Parole - annotated

[beer_good_foamy]

Now with DVD commentary for faith_chaos, even if it feels a bit weird to do that for such a small piece there might be a thing or two to say about it... Here's the un-commented-upon version.

Title: Parole
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Rating: PG13
Character: Ethan
Timeline: Post-series
Word count: 100


It's raining the day the army lets Ethan out, "under supervision". He snorts when he sees who that is, but gets in the car.

I've pretty much gotten Jossed on this, of course. No co-operation between council and US army.

Windshield wipers fight a losing battle.

The rain pouring down is classic pre-apocalyptic thing in movies, I guess. The idea is to add both a feeling of isolation - they're safe and dry inside the car, the world's going to hell outside - and also a general feel of impending doom; the rain isn't going to let up.

"So, Ripper... what's the plan? Don't suppose you could just drop me off at the airport?"

"You know I can't do that." No rage there anymore, just cold. "We're going to Cleveland. Council Headquarters."

As I've said before, the idea here is that Giles has a job for Ethan: Dana's watcher, in co-operation with Faith. One who embraces chaos, one who fights it, and one who IS it. Though spuffyduds's original interpretation was "Giles is SO rushing him home to shag his brains out", and if that's your cuppa tea... I'm not going to scream "WRONG! YOU'RE WRONG!" After all, that's the beauty of a drabble, I think; one scene taken out of context can go just about anyplace. And speaking of spuffyduds and Ethan, go read Oubliette.

"Have better dungeons there, do you?"

I like this little comment from Ethan; it doesn't sound like something Ethan would have said back in s2, he was always a little too confident for his own good and wouldn't necessarily expect the worse... but of course he's spent 4 years in military prison since then. IF I ever get to write this whole fic, one of the challenges will be to have Ethan just a liiiiittle bit traumatized and gunshy after his incarceration.

Giles ignores the question, and all others for the remainder of the drive. The rain pounds down. Ethan raises an eyebrow as Giles pushes the car over the speed limit.

Ethan always brings out the rebel in Giles - which doesn't always work out well for Ethan, but still. For Giles to go over the speed limit in this sort of weather isn't a very tweedy thing to do. Sure, he might be doing it to get Ethan out of his life as soon as possible again... but still, without Ethan there, Giles wouldn't have done a lot of things. And they both know it.

There was a whole bit here which will show up in the long version IF I EVER WRITE IT, which has Ethan arriving at the council's compound-like HQ, being shown to a room which is nice but unmistakably a cell. Through the window, he watches young Slayers exercising in the yard, running in perfect lines on perfectly square fields, shaking his head and then feeling ever so slightly sick as he realizes that these people may actually need a little chaos and helping them out is pretty much the last thing he wants to do... or something to that effect.

Also, it would kick off with a huge row in a council meeting. Probably. And there might be Faith/Buffy to add some extra tension (Buffy is "Ma'am" and has to make the tough decisions, yet Faith is asking her to back HER over what's the rationall decision... etc...) And I so shouldn't think too much about this right now if I'm not prepared to actually write it.

And besides, this has moved beyond DVD commentary into me just rambling, so...

Comments

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

S'all good. I asked for this cause I wanted to know more bout the threesome-y story of doom, and I figured you may be prone to rambling.

I still think it's a great idea but you should write whatever you feel you wanna write.

Thanks for the rec too!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do think it's a great idea and I *want* to write it, I just... have a lot on my plate right now. And it was fun to do this for a drabble (though there's one or two drabbles I've done that are probably more fun to pick apart...) But this DVD commentary thing might be a recurring thing. I like rambling. :-)

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

We all like the ramblings, don't we? I'm all about it, as you will probably see when I finish my commentary for the fic you requested.