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shapinglightto misquote Joyce from School Hard, and with further mention of various thoughts I've had during my BtVS rewatch.
And I would've put all of that in the title of my post, but LJ wouldn't let me.
Anyway, yes. I'm supposed to be writing something for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
seasonal_spuffy at the beginning of May, but have no ideas whatsoever. I suppose I should ask for prompts. Prompts, anyone?
I'm wondering when it was I became primarily a Spuffy writer (which has sort of happened by default, must admit, because even before the Buffy comics stomped all over the very idea, I didn't think Buffy meant the ILY in Chosen - not that she has to have meant it for people to be able to write Spuffy, but still...).
I think it must be down tosb_fag_ends as much as anything. I try (though I failed miserably last year) to produce at least one drabble or ficlet for the comm every month, and my fic ideas are so thin on the ground now that I don't have any left over for seasonal_spuffy.
:Gloom:
It's not just something forseasonal_spuffy I'm struggling with writing either. I had every intention of getting on with my abandoned Spangel story while S was away last weekend, but ended up writing a measly 1500 words that didn't advance the plot much at all.
I started the story in 2007 (I think). The part I'd already written had some bits and pieces of slashy stuff in it. I think I'm probably going to have to remove them wholesale.
This is because I'm finding it very difficult to even entertain the idea of Spangel these days, thanks to the comics showing the relationship between Spike and Angel as nine parts raging hatred and one part gay panic (on both their parts, but especially Spike's), not to mention when re-watching the Spike/Angel interaction in BtVS season 2 I couldn't for the life of me see where the dynamic between them, as so often written in old slash fics, ever came from in the first place.
There aren't many of the old slash writers around these days, and the ones that are're probably not on my flist, but if anyone has an opinion on the subject I would be quite interested to know what they think that dynamic was based on back in the day (you know, the sire/childe stuff, which I freely admit to enjoying a lot at one time, not to mention writing it myself). Was it based solely on the fact that Spike originally said Angel was his sire and people just took that and ran with it, and then people read their stories and a huge body of fanon developed which lots of people confused with canon, or what?
Returning to the subject of me not being able to write anything, sadly, much though I'd like to put it down to disillusionment with fanon tropes, I'm afraid it's far more down to me just being out of ideas. I can't work out how the plot of this Spangel fic should go forward to the end I envisaged for it (at least I do have an end envisaged), and generally writing is just all hard and stuff and makes my brain hurt. :(
:More gloom:
And I would've put all of that in the title of my post, but LJ wouldn't let me.
Anyway, yes. I'm supposed to be writing something for
seasonal_spuffy at the beginning of May, but have no ideas whatsoever. I suppose I should ask for prompts. Prompts, anyone?I'm wondering when it was I became primarily a Spuffy writer (which has sort of happened by default, must admit, because even before the Buffy comics stomped all over the very idea, I didn't think Buffy meant the ILY in Chosen - not that she has to have meant it for people to be able to write Spuffy, but still...).
I think it must be down to
sb_fag_ends as much as anything. I try (though I failed miserably last year) to produce at least one drabble or ficlet for the comm every month, and my fic ideas are so thin on the ground now that I don't have any left over for seasonal_spuffy. :Gloom:
It's not just something for
seasonal_spuffy I'm struggling with writing either. I had every intention of getting on with my abandoned Spangel story while S was away last weekend, but ended up writing a measly 1500 words that didn't advance the plot much at all. I started the story in 2007 (I think). The part I'd already written had some bits and pieces of slashy stuff in it. I think I'm probably going to have to remove them wholesale.
This is because I'm finding it very difficult to even entertain the idea of Spangel these days, thanks to the comics showing the relationship between Spike and Angel as nine parts raging hatred and one part gay panic (on both their parts, but especially Spike's), not to mention when re-watching the Spike/Angel interaction in BtVS season 2 I couldn't for the life of me see where the dynamic between them, as so often written in old slash fics, ever came from in the first place.
There aren't many of the old slash writers around these days, and the ones that are're probably not on my flist, but if anyone has an opinion on the subject I would be quite interested to know what they think that dynamic was based on back in the day (you know, the sire/childe stuff, which I freely admit to enjoying a lot at one time, not to mention writing it myself). Was it based solely on the fact that Spike originally said Angel was his sire and people just took that and ran with it, and then people read their stories and a huge body of fanon developed which lots of people confused with canon, or what?
Returning to the subject of me not being able to write anything, sadly, much though I'd like to put it down to disillusionment with fanon tropes, I'm afraid it's far more down to me just being out of ideas. I can't work out how the plot of this Spangel fic should go forward to the end I envisaged for it (at least I do have an end envisaged), and generally writing is just all hard and stuff and makes my brain hurt. :(
:More gloom:
no subject
Date: 2015-03-29 05:33 pm (UTC)If you don't mind saying, what is the end you were aiming for?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-29 09:53 pm (UTC)On my latest rewatch (which is the first time I've watched season 2 in donkeys' years) I can still see the subtext if I squint, but I'm not sure if that's because I know about fanon or because it's really there. I guess if people who haven't read loads of Spike/Angel slash can see it then it must be there?
Even so, I don't get how people extrapolated the sire/childe stuff from it. I'd like to know who first came up with that (especially the spelling of 'childe'). Was it borrowed wholesale from some other vampire franchise?
If you don't mind saying, what is the end you were aiming for?
Well, I don't want to be too specific in case I ever do finish the story, but basically Spike and Angel escape from the seemingly impossible to escape from trap they've been put in by Wolfram & Hart and have their whole (un)lives in front of them.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-29 10:35 pm (UTC)Hm. Is the problem finding a way out of the trap, or that you don't have a handle on what sort of emotional arc they need to go through in the process of escaping?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-30 04:44 pm (UTC)Thanks. I suspected there might be an Anne Rice connection somewhere. As for the roleplaying game, never heard of it. I wonder who first used it in the Buffyverse context, and whether there were many arguments before it was adopted into more general use?
Is the problem finding a way out of the trap, or that you don't have a handle on what sort of emotional arc they need to go through in the process of escaping?
No, I know how they get out of the trap. I just don't know how they go about finding out how they get out of it without it being either boring or so obvious it's a cliche.