Daddy's Gonna Kill Your Whole Family: Angelus

[pirate_anon]

Daddy's Gonna Kill
Your Whole Family: Angelus

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angelus was Angel’s natural
state, a soulless, murderous vampire who cared nothing for
others. Angel would lose his soul, and thus revert to this state, if
he ever experienced pure happiness. Draven’s Angelus seems to
have worked a little differently, being just another headmate.
Angelus appears around the same time that Angel does.

Like his fictional counterpart, he's characterized as pure evil,
“someone with no remorse and absolutely no conscience,” (2003)
the demon inside that constantly struggles with Angel for
control. In reality, though, he seems to have been no worse than
Angel, just more honest. He writes, "Maybe the Church of
Angelus? I've heard that brainwashing is my thing" (ibid).

Considering that Neo will found a literal church within a year or
two, and indeed be accused of brainwashing his followers,
Angelus's quip seems a little on the nose.

Like Angel and William, Angelus shows disdain for the
fictional character who inspired him, musing, "wonder if that
spiky-haired actor ever actually killed anyone? Ever got hard
from the sound of a severed spinal cord?" (ibid, emphasis his).
His site is filled with such mustache-twirling boasts of his
misdeeds, such as "crucifying a woman in our basement once
with strung-taut chains" and "using shards from a bottle of
Merlot to imbed [sic] in the collar and chains to keep her in
position" (ibid). He also taunts Angel, saying, "he's so much like a
slavering puppy it makes you just want to shoot the bastard and
get it over with. Putting everybody else first" (ibid). It's all a
strange way of backhandedly complimenting Angel's selflessness
and devotion, putting his goodness on display to their invisible
audience—how wonderful and brave Angel is, suffering Angelus’s
behavior to be such a good person!

Angelus also mentions that Angel is "desperately in love
with that dark-haired Slayer," and posts an animated icon of Faith
and Angel together with the remark, "they would make a good
couple, though, eh?" (ibid). Although the date of the relevant
web page is unclear, the Faith role-player was in high school for
the entire period that Angel and Angelus existed. I don't have to
spell out the unpleasant connotations; Angelus does it himself.
"To hear him talk about it. [...] How she doesn't love him. How
much he wants to prove he does" (ibid).

Because Faith's journals are mostly locked, and Angel's is
long since deleted, I don't know what happened with that. I'm
glad.

Angelus also makes a page in "honor" of one of the Buffys,
with the song lyrics including, "I didn't want to hurt you/But
you're pretty when you cry," "I didn't really love you/But I'm
pretty when I lie," and, "But when I treat you bad/It always
makes you want to stay" (Unknown date B).

It’s not clear to which Buffy Angelus is referring; Buffy II
lasts the longest, so perhaps it’s her. Keep in mind, this is the same
partner who blogged about feeding Draven breakfast in bed
(Buffy II, 2003 March 29), and here they are making a "tribute"
page all about hurting her. What is its purpose? To impress his
“audience” with Angelus’s nefarious villainy? To degrade and
humiliate Buffy II? It’s easy to dismiss all of it as posturing… but is
it really? Obviously the crucifixion is nonsense, but is Angelus
truly making up all of his violent misdeeds?

On his web site, Angelus also posts a lullaby, portraying
himself as "Daddy" (Unknown date B). It's not clear who the
lullaby is meant for, but the threat of violence goes through all of
it… and some of it is most certainly will prove true. Among the
verses:

"Daddy's gonna terrorize your friends.
"And if your little friends don't flee,
"Daddy's gonna kill your whole family.
"And once the ones you love are dead,
"Daddy's gonna climb inside your head.
"And once you've sweetly gone insane,
"Daddy's gonna tie you down and play."

The thing is, all of these lines are things that actually
happened, or will happen in the future. Recall Buffy I, and Angel
inciting their mutual friends to turn on her. And years after this,
Draven will end up in court over accusations of domestic
violence regarding their in-laws; an ex-follower claims that Neo
attempted to stab his father-in-law. And as for getting into
people’s heads…

A couple days before their nineteenth birthday, Buffy II
posts, "I left my husband" (2003 April 18). The system seems to be
okay with this decision, and they add, "we've all reached some
sort of calm at being out of that life, that lifestyle we had going."
In a later post, they talk about a new system member appearing,
with the remark, "I believe she stems from my marriage," which
suggests the relationship was traumatic and quite literally drove
them mad (2003 May 25). But they show no bitterness or
resentment, only sadness.

Angel's followers are not so kind. True to the lullaby's
words, they desert Buffy II. Bar calls her a "psychobitch" who's
"Fucking Full of Shit” (2003, June 7) and a "selfish child" whose
"husband's friends [are] more faithful than she is" (citation
available upon request). Everyone else seems to stop talking to
her. Within a couple months, Buffy II disappears from the
Internet, just like W before them… though that won't keep
Draven from stalking them for years afterward.

But they are not the last of the Buffys. There is a Buffy III!
I can find very little information about her, but less than a year
after Buffy II's departure, Connor posts, "Dad and Buffy are going
to get married sometime in the future,and I personally couldn't
be happier for them.Its going to be great finally having and [sic]
actual family" (2004 March 18). That makes three Buffys and W,
all in the space of less than two years… and W, Buffy II, and Buffy
III were all declared by Draven to be fiancées or wives!

The relationship with Buffy III seems to blow up come
spring. According to one of Draven's ex-followers, she later
claimed to be a troll, but even that is uncertain: "at least [she] said
she was trolling, to write a paper. [...] I always wondered if she
just said that to get out of the relationship" (Personal
communication). Draven sics their followers upon her just like
Buffys I and II; one follower rants about “this most frustrating
childlike person who conducted an illegal study using people
online as her guinea-pigs” who “was causing a huge 'deframation
[sic] of peoples character” and “that the whole college and
university could actually be sued because she did NOT inform
anyone of what she was up to ..nor did she give an apology”
(citation available upon request).

This seems to be the end of Angel, along with his RP
group-turned-apocalypse-cult. Angel and Angelus delete their
Deadjournal and will never openly declare their existence
again… except for one exception, years later.