-”
“Tell you what, Melchon.” She struggled to her feet, and looked him straight in the eye. “You want the kids, you can go ahead and take them. You just gotta get through the trees.”
Another THUD - this one slightly closer.
(More drop bears. They’re evil, I tell you! EVIL.)
Sarah was smiling again.
Melchon laughed at her. “You silly girl. You think you can trick me, or throw me off course? Even now, my legions are retrieving the-”
He was interrupted by the sound of screams, somewhere through the trees - screams that were suddenly cut short.
Sarah tilted her head on one side. “Sorry, what were you saying?” she asked, mildly.
Melchon paused, uncertain. “That… What…”
“That?” She shrugged. “Sounded like one of your mighty legions getting walloped by, uh, one of mine.”
“Walloping” - another Aussie-ism. I found some Aussie lingo sites, and browsed through them looking for expressions I could use…
“Your what?”
“My legions. One of your demons for hire just came up against one of Australia’s finest. I’d offer my sympathies, but frankly, I was barracking for the drop bear.”
Had to include this one - mainly because I like to laugh at Americans coming here and talking about “fanny packs” and “rooting for” football teams. (Quick guide: “fanny” means vagina, not backside, and “rooting for Collingwood football team” would mean I was having sex in support of the team (or possibly prostituting myself to the players). The correct term is “barracking for Collingwood”.)
He looked at her, horrified. “No!” he snarled. “I am Melchon, denizen of the Greater Night! I cannot be defeated!”
Inventing villainous names is really fun…
Sarah watched him curiously. “You really are rather up yourself, aren’t you, mate?” she observed.
(More Aussie-isms.)
For a moment it looked as if Melchon was going to leap at her and start tearing her to pieces - but then he stepped back, glaring. “We will meet again, Slayer,” he spat. “Oh yes, once I have destroyed everything you hold dear, everything you have ever loved, yes, we will meet again.” And that said, he swept away down the hill.
Sarah watched him go - and up in the trees, two dozen pairs of glowing red eyes watched him too.
“We’ll see about that,” she murmured. Then she glanced upwards, and with a slight smile, calmly said, “Fluffy… fetch.”
I want a drop bear named Fluffy. He’d be cute, and pattable, and tear my enemies into a bloody pulp. Good times…
___________________________
“I dunno, Giles. It sounds a bit over the top. Are you sure her Watcher wasn’t embellishing stuff?”
“Well, it’s possible he was exaggerating about the Boomerang of Truth, but by all accounts the rest is historically accurate.”
(That was a Wonder Woman joke.)
“So she really…” Buffy turned the page, and read aloud: “…used vegemite to ward off vampires?”
stormwreath: So you're saying that hideous shambling monstrosities from the Void take one sniff of Vegemite and run screaming?
Yeah, I can see that.
“Yes, vampires - and everyone else, as it happens.” Giles grimaced. “Dreadful stuff.”
“So, what, they just don’t like the smell?”
“Oddly enough, it seems to have the same warding properties as garlic, despite being chemically dissimilar. There are theories that Cyril P. Callister was a warlock who…”
Buffy grinned. “Cyril P. Callister? Seriously?”
Seriously.
I rather enjoyed having “Rupert Giles” and “Buffy Summers” discussing “Cyril P. Callister”.
“He created the recipe.”
“Yeah, but Cyril?”
“It is a name, Buffy.”
“Okay.” She cleared her throat, and tried to look attentive. “Continue.”
“Callister adapted Marmite into a garlic substitute, so that people would have a simple and inexpensive way to guard against vampires - and even managed to convince a company to mass-produce it. Extremely helpful, especially once the Great Infestation of Mepunga broke out.”
“Mepunga?”
Yes, it’s a real town. Our town names are weird.
“Yes - it seems a group of vampires decided to expand their operations, and managed to turn half the town before Sarah Kelly could stop them. By the time she arrived, practically every second household was trying to burn down all the others.” He smiled, suddenly, and added, “Most un-neighbourly behaviour, which is ironic, given that this is Australia…”
Buffy wrinkled her forehead.
Giles blushed slightly. “Er, sorry. Silly joke. It’s just that, with Australian television… You know…”
Giles making jokes should always be jokes that no-one gets. It’s tradition.
“Giles, here is everything I know about Australia: kangaroos, spiders, very very hot, and they’re running the Olympics. Oh, and the guy with the big knife,” Buffy pointed out. “High school doesn’t really get you up to obscure-joke standard on other countries.”
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Which would have been happening that year.
The “big knife” guy is Crocodile Dundee. From the movie. (Which, actually, I’ve never seen.)
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, in that case, you’d better finish reading that chapter. It has quite a few interesting sidebars about Australia as a continent.”
“Do I have to?”
Giles looked at her pointedly, and Buffy, grumbling, returned to her book.
Well, that’s about all. Hope you found this interesting!
(And remember - drop bears are REAL. And totally scary. Prepare yourselves!)
The original fic still looks like it did, and my notes are the bits in blockquotes.
This commentary contains some small snippets of a conversation I had with snickfic, lavastar, and stormwreath, who can all take credit for helping to inspire this fic. For the original discussions, go here, here, and here.
Fair Dinkum
The title comes from an Aussie expression, meaning (more or less) “the real deal”, or “really, truly”, or something like that. It’s so extremely Australian that it seemed appropriate. Plus, Buffy is hearing the “true story” of a former Slayer.
Buffy opened the next book, and began reading the first page.
___________________________
Introducing “Slayers of the Early 20th Century; A Study”:
In order to understand the role of the Vampire Slayer in modern life, it is important to examine the way Slaying as a discipline has changed over time.
This volume explores the lives of Slayers - and their accompanying Watchers - throughout the early part of the twentieth century.*
(* For the role Slayers played in the Second World War, see “The Council in Crisis; A History”, also by this author.)
These tulmultuous decades were marked by…
___________________________
(Someday, I’m going to have to write a fic about Slayers during the Second World War, and why the Council was in crisis. I have some half-formed ideas, but nothing properly figured out.)
She was bored. Horribly, horribly bored.
There couldn’t be any training ideas more monotonous than this one.
This fic is set in early season 5, just after Buffy’s shiny new training regime has begun. It seemed the ideal time for having her reading historical stuff about Slayers.
Yeah, okay, so she’d suggested it, but that was because it was cold and rainy, and she was still sore from being kicked in the face yesterday, and the idea of sitting on Giles’ couch drinking coffee and reading had seemed kinda nice. And relaxy.
Buffy always uses words like “relaxy”. There’s like a rule, or something.
…but that was before Willow had suggested a Girls Shopping Day.
Willow and Tara were going to come home with new candles and stuff, and Dawn was going to have new clothes, and Anya was going to have new… something… and she would have the same old marvellous destiny to save mankind by spending all of her free time reading about other people who had destinies to save mankind.
Of course, she really doesn’t know Anya very well, so she can’t really figure out what she’d buy…
Stupid destiny.
She sighed, and ran her eyes down the contents page.
___________________________
Sept 3, 1912 - Dec 7, 1914: Cheng Xuĕ (W. Walter Clarke)…………………………………………………………page 37
Dec 7, 1914 - Feb 24, 1915: Olga Sergeevna Gromova (W. Ivan Petrovich Nikitin)………………page 46
Feb 24, 1915 - July 19, 1919: Laura McNeill (W. Daniel Lawson, Alicia Travers)……………………page 57
July 19, 1919 - Apr 2, 1920: Rose McNeill (W. Alicia Travers)…………………………………………………page 68
Apr 2, 1920 - Nov 23, 1920: Yvonne Atieno Akinyi (W. Kwame Onyango)……………………………page 73
Nov 23, 1920 - Jan 11, 1922: Katherine Howe (W. Melissa Lim)………………………………………………page 77
Jan 11, 1922 - Jan 14, 1922: Philippa Cooke (W. Julian Evans)………………………………………………page 90
Jan 14, 1922 - July 8, 1925: Greta Schliemann (W. Martin Dilthey, Rudolf Drechsler)…………page 91
July 8, 1925 - Oct 26, 1925: Zhu Yīng (W. Wang Tāo)…………………………………………………………………page 98
Oct 26, 1925 - Mar 17, 1927: Gabriela Chiclana (W. Gerardo Monzon)……………………………………page 103
Mar 17, 1927 - Aug 5, 1932: Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army (W. Matthew Gregson)…page 109
Aug 5, 1932 - Sep 30, 1932: Dragana Babić (W. Jadranka Lasić)………………………………………………page 131
Sep 30, 1932 - May 11, 1934 Jeanne Auteuil (W. Claude Duris)………………………………………………page 134
___________________________
I had to set it post-Vegemite, but as early as possible.
Also, we already know that there was a Korean Slayer during the 30’s - and I didn’t want to include her in the list, so I had to make sure the 30’s weren’t entirely covered.
Most of the non-English names were invented by looking up famous people from the era, and combining bits of their names.
Nationalities are as follows:
Cheng Xuĕ - Chinese, with a British Watcher.
Olga Sergeevna Gromova - Russian, with a Russian Watcher. (names provided by moscow_watcher)
Laura McNeill - British, with two British Watchers (one of whom is Quentin Travers’ mother).
Rose McNeill - Laura’s sister. (And yes, I sort of have that story figured out.)
Yvonne Atieno Akinyi - Kenyan, with a Kenyan Watcher.
Katherine Howe - American, with a Thai Watcher.
Philippa Cooke - British, with a British Watcher. (And she only survives for three days! Poor girl…)
Greta Schliemann - German, with a British Watcher, and then a German Watcher.
Zhu Yīng - Chinese, with a Chinese Watcher.
Gabriela Chiclana - South American - but I can’t remember where from…
Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army - an Aussie (duh).
Dragana Babić - Croatian, with a Croatian Watcher. (names provided by taiba)
Jeanne Auteuil - French, with a French Watcher.
Okay. That was weird.
“Giles?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s a drop bear?”
(A vicious monster that is TOTALLY REAL. Run! Run for your lives!)
Giles looked up from his notes. “An extremely vicious mammal thought to have possible demonic origins. Why?”
Giles, of course, knows everything.
lavastar: Plus, maybe there’s lots of, like, vamp kangaroos up north. O.O
....now you need to write about vamp kangaroos. DO IT.
deird1: *boggles*
Yes. That’s an idea. Give one of the world’s most lethal vegetarians the desire to eat us, too... That’ll work out great...
…and then I realised that, actually, there are technically “vamp koalas” - sort of, anyway.
Buffy held up her book. “It says here ‘Sarah Kelly and her Drop Bear Army’.”
“Ah - of course.” Giles nodded, and picked up his pen again.
“So… who is she? And why the drop bears?”
“Doesn’t the book say?”
“Well, yeah, probably…” Buffy looked at him pleadingly. “Couldn’t you just tell me?”
Four years of knowing Giles had made her an expert at getting him to do stuff. It took less than a minute of pleading looks before he relented and sat down in the armchair to explain everything for her.
(Apparently I suck at maths. It took me over ten minutes to figure out whether Buffy had known Giles for four years, or for five.)
“Sarah Kelly is the only known Australian Slayer.”
“Wait - ‘only known’? There are unknown Slayers?”
deird1: Part of me has always wondered what happened if the Slayer was an Aborigine pre-European settlement of Australia. A bit hard to train the new Slayer if you can’t actually get to her...
snickfic: Eh. She probably died quickly. Or else, lacking any sense of destiny or agenda, she lived a very long, healthy life trading on all that supernatural strength.
“Certainly. Sometimes the Slayer will be killed before being located by the Council. There has been some speculation that the Slayer may have been an Australian during the 1563-to-1572 Gap - but that’s unlikely.”
Buffy frowned. “Why unlikely? Is Australia full of anti-Slayer vibes, or something?”
“Yes, actually.” Giles smiled, and clarified, “Not ‘anti-Slayer’. But rather ‘anti-demon’. The entire continent was enchanted by its first settlers to be hostile to vampires and demons. They can go there, but they don’t like it.”
stormwreath: That’s making me think that Australia pre-European settlement would have neither Slayers (because there was no need for them) nor vampires and demons - because the local wildlife would poison them, eat them, burn them, rend them, crush them, or all of the above. Australia* defends itself, it doesn’t need Slayers...
*Or possibly, the shamans who led the first settlement 50,000 years ago, who enchanted the land to repel demons?
I loved this idea. Australia being enchanted for demon repelling seemed like the perfect reason for our insanely weird wildlife.
“Really?”
“That’s why they have so many poisonous animals. And, of course, the drop bears.”
“Yeah - about that.” Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Drop bears?”
“Well, they have some similarities to a standard koala bear.”
“Cute, cuddly, looks good on postcards?”
(The standard belief held by tourists.)
“Nocturnal; bad-tempered; capable of ripping someone’s face to shreds with a single paw,” Giles said mildly.
(The truth.)
Buffy blinked. “Okay. Getting less cute.”
“Unlike the koala bear, however… Well, let me put it this way: the average koala will not drop on top of you from a height of sixty feet, knock you to the ground, and try to gnaw off your head.”
(But drop bears WILL. They’re DANGEROUS, people! Flee! Flee! Your very lives depend on it!)
“And Sarah Kelly fought an entire army of them?” Buffy picked up the book again, and began trying to find the right page. “That’s kinda cool.”
“Er, no, actually Sarah Kelly trained an entire army of them.” He paused for effect, and then added, “She kept them as pets.”
Aussie chicks are tough, yo.
Buffy stared at him.
Giles smiled.
Perfect way to get Buffy interested in study, really…
Buffy began frantically riffling through pages again.
___________________________
Sarah spat out a mouthful of blood, and pushed herself up to a sitting position.
A man laughed, behind her. “Did you really think you could stop me that easily? Brave little Slayer standing up to Lord Melchon? So very stupid.”
He kicked her again, and she sprawled forward, landing facefirst in a patch of very spiky weeds. She sat up, and glared at him.
All weeds in Australia are very spiky. But some are worse than others.
“You foolish girl. You wasted so much time trying to protect your precious little orphans from me - and then you led me right to them! The trees can’t hide them for long.”
Melchon looked triumphantly at her, and began the classic evil laughter …but stopped short - Sarah was smiling.
I love writing stereotypical villains - the kind who laugh evilly because that’s what villains do. They probably practice it in front of a mirror.
“I led you right to them?”
“What?”
There was a muffled THUD a little further into the bush.
(The sound of a drop bear. *trembles*)
“I led you right to them.” She grinned. “Too bloody right, I did. The whole country to choose from, the kids hidden at the back of Bourke, we just happen to end up here too, and you don’t even stop to think it’s maybe a bit iffy?”
“Too bloody right, mate” is my standard Aussie phrase (and should be self-explanatory). “The back of Bourke” means “the middle of nowhere”. And “a bit iffy” is a phrase I’d never realised was Australian - but according to the internet, it qualifies as one. It means something’s dodgy.
“You absolute child, you really think-”
“Tell you what, Melchon.” She struggled to her feet, and looked him straight in the eye. “You want the kids, you can go ahead and take them. You just gotta get through the trees.”
Another THUD - this one slightly closer.
(More drop bears. They’re evil, I tell you! EVIL.)
Sarah was smiling again.
Melchon laughed at her. “You silly girl. You think you can trick me, or throw me off course? Even now, my legions are retrieving the-”
He was interrupted by the sound of screams, somewhere through the trees - screams that were suddenly cut short.
Sarah tilted her head on one side. “Sorry, what were you saying?” she asked, mildly.
Melchon paused, uncertain. “That… What…”
“That?” She shrugged. “Sounded like one of your mighty legions getting walloped by, uh, one of mine.”
“Walloping” - another Aussie-ism. I found some Aussie lingo sites, and browsed through them looking for expressions I could use…
“Your what?”
“My legions. One of your demons for hire just came up against one of Australia’s finest. I’d offer my sympathies, but frankly, I was barracking for the drop bear.”
Had to include this one - mainly because I like to laugh at Americans coming here and talking about “fanny packs” and “rooting for” football teams. (Quick guide: “fanny” means vagina, not backside, and “rooting for Collingwood football team” would mean I was having sex in support of the team (or possibly prostituting myself to the players). The correct term is “barracking for Collingwood”.)
He looked at her, horrified. “No!” he snarled. “I am Melchon, denizen of the Greater Night! I cannot be defeated!”
Inventing villainous names is really fun…
Sarah watched him curiously. “You really are rather up yourself, aren’t you, mate?” she observed.
(More Aussie-isms.)
For a moment it looked as if Melchon was going to leap at her and start tearing her to pieces - but then he stepped back, glaring. “We will meet again, Slayer,” he spat. “Oh yes, once I have destroyed everything you hold dear, everything you have ever loved, yes, we will meet again.” And that said, he swept away down the hill.
Sarah watched him go - and up in the trees, two dozen pairs of glowing red eyes watched him too.
“We’ll see about that,” she murmured. Then she glanced upwards, and with a slight smile, calmly said, “Fluffy… fetch.”
I want a drop bear named Fluffy. He’d be cute, and pattable, and tear my enemies into a bloody pulp. Good times…
___________________________
“I dunno, Giles. It sounds a bit over the top. Are you sure her Watcher wasn’t embellishing stuff?”
“Well, it’s possible he was exaggerating about the Boomerang of Truth, but by all accounts the rest is historically accurate.”
(That was a Wonder Woman joke.)
“So she really…” Buffy turned the page, and read aloud: “…used vegemite to ward off vampires?”
stormwreath: So you're saying that hideous shambling monstrosities from the Void take one sniff of Vegemite and run screaming?
Yeah, I can see that.
“Yes, vampires - and everyone else, as it happens.” Giles grimaced. “Dreadful stuff.”
“So, what, they just don’t like the smell?”
“Oddly enough, it seems to have the same warding properties as garlic, despite being chemically dissimilar. There are theories that Cyril P. Callister was a warlock who…”
Buffy grinned. “Cyril P. Callister? Seriously?”
Seriously.
I rather enjoyed having “Rupert Giles” and “Buffy Summers” discussing “Cyril P. Callister”.
“He created the recipe.”
“Yeah, but Cyril?”
“It is a name, Buffy.”
“Okay.” She cleared her throat, and tried to look attentive. “Continue.”
“Callister adapted Marmite into a garlic substitute, so that people would have a simple and inexpensive way to guard against vampires - and even managed to convince a company to mass-produce it. Extremely helpful, especially once the Great Infestation of Mepunga broke out.”
“Mepunga?”
Yes, it’s a real town. Our town names are weird.
“Yes - it seems a group of vampires decided to expand their operations, and managed to turn half the town before Sarah Kelly could stop them. By the time she arrived, practically every second household was trying to burn down all the others.” He smiled, suddenly, and added, “Most un-neighbourly behaviour, which is ironic, given that this is Australia…”
Buffy wrinkled her forehead.
Giles blushed slightly. “Er, sorry. Silly joke. It’s just that, with Australian television… You know…”
Giles making jokes should always be jokes that no-one gets. It’s tradition.
“Giles, here is everything I know about Australia: kangaroos, spiders, very very hot, and they’re running the Olympics. Oh, and the guy with the big knife,” Buffy pointed out. “High school doesn’t really get you up to obscure-joke standard on other countries.”
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Which would have been happening that year.
The “big knife” guy is Crocodile Dundee. From the movie. (Which, actually, I’ve never seen.)
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, in that case, you’d better finish reading that chapter. It has quite a few interesting sidebars about Australia as a continent.”
“Do I have to?”
Giles looked at her pointedly, and Buffy, grumbling, returned to her book.
Well, that’s about all. Hope you found this interesting!
(And remember - drop bears are REAL. And totally scary. Prepare yourselves!)