#calendiles

(Obviously I am not a part of their culture, so if I say anything completely incorrect here, feel free to let me know so I can further educate myself.)

I have read on several occasions that many Roma people often have a legal name and a ‘family’ name/a nickname that is only used by people who are a part of their culture.

I have a firm belief (and this would make sense if taking the dialogue in the show into account) that her legal name is Jennifer Calendar, and Janna is her family name/nickname. The other Romani folk in the show (Enyos, the shopkeeper) are the ones who call her Janna. She specifically requests that Rupert call her Jenny and it doesn’t seem like something that is manufactured. (At least, in my personal opinion.)

This would also make the fact that her tombstone says “Jennifer Calendar” instead of something else make SO much more sense.

Sunnydale High would have to have legal documentation ensuring she is who she says she is, and, in Canada at least, teachers have to undergo certification, criminal record/vulnerable sector checks, etc, which would be a lot more difficult to do if Jennifer Calendar wasn’t her legal name. It’s hard to get a legit CRC/VSC if you’re using a false identity. (Not impossible, but difficult nonetheless.) Again, I’m Canadian and don’t know exactly how things work in the states, but every employer I have ever worked for has had my SIN (equivalent to US SSN) on file.

So…all signs, to me, point to Jennifer Calendar being her legal name. Janna is the name her family and her people call her.

Descriptions of ideas/snippets/concepts in my Buffy fic master doc. (Part 2)

I have a massive master doc of Buffy fic ideas, scene ideas, snippets, lines, etc. and I put little descriptors at the top of each idea so I can easier when I’m trying to find a specific one…these are some of the descriptions lmaoooooo. (Part 1)

…as comfort. yes I'm still doing these, I've just been so busy sorry!

Jenny had only eaten that stupid candy bar because Willow had pleaded with her to purchase a box—her salesmanship a shade of desperate. Figuring chocolate was a better lunch than whatever was rotting away in the cafeteria, Jenny had conceded. 

A mistake.

That slightly stale taste had been masking something sinister: a sugar-fuelled curse which sought to wreak havoc! Alongside the rest of Sunnydale’s adult population, Jenny had been forcibly reverted into her teenaged self. 

Sixteen had been an unkind age. Plagued with self-doubt, an array of bullies gleefully compounded all her misguided fears and left her nerves constantly on edge. Though she had long shed her uncertain meekness and those cruel teenagers were mere, faded remnants of unfond memory, Jenny found herself becoming a shadow of herself once more.

While a tiny voice in the back of her mind screamed at her to pull herself together, she simply could not. The magic imbued in the candy was far too strong for common sense to override. Akin to a spectator in her own body and hardly enjoying the ride, Jenny had no choice but to endure and relive the timidness of her teens.

Between hormones and nefarious schemes and her idiot boyfriend—and the Joyce shaped leech attempting to attach herself to said idiot boyfriend—it had been a painfully long night. Thankfully, as time wore on, it seemed the effects of the chocolate were slowly wearing off.

“We’ll be back to normal soon,” Rupert promised her as they rounded on their home. Breaking through his roguish twang was a comforting familiarity, a softer veneer embellishing his words. 

“Good, I’m sick and tired of myself,” Jenny confessed quietly, almost lost in the clattering of keys as Rupert fished them from his pocket and pushed the door open for her. 

“That’s funny,” Rupert said, coming up behind her and snaking his arms around her middle. “I, on the other hand, just can’t get enough of you.”

He held her closely, placing kisses from the curve of her shoulder to the deepest nook of her neck. Aspiring to mark her as his in that more feral manner he adopted as Ripper, he was swept away by lust, sucking and suckling her pulse to truly leave his brand. Typically, it would have been a thrill she craved. Still not wholly comfortable with herself though and just wanting to sleep this whole awful charade off, Jenny found herself squirming in his embrace.

“Wait! Stop…” 

“What’s wrong?” Rupert asked, compiling with her demand though she could sense his desires remained. 

“I… I want to be me,” she tried to explain, slowly getting there but not soon enough for her liking. 

“What do you mean?”

Jenny bit her lip, the skin there ravaged raw given all the nerves which had been unceremoniously dumped upon her once more. Rupert—it was far too sensitive a gesture for Ripper—ran his thumb over each violent indentation to keep her destruction at bay. Then, without that raw passion and instead with tenderness, he plucked the tiniest of kisses upon her.

“Please. Talk to me, Jenny.”

“I want to be comfortable,” she could not reach his eyes and felt stupid to admitting to the upset which weighed her down. 

Her panic only heightened, when—

“You aren’t comfortable with me?” 

“No! No, not you! With… I—um… I don’t like me like, um, this,” she stumbled and tripped over herself, wincing at how pathetic she sounded. 

When the silence boarded on impossible, she finally peered at Rupert, whose eyes were glazed over with a pity she wanted to refute ever being the recipient of. It inspired a fire to begin rekindling itself within.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you feel sorry for me,” Jenny argued, truly scrambling to recover herself now. Pressure seemed to be doing the trick as the clock ticked towards midnight. “I’m not a charity case.”

“I know. But let me stress: I love you,” he brushed his lips against her cheek to place affectionate emphasis on his statement, but didn’t push her boundary into discomfort. “In all your iterations, even the ones you may not like.”

…because the world is saved. I decided to interpret this evilly for some reason.

The journey home had been relatively silent—the veil of mourning pierced only by Dawn’s cries. Understandably inconsolable but both of them at a loss, they let her grieve without interruption. 

Every now and again, Rupert cast his eyes upwards and observed the scene playing out in his rearview mirror. Shaking from the force of her sobs, Dawn’s head rested in Jenny’s lap—the woman idly playing with her hair as she herself stared out of the window.

Rupert could tell she was probably grateful for the lack of discussion, not the sort to offer false promises the young girl may have craved. 

Wrenching himself back to the road and the quest to get home, Rupert soon discovered his own four walls were suffocating. Anguish sending him near-delirious, he mumbled something about being back soon and—for the sake of his own grief—stumbled away.

It wasn’t until he was alone that he finally allowed his own tears to fall. 

Somehow, despite failing to pay attention to where he was going, he ended up at the Magic Box. Mere hours ago, they’d all been gathered at the store debating their high-stakes battle.

They’d saved the world, he thought bitterly to himself as he thrust his fist into the punching bag.

He hadn’t set off with the intention of exerting his pain through violence, but it seemed a reasonable endeavour. 

They’d saved the world but they’d lost her.

Rupert wore himself out in the hopes he could dim his mind—but while exhaustion eventually crept in, his sorrow remained. Later, once he’d returned home and was icing his swollen hand, he sought out a different distraction.

Unfortunately for him, Jenny had stepped up to the burden of responsibility far better than he. As he plodded up the stairs to join her, the sound of voices became clearer.

“—should have been me, it’s not like—”

“Don’t say that,” Jenny interrupted Dawn, a hoarseness to her voice which betrayed her own fatigue. Just how long had she been consoling the girl? A little slither of guilt ran through Rupert at the thought he had just upped and left them. 

“Everyone’s thinking it! Buffy would still be here if it wasn’t for me!” 

Rupert’s heart splintered ever further at how defeated Dawn sounded, but—opting for the cowardly way out—he did not move to comfort her. By the door now, he peered through into the room to find the two of them resting on the bed; turned so that they were facing each other.

“I’m pretty sure we’d have just handed you over to Glory and saved ourselves the trouble if any of that was true,” Jenny said, even her affection delivered bluntly. “We don’t hate you, Dawn. We love you—”

“Giles doesn’t. He basically ran away earlier!” Dawn objected, her heartbreak a true match for Jenny’s logic.

A rancid realization at just how badly he had failed the poor girl crept up on Rupert—who fittingly slunk away into the shadows as Dawn cried. Tomorrow, he swore only to himself, he would do better by her. 

“Nah, he’s just British. They’re all emotionally stunted,” Jenny said, which at least brought the briefest of smiles to his lips. If Dawn derived a semblance of good humour at his expense he would never know, for he left them be. 

An hour or so later, when Rupert ascended the stairs once again and craned his head through the divide, he discovered the two of them lost to their dreams. With careful steps to avoid waking either of them, he tiptoed into the room and turned off the light.

Standing over them now, Rupert could see Dawn’s tiny fists furled around Jenny’s sodden shirt. The young girl was mumbling in her sleep, and he dreaded to think what she would be getting tormented by. It seemed Jenny was prepared for the inevitable—arms enveloping Dawn, keeping the girl nestled against her. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he whispered, no spectators to his remorse. A kiss underscored his apology, pressed delicately against Jenny’s forehead. Rupert lingered over the spot, longing to find the same solace in the woman that Dawn had.

…on a falling tear. so, I might have gotten a little carried away with this one...

Crimson drenched his vision and Rupert was torn asunder.

While he withstood well, his tormentors had far more tricks up their sleeve than anticipated. Perhaps the man would have remained steadfast against Angel’s assault if not for her. Jenny, or so he thought, caressing his grazed cheek and promising him everything would be alright. 

Crumbling at her touch, he revealed everything—and the corruption responded in turn.

A darkness eclipsed her once-loving gaze and the delicate hands of Jenny Calendar sharpened and primed themselves for violence. Every blow destroyed him far more succinctly than Angel ever could, for each laceration also seared into his heart; shattering it into a thousand pieces. 

Then—long after he realized Jenny it wasn’t—Rupert remained haunted by all he had endured. His mind an adept tormentor, the depraved masquerade seared though even his most sacred of memories and thrust malevolence upon the woman he loved. He was still arguing with his own, malfunctioning thoughts when a familiar voice sounded out...

“Giles? Jeez—Ms. Calendar! I’ve found him! He doesn’t look good.” 

Rupert found himself looking upon Xander, the boy's concerns evident as he beckoned for another. 

Her.

Jenny’s appearance was marked by the sound of his cries, and though he balked, Rupert was ensnared by his restraints. Falling limply at her feet, he pleaded to be left alone.

Instead of total solitude, Xander nervously excused himself—leaving his tormentor his sole company. Fear evident in each desperate word and action, Rupert's pathetic display compelled the woman to raise her hands before her. A promise of peace, yet he placed little faith in it. 

“Rupert, what—”

“You aren’t her!” His words were strained from screaming and still he cried. “She wouldn’t—I—just stay back!”

If she wanted to argue, she was wise enough to contain the urge. Instead, the woman bearing a familiar face lowered herself to the ground. Rupert curled in on himself to maintain some distance, which was respected by his opposite.

Wearily he watched her—sat crossed-legged upon the floor and staring intently his way. Her own gaze was tearful, as was his. Each watery fork down her cheeks glistened beneath the harsh, artificial light of his prison. Part of him wanted to wipe her upset away. Part of him wanted to shun her touch until eternity’s end, for it had ruined him.

The hate which filled Rupert—not at Jenny, but at the parasite which had corrupted her; and towards himself for falling for it—compelled him to plead for reprieve. 

“If you’re really her, tell me something only she would know,” at least he was wise to Drusilla’s tricks now. 

Either the woman he loved, or the demon who had capitalized on his affections, fell into a contemplative silence. Sadness lingered upon her, a devastating blow to his heartstrings, but he refused to believe it was Jenny until the proof was irrefutable...

Then, suddenly: “Remember when I shot you?”

Rupert spluttered at her unexpected response, audacious enough that he was near-certain it had to truly be her. Something akin to cheekiness briefly flashed across her face as she continued.

“While you were high-as-a-kite on painkillers, you started giving me pointers on my stance when it came to using a crossbow. You said my form was amateurish—”

Rupert objected, despite circumstance.

“I wouldn’t—”

“You so would. And I threatened to shoot you again if you weren’t careful.”

Which he could certainly imagine. Between equally copious amounts of adrenaline and medication, Rupert's recollection of that night came in fragments. With every word Jenny spoke, revealing more of simpler times, a warmth flooded his worn-down soul.

“And you said: ‘Well, you’d have to learn to aim first, so I’ll likely be fine,’” Jenny continued, scooting a little closer to him.

When he neither pleaded to be left alone nor attempted to pull away, she moved closer still. A soft hand cupped his tear-stained face and carefully began to wipe his anguish away.

“That was when I realized I love you. ‘Cause it was so stupid and, well... I dunno. I just felt so comfortable and happy with you—and I’ve never felt like that before.”

With that, his sobs returned in earnest—no longer fearful, rather, speaking to a shared loneliness only surmountable alongside the other. Jenny seemed to understand, or at least, effectively soothed him. Combatting his tears with kisses, her lips brought him back from the brink. As they would in the days and weeks to come, when Drusilla would return to torture him in slumber...